The [American] Football Thread

[pindicator]

So now after years and years of insisting the games matter, we've suddenly shifted to "think you look like you could win" over "actually won games" as our rubric in the year the SEC got dumpstered in the non-conference and their top teams won literally no meaningful OOC games.

Also, how in the world did Liberty get in to a NY6 bowl over SMU? If the test is perceived strength and not record? The committee can't even stay consistent within the same week

[scooter]

So now after years and years of insisting the games matter, we've suddenly shifted to "think you look like you could win" over "actually won games" as our rubric in the year the SEC got dumpstered in the non-conference and their top teams won literally no meaningful OOC games.

Also, how in the world did Liberty get in to a NY6 bowl over SMU? If the test is perceived strength and not record? The committee can't even stay consistent within the same week

Yep, there's no actual tight rubric here. It's eyeball it and make the call, then come up with your arguments afterward.

[T-hawk]

Yep, there's no actual tight rubric here. It's eyeball it and make the call, then come up with your arguments afterward.

This is true, by the actual way the voting works. The commitee members each vote by secret ballot for #1, then the team with the most votes is selected, then remove that team and repeat for the next slot down the line. Each voter can make whatever call by eyeball or whatever they want to do. Which gives at least some safeguard against manipulation - you'd need at least a majority to be influenced by ESPN or ratings or whatever you're claiming.

Fact is, the "best 4 teams" and "highest ratings" are going to be pretty much congruent, the best teams are the ones that viewers will watch. Best record against weaker competition isn't that, or everybody would be watching Liberty over Alabama and obviously that's not happening.

[scooter]

Yep, there's no actual tight rubric here. It's eyeball it and make the call, then come up with your arguments afterward.

This is true, by the actual way the voting works. The commitee members each vote by secret ballot for #1, then the team with the most votes is selected, then remove that team and repeat for the next slot down the line. Each voter can make whatever call by eyeball or whatever they want to do. Which gives at least some safeguard against manipulation - you'd need at least a majority to be influenced by ESPN or ratings or whatever you're claiming.

Fact is, the "best 4 teams" and "highest ratings" are going to be pretty much congruent, the best teams are the ones that viewers will watch. Best record against weaker competition isn't that, or everybody would be watching Liberty over Alabama and obviously that's not happening.

I think the reason I have so little time for the "4 best teams" talk is anyone who's watched football this year would tell you Alabama has not actually been one of the 4 best teams at basically any point this year. Per SP+, we have something like the 1st, 6th, 7th, and 11th best teams - one of the weakest CFP fields ever. Like, if we're really gonna go by best teams, the playoff should be something like Michigan-Georgia-Ohio State-Oregon. But the games mattered - 3 of those teams had their chances and failed, so we rightly filtered them out. Cincinnati was not one of the 4 best teams 2 years ago, but they deserved to be there on resume, so I was glad they got in. So, I've watched this committee spend a decade putting in the teams that most earned their place (IMO it's been pretty much reasonable the whole way), but it's thrown out on the last one because the thought of leaving out the SEC champ broke their brains.

[T-hawk]

The argument that these are the 4 best is based on who they defeated. Michigan beat #7 and #10 in the final rankings. Washington beat #8 twice. Texas beat #4. Alabama beat #6 and #11. Nobody else had any higher-ranked wins than those. FSU beat #13, which is a clear step below the others. This is a perfectly reasonable line of thinking that gets to the result we got without needing any SEC bias. And this has precedent, Cincinnati got there two years ago by beating #6 Notre Dame.

We love to throw around accusations of favoritism and corporate shilling or whatever, but there's also the possibility that the commitee is doing their job with professionalism and integrity. The result happened to benefit the SEC but that doesn't mean it was chosen to do so.

[Sullla]

We love to throw around accusations of favoritism and corporate shilling or whatever, but there's also the possibility that the commitee is doing their job with professionalism and integrity. The result happened to benefit the SEC but that doesn't mean it was chosen to do so.

T-Hawk, do you watch a lot of college football? If you're familiar with the NCAA and how it has administered the sport for, well, the entire history of college football... you might want to rethink giving them the benefit of the doubt here.

[Cyneheard]

We love to throw around accusations of favoritism and corporate shilling or whatever, but there's also the possibility that the commitee is doing their job with professionalism and integrity.  The result happened to benefit the SEC but that doesn't mean it was chosen to do so.

T-Hawk, do you watch a lot of college football? If you're familiar with the NCAA and how it has administered the sport for, well, the entire history of college football... you might want to rethink giving them the benefit of the doubt here.

This isn't the first time it's been really obvious that ESPN was pushing a narrative; they brought the idea of FSU being out up quite a bit on Saturday. And CFB is the sport most susceptible to this; College Basketball's tournaments are big enough that if the 34th at-large team shouldn't have gotten in, or should've been a 9 seed instead of an 11, shrug.

And this is the weakest the SEC conference has been in years.

[darrelljs]

If Alabama wins the playoff and FSU beats UGA by more than 3 points, does the AP poll have FSU at the top?

Darrell

[T-hawk]

Quite possibly, because that would make the AP voters the story, and the AP voters would love to make the AP voters the story.

If you guys can fling all the bias and favoritism accusations at the commitee, I'll fling it right back at the AP voters if this happens (which it won't.)

[darrelljs]

Why would that be bias? The playoff committee is seeking to pair the four best teams and therefore take into account availability of key players, but AP voting rules are simply to "base your vote on performance, not reputation or preseason speculation." In addition to having no blemish on their record, FSU would have beaten the two common opponents by more points (the other being LSU which FSU beat by 3 TDs vs. Alabama's 2 TDs).

BTW, despite my daughter going to FSU and both my parents having graduated from there, I fully believe the committee picked the best four teams at the moment of selection as they were supposed to. It would have been clearer if UGA was also placed ahead of FSU. If you have a problem with the playoff, then have a problem with the rules, not the outcome this season.

Darrell