I thought it was your contention that schools schedule so far out that they control who's on the list. Obviously you have to play the conference games but I know of 3 non-cons that are always the last game of the season. I'm not buying that every 11th game has to be a conference game.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/11/2017 12:42:00 PM (view original):
I thought it was your contention that schools schedule so far out that they control who's on the list. Obviously you have to play the conference games but I know of 3 non-cons that are always the last game of the season. I'm not buying that every 11th game has to be a conference game.

The conference schedules are set by the conference with general date guidelines in range. The Big Ten, for example, has their entire conference schedule set through the 2021 season. The 2nd to last week (as well as the last week) is a conference game for every single school in the conference.

And that can't be amended? How does Clemson, Auburn, Bama and SC get away from playing non-con 11th weeks?

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/11/2017 12:52:00 PM (view original):
And that can't be amended? How does Clemson, Auburn, Bama and SC get away from playing non-con 11th weeks?

I'm sure the Big Ten schools could theoretically vote to alter how they have done scheduling since the inception of the Big Ten and change things starting with 2022 if they really wanted to, but it won't happen. They like having a consistent slate of conference games even if it means Ohio State is playing Penn State and Michigan the last two weeks of the season like they are in 2021.

The SEC and ACC only playing 8 conference games also plays a factor. You add a 9th conference game and it is harder to have an open week later in the season.

No, it's just one less open/cupcake week. Rather than Fresno State/Colorado State back to back, it's probably a conference game with Mercer still at game 11 before the Iron Bowl. Rather than LaTech in game 4, it's a conference game with Wofford still game 11 before Clemson.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/11/2017 6:05:00 PM (view original):
No, it's just one less open/cupcake week. Rather than Fresno State/Colorado State back to back, it's probably a conference game with Mercer still at game 11 before the Iron Bowl. Rather than LaTech in game 4, it's a conference game with Wofford still game 11 before Clemson.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Well, the crux of the disagreement we have here is that I believe colleges want to schedule wins while you think they want to prove they're playoff-worthy by scheduling tough non-cons. The road to the playoffs isn't losing tough non-cons, it's winning games/conferences. .

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/11/2017 8:14:00 PM (view original):
Well, the crux of the disagreement we have here is that I believe colleges want to schedule wins while you think they want to prove they're playoff-worthy by scheduling tough non-cons. The road to the playoffs isn't losing tough non-cons, it's winning games/conferences. .

Except you have no idea if that is true because the committee changes the rules to fit whatever narrative it wants. conference titles matter. then they don't. tough non-con wins matter. then they don't. great wins matter. then they don't. a bad loss doesn't matter. then it does. The committee has shown no consistency at all.

After all, the committee just put a team in that lost its last game of the year by double digits to a team that ended with 3 losses. The team seeded 1 has the worse loss of any of the playoff teams and the team seeded 2nd has the 2nd worst loss.

The committee just has no consistency at all. It appears the eye test is the most important thing, yet their own rules say that is the least important factor.

That's where you're wrong. You're expecting the committee to put the best "resume" into the playoffs, which is reasonable. Since the playoffs inception, they have put what they felt were the best 4 teams into the playoffs, which is the way I prefer it.

Also, there are going to be inconsistencies each year because we have different committee members each year and this is all subjective.

Edit: I skipped over your last paragraph the first time I read your post. I think you're right about this.

Posted by moranis on 12/12/2017 8:33:00 AM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/11/2017 8:14:00 PM (view original):
Well, the crux of the disagreement we have here is that I believe colleges want to schedule wins while you think they want to prove they're playoff-worthy by scheduling tough non-cons. The road to the playoffs isn't losing tough non-cons, it's winning games/conferences. .

Except you have no idea if that is true because the committee changes the rules to fit whatever narrative it wants. conference titles matter. then they don't. tough non-con wins matter. then they don't. great wins matter. then they don't. a bad loss doesn't matter. then it does. The committee has shown no consistency at all.

After all, the committee just put a team in that lost its last game of the year by double digits to a team that ended with 3 losses. The team seeded 1 has the worse loss of any of the playoff teams and the team seeded 2nd has the 2nd worst loss.

The committee just has no consistency at all. It appears the eye test is the most important thing, yet their own rules say that is the least important factor.

Losing games is NOT the way to get in the playoffs. The fact that you're even debating that simple fact is ludicrous.

I honestly believe that lasts years playoff was more of a deciding factor than the Iowa game. The rosters for each team are fairly to similar to last year. Clemson blew out OSU,
Alabama played them very competitively. There's no shot it wasn't in the committee members minds.

And honestly I would say the committee was pretty consistent over the last 2 seasons. Last year Penn State was conference champ that got left out because of a loss to Pitt. OSU was not a conference champ, but only had 1 loss and got in. Moral of the story, if you're going to have a bad loss that better be your only loss. It's the same scenario two seasons in a row, pretty consistent eh.

Posted by strikeout26 on 12/12/2017 9:55:00 AM (view original):
And honestly I would say the committee was pretty consistent over the last 2 seasons. Last year Penn State was conference champ that got left out because of a loss to Pitt. OSU was not a conference champ, but only had 1 loss and got in. Moral of the story, if you're going to have a bad loss that better be your only loss. It's the same scenario two seasons in a row, pretty consistent eh.

The difference is though that OSU had a number of high quality wins though (it also didn't have a bad loss). Bama doesn't have the wins and got controlled throughout its loss.

the Iowa loss was a terrible loss, and that I'm sure is the difference, but you seem to think that it didn't matter so who knows.

I just can't see how anyone could reasonably say Alabama is UNEQUIVOCALLY better than Ohio State. That is what they needed to do, to ignore the conference championship.

I never said it didn't matter. It most certainly mattered. Like you said, who knows. While I think it should be irrelevant, I do think last years playoff played a big role. We're dealing with a human committee and I would safely wager that for some of the members it played a larger role.

Also, can you unequivocally say that last years OSU team was better than PSU?

Posted by strikeout26 on 12/12/2017 10:18:00 AM (view original):
I never said it didn't matter. It most certainly mattered. Like you said, who knows. While I think it should be irrelevant, I do think last years playoff played a big role. We're dealing with a human committee and I would safely wager that for some of the members it played a larger role.

Also, can you unequivocally say that last years OSU team was better than PSU?

Yes, I think you could easily say last year's OSU was unequivocally better than PSU even with the head to head loss. It was a very close game on the road, had a blocked punt, etc. OSU finished last year beating 6, 7, and 8 and had just that 1 loss to PSU. PSU not only lost to a mediocre Pitt team, but got absolutely hammered by Michigan. So yeah, taking their respective seasons on the whole, I think you could unequivocally say, OSU was better than PSU and it was based in a very large part on OSU playing and beating Oklahoma in Oklahoma. That is where a great non-con can save your season and something Mike always ignores. If OSU had played some MAC team instead of OU, I think the committee would have had a much harder time putting OSU in the playoffs over PSU.