The [American] Football Thread

[MJW (ya that one)]

Mostly it just hurt how badly we were beaten. Mahomes had never lost a game by more than one score - whoops. He'd scored at least one TD in every game - whoops.

If we hadn't played the Bucs in the regular season, I think we would have crushed them. Their initial gameplan for Hill was terrible and he put up the most receiving yards in a single quarter ever. But, they adjusted, they came in with a new plan, and Reid (maybe distracted by his son's accident?) came in with a *terrible* plan - nothing to compensate for our weak offensive line, no adjustments for shorter, quicker throws when it became clear the Bucs wouldn't allow deep stuff, Spags didn't adjust to fucking cover Gronk maybe once? and it was just a stomping, start to finish.

Also the refs didn't help but there were so many problems that that's a distant afterthought.

Oh well. Still have the best player in the world and the best team in football, despite one bad game at the worst possible time. The Patriots lost lots of Super Bowls too, and we will be back.

At least the son is now fired. 

[T-hawk]

Anybody here follow college football? The playoff selection committee has one heck of a clusterf*ck today, with 5 or even 6 deserving teams for 4 spots.

Michigan and Washington are 13-0 with quality wins and so are locks. FSU is 13-0, but with no quality wins and missing an injured quarterback. Texas and Alabama are 12-1 with much better wins (over Alabama and Georgia respectively.) Does the committee actually omit an undefeated team for one that looks to be better on the field?

(The 6th candidate is Ohio State, which most of the advanced analytics rate as better than FSU and Washington, and their loss was better than either Texas or Alabama's. Though most human analysis would say they had their shot and failed.)

[naufragar]

Texas deserves a spot. You can't leave out the SEC, but putting in Bama over FSU is going to cause heads to explode. I'm guessing they put in Alabama, FSU wins their bowl game, and we never hear the end of it.

[Cyneheard]

Anybody here follow college football?  The playoff selection committee has one heck of a clusterf*ck today, with 5 or even 6 deserving teams for 4 spots.

Michigan and Washington are 13-0 with quality wins and so are locks.  FSU is 13-0, but with no quality wins and missing an injured quarterback.  Texas and Alabama are 12-1 with much better wins (over Alabama and Georgia respectively.)  Does the committee actually omit an undefeated team for one that looks to be better on the field?

(The 6th candidate is Ohio State, which most of the advanced analytics rate as better than FSU and Washington, and their loss was better than either Texas or Alabama's.  Though most human analysis would say they had their shot and failed.)

"4 most deserving" is going to be Michigan, Washington, FSU and Texas in that order; FSU was three places ahead of Texas before this week and they're not going to have Texas pass them because one of them beat Louisville and the other beat Oklahoma State.

FSU beat LSU and Louisville, that's going to be enough quality wins. Their third-string QB beat Louisville, so it's not like the team fell apart without the starting QB. Head-to-head means Texas gets in ahead of Alabama.

Alabama will be 5th, Georgia 6th, Ohio State 7th and Oregon 8th.

[naufragar]

FSU beat LSU and Louisville, that's going to be enough quality wins.

This the same Louisville that lost to Kentucky? 

Don't mind me. Just pot stirring. 

[T-hawk]

Texas deserves a spot. You can't leave out the SEC, but putting in Bama over FSU is going to cause heads to explode. I'm guessing they put in Alabama, FSU wins their bowl game, and we never hear the end of it.

Yup. If any of Bama, Georgia, tOSU, or even Oregon played FSU on a neutral field tomorrow, who would be favored? Any of them by at least a touchdown and probably more.

[Cyneheard]

The CFP committee decided "an SEC team has to make the playoffs" and figured out the logical way to make that happen. Texas beat Alabama, so they had to be ahead of Alabama, and therefore FSU had to be out.

Let me put it this way: If Georgia had won yesterday...Texas would be out and FSU in.

[scooter]

You absolutely can and should leave out the SEC if the games matter at all. This Alabama team is the weakest SEC champion in over a decade. They got their face kicked in at home, and they squeaked by 3-4 awful teams including the luckiest win I've seen in awhile - which by the way just happened last week. It's all just so absurd. FSU beat 11 P5 teams this year.

The CFP committee decided "an SEC team has to make the playoffs" and figured out the logical way to make that happen. Texas beat Alabama, so they had to be ahead of Alabama, and therefore FSU had to be out.

Let me put it this way: If Georgia had won yesterday...Texas would be out and FSU in.

Spot on.

[T-hawk]

I think the committee got this one right. And you don't even need any SEC bias. Remember Bama's loss was a nonconference game that they didn't have to play. If they had just scheduled Middle Cupcake State instead of Texas, they'd be 13-0 and unquestionable. They shouldn't be penalized for taking on some good OOC competition.

(I'd even present a similar argument for Ohio State, who lost only to the #1 overall, by one score on the road, and so has a strong argument for being #2. It's not tOSU's fault that Michigan is in their conference and not FSU's, and not tOSU's fault that their conference has stupid divisions so they don't get a shot in the CCG like Oregon did. And I'm actually a Penn State fan so I definitely don't have any bias talking up tOSU here.)

FSU is not one of the top four teams in terms of results delivered against good competition. Add to that the injured quarterback and they really don't have a claim for being among the top four in the playoffs. It's not their fault the ACC is weak after them, but they also didn't try any serious OOC competition like Texas, Alabama, and even tOSU (vs ND) did.

[scooter]

I think the committee got this one right. And you don't even need any SEC bias. Remember Bama's loss was a nonconference game that they didn't have to play. If they had just scheduled Middle Cupcake State instead of Texas, they'd be 13-0 and unquestionable. They shouldn't be penalized for taking on some good OOC competition.


FSU is not one of the top four teams in terms of results delivered against good competition. Add to that the injured quarterback and they really don't have a claim for being among the top four in the playoffs. It's not their fault the ACC is weak after them, but they also didn't try any serious OOC competition like Texas, Alabama, and even tOSU (vs ND) did.

Are we just ignoring the fact that FSU played LSU and smoked them - more convincingly than Alabama did? You can't say "we can't punish Alabama for playing a real team OOC" and then not give credit to FSU for doing so and winning handily. They beat Florida too without their QB.

This is what annoys me - the argument boils down to "the games don't matter, let's just make a subjective call on who we think would do better in the playoff."

Also hosing a school on an injury is just absurd. When you've got the guy tweeting this, you know you messed up.

Also if we wanna play the injury game, let's not ignore the fact that a big reason Alabama won Saturday was because Georgia's best two receivers were visibly not healthy and apparently hadn't been practicing for a couple weeks.