With Stanford now at No. 7 in both the AP and coaches poll...
- Thread starter YakiCoug
- Start date
I used to care about getting a P12 team in the playoffs, but every year Oregon fans prove themselves to be unlikable children while Stanford continually proves itself to be a wrecking ball within conference and a sure loss without. And I'm still sore about Stanford walking out of Pullman with a win, but I'll root for them vs. ND.
There are so many 0-1 loss teams this year who have played nobody, or have prevailed in a single big challenge. I'm looking at the Big 10 and the ACC. ND had one big challenge this year (Clemson) and they lost. Their other would-be challenge, USC, was in tatters for a few weeks when they played - and even then they got 'em at home. Stanford is the only true remaining challenge on ND's schedule.
On that tip, look at Ohio State's schedule. It's like an entire season of out of conference bodybag games. Their first real challenge is against Michigan State, and it's at home, and they had an entire season to get in a groove before they get 'em. I hope Michigan can prevail in the season-ender. tOSU is on a 22-game win streak, having been IMO unjustly allowed into - and getting hot during - the playoffs last year, but otherwise carving their way through an embarrassingly soft schedule. The B10 and ACC are like women's college basketball to me, where UConn went on a 90-game win streak. As impressive as that is, I'm sorry, that's just not a competitive league if that can happen. Same with the B10 and ACC which have 2 teams any given year and the rest are fodder. Meanwhile, the P12 and the SEC beat the s--- out of one another before they get to the finish line.
There are so many 0-1 loss teams this year who have played nobody, or have prevailed in a single big challenge. I'm looking at the Big 10 and the ACC. ND had one big challenge this year (Clemson) and they lost. Their other would-be challenge, USC, was in tatters for a few weeks when they played - and even then they got 'em at home. Stanford is the only true remaining challenge on ND's schedule.
On that tip, look at Ohio State's schedule. It's like an entire season of out of conference bodybag games. Their first real challenge is against Michigan State, and it's at home, and they had an entire season to get in a groove before they get 'em. I hope Michigan can prevail in the season-ender. tOSU is on a 22-game win streak, having been IMO unjustly allowed into - and getting hot during - the playoffs last year, but otherwise carving their way through an embarrassingly soft schedule. The B10 and ACC are like women's college basketball to me, where UConn went on a 90-game win streak. As impressive as that is, I'm sorry, that's just not a competitive league if that can happen. Same with the B10 and ACC which have 2 teams any given year and the rest are fodder. Meanwhile, the P12 and the SEC beat the s--- out of one another before they get to the finish line.
The good news about the playoff is that even without getting a team into the playoff, there is an outside chance that we'll get two teams into New Years games. One projection I saw put Stanford into the Rose Bowl and Utah into the Fiesta Bowl. That gets the conference money without the attitude.
I don't mind the attitude from Oregon though. Based on the the "I told you so" BS that we've already seen around here, I doubt that WSU fans are going to be the toast of the party if we ever have a great season.
I don't mind the attitude from Oregon though. Based on the the "I told you so" BS that we've already seen around here, I doubt that WSU fans are going to be the toast of the party if we ever have a great season.
Disagree on Ohio State being unjustly allowed to get into the playoffs. Any team that goes undefeated, beats Michigan State by 12 in East Lansing, Wisconsin by 59, and then "getting hot" in the playoffs and beating Alabama and destroying Oregon in the NC game has clearly justified it belonged.
Glad Cougar
It might be different if I lived in Oregon, but at least the Ducks have earned their attitude. They have seven straight years of winning at least 10 games. Contrast that to the uw and the James era where they won 10 games six times in his 18 years. Yes, they play one more game now than they did then, but think of it this way. After 14 years in Seattle, Don James had four 10 win seasons. After 14 years in Pullman, Mike Price had four 10 win seasons.
Oregon has earned their arrogance. The uw is just as bad if not worse, but their golden era is not as good as they think.
They were arrogant and even more hostile "back in the day" when Harrington was playing. The sense of long -term entitlement was even worse. Given the fact that many teams hadn't beaten UO in such a long time....matters had grown less contentious...especially with the program "being such a disappointment" every time they lost. Ask a UO fan in 2013 if WSU could ever beat their team and most would say "never". With the opportunity to build a 10 year program at WSU...some are still cow downing to every other team in the conference perhaps because they want to "be right" when we lose.
The Big 14/ SEC/ ACC/ Big 12 don't play each other... and water is wet, the sky is blue, and the media and coaches don't give a rip.
Honestly at this point its the pac12's own fault for scheduling in-conference games the way it does. If they want to put a team in the playoff every year, do like the B14 and only schedule 4 games in conference. I believe that is the MO of the B12 as well, though one of the avoider-conferences recently added 1 additional in-conference game to their schedule a year or two ago, IIRC (SEC?).
Anyway, yeah it sucks, and as much as I hate to say it - ND is the only school that has played anyone up until this point. Yeah, tOSU is going to play MSU and UM, but at this point they have all already spent so much time at the top that they won't drop much, it'll pad the winner's SoS, and what it'll really do is show that 1 or 2 of those teams didn' belong ranked that high to begin with.
We could really get into the weeds on this, and we did so around the playoffs earlier this year. Let's do it again now.
Comparing resumes, both TCU and Ohio State had 1 loss.
#9 undefeated TCU lost to #5 undefeated Baylor on the road, on a last-minute FG, in overtime. Baylor never led until the game-winning FG. TCU led until 6:39 in the 4th quarter and only lost by 3. If there is such a thing as a "good loss," this was it.
Ohio State lost by 14, at home, to an unranked VT team which went on to lose 6 of its next 11 games - including a 6-3 2OT loss to a 3-win Wake Forest team. This was a bad, bad loss - but lucky for them, it happened in Week 2 and essentially did not count against them come voting time.
Somehow, voters were also willing to overlook the fact that in Week 8 (!), tOSU went to 2OT against a Penn State team that would go 2-6 in an abysmal Big 10 conference.
At the time of the CFP decision (Week 16), TCU's average margin of victory was 27.5. This was with an ESPN strength of schedule (SOS) rank of 48, a strength of record (SOR) rank of 4, a Game Control (GC) rank of 5, and a Football Power Index (FPI) rank of 3.
Even with the whipping of Wisconsin, tOSU's average margin of victory was 24.1. Without that whipping, it's around 21. SOS was 47 (better but comparable), SOR was 6 (worse), GC was 8 (worse) and FPI was 5 (worse).
Looking at average margin of victory in the context of schedule, it is candidly IMPOSSIBLE to give the edge to tOSU there. That's TCU all the way.
And judging by selection committee chair Jeff Long's comments, this was ALL about the conference championship game:
Long won’t tell the Big 12 what to do, but his explanation of why Ohio State is playing for a title instead of TCU or Baylor is telling.
“(The 13th game) had an effect,” Long said. “It was an additional game that we could see Ohio State prove their strength. It was significant. I can’t say that it wasn’t.”
Adding a conference championship game, either by expansion or by being granted an NCAA waiver to have a title game with 10 teams, isn’t the only answer.
By selecting Ohio State, the committee in part indicated a team doesn’t necessarily have to schedule a great Power 5 team and it doesn’t necessarily have to win under the right circumstances.
In the second week of the season, Ohio State lost at home to a Virginia Tech team that finished 3-5 in the ACC. In earlier comments, Long indicated the selection committee didn’t see such a loss as being as devastating as it seemed to be.
On selection Sunday, that was made even more clear. Ohio State had the worst loss of any team in playoff contention and still made the field. The Big Ten championship game gave Ohio State yet another opportunity to atone for that loss.
“(The 13th game) had an effect,” Long said. “It was an additional game that we could see Ohio State prove their strength. It was significant. I can’t say that it wasn’t.”
Adding a conference championship game, either by expansion or by being granted an NCAA waiver to have a title game with 10 teams, isn’t the only answer.
By selecting Ohio State, the committee in part indicated a team doesn’t necessarily have to schedule a great Power 5 team and it doesn’t necessarily have to win under the right circumstances.
In the second week of the season, Ohio State lost at home to a Virginia Tech team that finished 3-5 in the ACC. In earlier comments, Long indicated the selection committee didn’t see such a loss as being as devastating as it seemed to be.
On selection Sunday, that was made even more clear. Ohio State had the worst loss of any team in playoff contention and still made the field. The Big Ten championship game gave Ohio State yet another opportunity to atone for that loss.
Moving on, the fact that a team went hammer once they got the playoff bid means very little. There are hundreds of examples of wild card teams and other hangers-on winning championships in leagues across all of global sports history. That doesn't mean they were among the Top 4 teams most deserving of a playoff bid before they got there.
And to build on your logic, if a team's performance in the postseason is what really justifies their presence there, what do you make of TCU's performance? They dog-whipped a team which had also beaten Alabama (Ole Miss) from beginning to end; a near-shutout of 42-3 in which OM scored a FG in garbage time. It was THE most definitive beatdown between quality teams in the 2014 postseason.
So that - all of that - is my gripe. The BCS was supposedly a mess, and the CFP was supposed to begin to erase the arbitrary nature of the BCS computers and formulas and inject a little human common sense. Instead, in YEAR ONE of the CFP, voters kicked off the new system by trying to send messages to conferences about championship games, overlooking tOSU's ugly early loss and TCU's relatively stronger SOR/GC/FPI and season-long performance, and wildly overreacting to tOSU's final B10 game. In the end it was the most flawed - and human - situation imaginable.
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I forgot that tOSU had lost early in the season. My bad. I still think they deserved to be in the final four but respect your argument.
Glad Cougar
Glad Cougar
Furd is #7?
Underrated...underrated...underrated...underrated...!
(See, that is how you compliment yourself when a good team beats you.)
