Path to the CFP?

[IrishLax]

Here's the problem I have with this particular position (and it's one a few others here hold). If you want to go strictly on record or on record plus some 2nd criteria such as won/loss of opponents played, that's nothing but a number crunching algorithm. You don't need a committee or a poll, just a formula and a pocket calculator. We saw how flawed that was with the BCS system. It doesn't take into account all the countless other things that knowledgeable watchers such as coaches, sports journalists, and the committee members see with their own eyes and understand. If you want to say on the field results should be the only thing, then what are you talking about? Just the W or L from the game, or ALL the things that happened in the game. Just the W or L is awfully bare bones. Knowledgeable observers see so much more in how each team played, and understand whether they see a good team, a lucky team, a bad team, etc.

We all know (or should know) that Team A beating Team B doesn't necessarily mean Team A is the better team. It usually does, but it can also mean that Team A played their best game of the season and Team B their worst. Let 'em play 10 times and Team A would be lucky to win twice. How is every team undeniably better than every team it beat when A beats B, B beats C, and C beats A? Tell me how you rank each ahead of the other two or how that logic holds up. Bama beat Miss. St this year, who beat A&M, who beat Bama. Just going on results doesn't tell the whole story. Teams have off days. Teams get lucky. Teams get worse as the season goes on and others get better. If all you see are the W's & L's, you're missing a HUGE part of how teams are ranked. It's not that the W's & L's aren't important. Of course they are. It's just that they're only part of the equation of trying to decide who's better than whom.

Just about everybody in this forum thinks ND would beat Cincy if they played again (and I agree). This whole "what happened on the field is all that should count" is correct, but you're only seeing a small part of what happened on the field if all you're taking into consideration is the outcome. Again, should a poll or the playoff committee's rankings be about "most deserving", prettiest resume, best record, or should it be "Who do we believe is actually the best team at this point in the season and who would beat whom?"

Every other sport except football has strictly defined criteria, and then the committee seeds based on who satisfies that criteria the best. In essence, this is "most deserving."

For hockey, it's a pretty strict formula.

For basketball, there is the most subjectivity with avoiding rematches and other stuff. But the criteria is still almost all objective and rooted in your results on the court.

All the other sports are basically in between those two. None of them have what happens in football where there are only four teams and you're tasked with subjectively determining the "best" four instead of "most deserving." I think the problem most have with the playoff committee is that they are so subjective that they can't even seem to explain how they came up with their rankings. They literally say completely contradictory stuff week-to-week, or even within the same interview. So it comes off as a farce.

With the BCS, at least everyone was clear on the polls + computers that were being factored in. So you got the human element with the polls of who is "best" and the objective element with the computers of who is "most deserving" based on W-L on the field.

 

[Irishbounty28]

I think the hardest part about the ranking system, and the eventual choosing of the final 4 for the CFP is that it is virtually impossible to compare teams that don’t play each other. It HAS to involve the EYE TEST! So when Alabama loses to Texas A&M it isn’t because the Tide aren’t the best, but rather the Aggies must be real good.

So based on the EYE TEST Bama drops a bit, and A&M jumps up the rankings. Now Bama lost to a top 25 team, rather than an in ranked team. The problem is, other teams don’t get the same love, because of the perceived strength of the SEC.

At the same time ND loses to a higher ranked Cincinnati team and drops out of the top ten. In the rankings the committee is ranking Cincinnati way above the Aggies, but gives more value to Alabamas loss because they “look better”. EYE TEST!

 

[Bishop2b5]

Every other sport except football has strictly defined criteria, and then the committee seeds based on who satisfies that criteria the best. In essence, this is "most deserving."

The pro leagues have a limited number of teams and there's enough inter-division and inter-league play that each team's SOS is approximately equal, thus division winners and a wild card team or two is a rather accurate way to determine who goes to the playoffs. That's not the case with CFB, and a subjective poll of experts is probably a significantly more accurate way to decide who the best teams are. I don't know how college baseball does it, but basketball and who they invite to the big dance is certainly just as subjective as football, if not more. It's just not as critical, since when you invite 64+ teams, there's about a 100% chance that anyone remotely close to being the actual best team got in. Also, if you want to go with more of a formula or BCS algorithm approach, remember that the criteria in your algorithm and how you weight them is awfully subjective too. Remember how different some of the BCS computer rankings often were from each other?

 

[BeatSC]

Ok dudes, I started this thread but never intended for a he arguments to get so deep and complicated. My head hurts. Let’s make sure we win and we win big this weekend in the prime time ABC matchup. We can then see who in front of us has lost. Good chance more than one. If Michigan loses to PSU then the cache of the MSU win over UM drops and now we can jump both of them like we already should have and sit at #7 or better.

 

[ulukinatme]

I saw someone projecting us to the Peach against Ole Miss. I'll take a matchup with Joey Freshwater again, and a good win against an SEC team.

 

[GATTACA!]

The biggest issue with the committee is that they publish rankings weeks before they actually have to make a decision. It gets people worked up over things that don't matter and will naturally work themselves out. Would anyone argue that Alabama is eliminated at this moment? No. So does it matter if they're #2 or #5 when we all know if they win the SEC championship game they are in? Same goes for the relative rankings of OSU/MSU/Michigan. They all control their own destiny. Whichever one wins the Big10 will earn one of the playoff spots.

Most of the issues people have with this system could be fixed by simply doing it how march madness is done. Release the results for the first time after all the championship games are played.

Or if we have to have a list because ESPN needs to sell ads on their weekly countdown show on Tuesday night take the #s off the list. Just have a big board with the 128 schools on it and week by week cross off the teams that are "eliminated".

 

[ulukinatme]

The biggest issue with the committee is that they publish rankings weeks before they actually have to make a decision. It gets people worked up over things that don't matter and will naturally work themselves out. Would anyone argue that Alabama is eliminated at this moment? No. So does it matter if they're #2 or #5 when we all know if they win the SEC championship game they are in? Same goes for the relative rankings of OSU/MSU/Michigan. They all control their own destiny. Whichever one wins the Big10 will earn one of the playoff spots.

Most of the issues people have with this system could be fixed by simply doing it how march madness is done. Release the results for the first time after all the championship games are played.

Or if we have to have a list because ESPN needs to sell ads on their weekly countdown show on Tuesday night take the #s off the list. Just have a big board with the 128 schools on it and week by week cross off the teams that are "eliminated".

I think they've already effectively got that. In previous years they used to go through the teams and Week 1 they automatically crossed off pretty much any G5 team that lost that week. They would move any one loss Power 5 teams to a "Probable" or "Out" list depending on their relative ranking or non-ranking in the Top 25. They'd go through each week and adjust teams as necessary.

Now it looks like they've got some All State thing that has a Playoff Predictor % which is kind of similar I guess:

https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/st...yoff-predictor

 

[Nanny36]

Let's just get on with it and see who goes forward

 

[phork]

Teams that weren't ridiculously talented used to have a chance. They could go undefeated, win their bowl game and win at least a share. BYU, Michigan with Brian Griese, etc. Kansas State almost played in a one bowl title game

That can't happen now. Those teams now face Alabama AND Ohio State if they even make the playoff at all.

If deserving, you mean the absolute most talented team winning every single year, then yes. I suppose they are deserving. Now it's not a football game. It's a recruiting, arms race, smart scheduling game.

What fun.

Thats how Michigan built their program. Shared BIG titles. If your team is good enough you should be able to compete with the Alabamas and OSUs. Settle it on the field outside of "eye test" metrics or other stupid made up metrics.

 

[IrishLax]

The pro leagues have a limited number of teams and there's enough inter-division and inter-league play that each team's SOS is approximately equal, thus division winners and a wild card team or two is a rather accurate way to determine who goes to the playoffs. That's not the case with CFB, and a subjective poll of experts is probably a significantly more accurate way to decide who the best teams are. I don't know how college baseball does it, but basketball and who they invite to the big dance is certainly just as subjective as football, if not more. It's just not as critical, since when you invite 64+ teams, there's about a 100% chance that anyone remotely close to being the actual best team got in. Also, if you want to go with more of a formula or BCS algorithm approach, remember that the criteria in your algorithm and how you weight them is awfully subjective too. Remember how different some of the BCS computer rankings often were from each other?

Obviously was talking about NCAA sports, not pro leagues where it's literally all record based. And no, college basketball -- while being the most subjective of the other sports -- is not more subjective at its core than the College Football Playoff. Like I said, they tinker with seeding for travel reasons and to avoid rematches, but they have strictly defined objective criteria that they use as their basis for making the subjective decisions. So when the committee explains why someone is in or out, or why someone was seeded where they were relative to another team, they always have specific criteria that they point at. They say "their record against RPI top 50 was..." or some equivalent. We have seen proof positive that football does not do this... they make up their justifications on the fly with no consistency to fit whatever they want their rankings to be. Basketball also has AQs that make up roughly half of the field, which football does not.

 

[Rogue219]

Some of the semifinal games in this recent format have been terrible blowouts. Not that I need remind any of this board of that. Expanding this format as it is probably doesn't really do much for competitive parity and entertainment. We likely get an extra ass kicking or two.

Expanding the field also makes it more difficult for ND to win a National Championship. I'd just assume they have to win two games to get it done rather than 3 or 4.

 

[TorontoGold]

Some of the semifinal games in this recent format have been terrible blowouts. Not that I need remind any of this board of that. Expanding this format as it is probably doesn't really do much for competitive parity and entertainment. We likely get an extra ass kicking or two.

Expanding the field also makes it more difficult for ND to win a National Championship. I'd just assume they have to win two games to get it done rather than 3 or 4.

On a year to year basis it won't be clearly obvious that the parity is there, but over time it will certainly be clear that adding the layer of games will achieve more parity. Kind of like expanding the playoffs in the MLB, which I would argue has the best determination of playoff seeding based on the number of data points prior to the playoffs. Keep the reg season/CC's important.

The forced parity of some NA sports leagues has made for better TV, but the measure of the true "best" team takes a hit when that happens. Using the NHL as an example, the Canadiens were a slightly above average team that rode a hot streak to the finals. Their underlying numbers were dog but the forced randomness of the NHL allowed them to ride a hot goalie to the finals.

 

[arrowryan]

This is the year a 2 loss team gets in, right?

I have zero confidence that Alabama, Cincinnati, and Oregon win out. Wisconsin is playing really well, what if they win the Big 10?

I also have a bomb shell scenario brewed up in my head. What if Auburn beats Alabama, sending A&M to the SECCG. A&M upsets Georgia. Do they get in?

There is so much football left and I think a lot of dominoes are going to fall in November.

 

[Dale]

Wisconsin has 3 losses

 

[Rogue219]

On a year to year basis it won't be clearly obvious that the parity is there, but over time it will certainly be clear that adding the layer of games will achieve more parity. Kind of like expanding the playoffs in the MLB, which I would argue has the best determination of playoff seeding based on the number of data points prior to the playoffs. Keep the reg season/CC's important.

The forced parity of some NA sports leagues has made for better TV, but the measure of the true "best" team takes a hit when that happens. Using the NHL as an example, the Canadiens were a slightly above average team that rode a hot streak to the finals. Their underlying numbers were dog but the forced randomness of the NHL allowed them to ride a hot goalie to the finals.

I think it is manufactured interest, competition and finances when it comes to further expansion of the playoffs. These chooch play in games for the NCAA Tournament are necessary why? Just pick 64 teams and get on with it. No, we need to manufacture interest on the Tuesday before the first round games start on Thursday.

College Football playoffs are not going to bring us many upsets in the way of MLB, the NHL and March Madness. Different kind of beast.

Look at the FCS, DII and DIII levels. Lower seeds getting upsets is incredibly rare. I don't see much change with the FBS level. Not to mention even if they expand, the G5 teams who go unbeaten or lose one game are still going to be kicked to the curb and left out. Do they consider breaking off and forming something between the FBS and FCS? Only if there is money in it.

 

[ACamp1900]

Wisconsin has 3 losses

Forget it, he’s rolling,…

 

[arrowryan]

Wisconsin has 3 losses

I’m not saying they’d get in, but Wisconsin winning the Big 10 would cannibalize the conference

 

[phork]

I’m not saying they’d get in, but Wisconsin winning the Big 10 would cannibalize the conference

Which means the BIG is out. If you say that UM and MSU lose to OSU, then OSU loses to Wisky, there would be no BIG rep. Upgrade to NDs SOS.
If Auburn beats Bama, Bama is out.

Current Top 10.

• 1. Georgia (9-0)
• 2. Alabama (8-1)
• 3. Oregon (8-1)
• 4. Ohio State (8-1)
• 5. Cincinnati (9-0)
• 6. Michigan (8-1)
• 7. Michigan State (8-1)
• 8. Oklahoma (9-0)
• 9. Notre Dame (8-1)
• 10. Oklahoma State (8-1)
• 11. Wake Forest (8-1)
• 12. Texas A&M (7-2)

Top 10 if everything up there happens:

• 1. Georgia (9-0)
• 3. Oregon (8-1)
• 5. Cincinnati (9-0)
• 8. Oklahoma (9-0)
• 9. Notre Dame (8-1)
• 10. Oklahoma State (8-1)
• 11. Wake Forest (8-1)
• 12. Texas A&M (7-2)

ND would need 1 of the teams ahead of it to lose. Since I assume ND runs the table. Oregon will lose to Utah in there regular season or what looks like Pac12 Conf Final, maybe both. OU has Baylor and OKSt. as top 25 matchups. And IowaSt might pull the upset. Cincys only question is SMU at this point, and UGA has Tennessee left and the SEC champ.

IMO ND just needs to win out and let the other teams do the work.

 

[ACamp1900]

IMO ND just needs to win out and let the other teams do the work.

Yeah, if ND wins out I would bet enough happens to get our boys in... we will see. With our luck ND gets in and has UGA in the first round while the team at five gets Wake or UTSA in the NY6 bowl game...

 

[Irishbounty28]

Based on the scenarios you can put into the Playoff Predictor on ESPN, Georgia and Alabama both have a high probability of being in with two losses. Based on the predictor if Alabama wins out and loses the CCG they have a 67% chance of being in the playoff. If Bama loses to Auburn but wins the CCG they have an 88% chance of being in the CFP and if they lose to Arkansas but win the CCG they have an 89% chance. So basically Bama has to lose two more times to be out, which is a sham IMO.

Additionally, if Georgia loses to either Tennessee or Georgia Tech, and also loses the CCG they still have a 59-60% chance to make the CFP. This is also crap.

There are many additional ways things can work out with other teams, but it seems both Oklahoma and Ohio State have paths to the CFP with two losses per this predictor as well. Michigan also has a path with two losses. However if Notre Dame win's out they have less than a 50% chance to make the CFP.

 

[GowerND11]

Based on the scenarios you can put into the Playoff Predictor on ESPN, Georgia and Alabama both have a high probability of being in with two losses. Based on the predictor if Alabama wins out and loses the CCG they have a 67% chance of being in the playoff. If Bama loses to Auburn but wins the CCG they have an 88% chance of being in the CFP and if they lose to Arkansas but win the CCG they have an 89% chance. So basically Bama has to lose two more times to be out, which is a sham IMO.

Additionally, if Georgia loses to either Tennessee or Georgia Tech, and also loses the CCG they still have a 59-60% chance to make the CFP. This is also crap.

There are many additional ways things can work out with other teams, but it seems both Oklahoma and Ohio State have paths to the CFP with two losses per this predictor as well. Michigan also has a path with two losses. However if Notre Dame win's out they have less than a 50% chance to make the CFP.

I will say, one issue with the predictor is you can only do these predictions with just THAT team's results. It would be nice to be able to play around with the scenarios of multiple teams at once.

 

[Irishbounty28]

I will say, one issue with the predictor is you can only do these predictions with just THAT team's results. It would be nice to be able to play around with the scenarios of multiple teams at once.

Very true it does have flaws.

 

[GATTACA!]

I will say, one issue with the predictor is you can only do these predictions with just THAT team's results. It would be nice to be able to play around with the scenarios of multiple teams at once.

538s version is what you’re looking for.

 

[phork]

Based on the scenarios you can put into the Playoff Predictor on ESPN, Georgia and Alabama both have a high probability of being in with two losses. Based on the predictor if Alabama wins out and loses the CCG they have a 67% chance of being in the playoff. If Bama loses to Auburn but wins the CCG they have an 88% chance of being in the CFP and if they lose to Arkansas but win the CCG they have an 89% chance. So basically Bama has to lose two more times to be out, which is a sham IMO.

Additionally, if Georgia loses to either Tennessee or Georgia Tech, and also loses the CCG they still have a 59-60% chance to make the CFP. This is also crap.

There are many additional ways things can work out with other teams, but it seems both Oklahoma and Ohio State have paths to the CFP with two losses per this predictor as well. Michigan also has a path with two losses. However if Notre Dame win's out they have less than a 50% chance to make the CFP.

Alabama being in with 2 losses AND playing 2 FCS schools is criminal.

 

[BleedBlueGold]

Buddy of mine who's pro expansion just sent me a mock 12-team playoff with current standings to "prove" how fun it would be to watch the playoffs. Three B1G-East teams represented in this bracket....two of whom won't even play in the their respective conference's championship game. Tell me again how this would be an okay thing to do...

Pro expansion people act like this would just open the door to the Group of 5 schools who are undefeated. I'm sorry, but I don't buy that at all. The committee isn't looking for ways to get Cinci and UTSA and Coastal Carolina into the playoffs. They just aren't. All an expansion does is allow more 2 and 3-loss Power 5 teams an opportunity to weasel their way into the playoffs, catch fire at the end of a season, and maybe win a title (even if they couldn't even win their own conference). That's a F***ing joke and I'll never support it.

 

[Dizzyphil]

Buddy of mine who's pro expansion just sent me a mock 12-team playoff with current standings to "prove" how fun it would be to watch the playoffs. Three B1G-East teams represented in this bracket....two of whom won't even play in the their respective conference's championship game. Tell me again how this would be an okay thing to do...

Pro expansion people act like this would just open the door to the Group of 5 schools who are undefeated. I'm sorry, but I don't buy that at all. The committee isn't looking for ways to get Cinci and UTSA and Coastal Carolina into the playoffs. They just aren't. All an expansion does is allow more 2 and 3-loss Power 5 teams an opportunity to weasel their way into the playoffs, catch fire at the end of a season, and maybe win a title (even if they couldn't even win their own conference). That's a F***ing joke and I'll never support it.

Six teams I could see with two doing a 'Play-In' to satisfy those outside of the Power 5 - and it gives 1 & 2 ranked the bye in the first round. Outside of that, any number IMO would be too many. 12 is re-donk-u-lous!

 

[Dale]

A 12 team playoff would have 4 SEC schools and only 2 B1G IMO.

EDIT: 3 if OSU were to lose but I don’t see that happening

 

[BeatSC]

Alabama being in with 2 losses AND playing 2 FCS schools is criminal.

No FW does someone get in with 2 losses. Even corrupt Bama. They won’t get in ahead of a one loss ND.

 

[Sea Turtle]

No FW does someone get in with 2 losses. Even corrupt Bama. They won’t get in ahead of a one loss ND.

Why not? With one loss they are already ahead of multiple undefeated teams. They get the Alabama treatment.

 

[GowerND11]

Alabama being in with 2 losses AND playing 2 FCS schools is criminal.

They only play one: Mercer. But NMST might as well be.