2024 College Football Playoffs

[Cackalacky2.0]

SOS deserves more context b/c the baseline is unfairly set w/ pre-season polls. Here’s what this year’s pre-season poll looked like:

1	Georgia (46)	1,532
2	Ohio State (15)	1,490
3	Oregon (1)	1,403
4	Texas	1,386
5	Alabama	1,260
6	Ole Miss	1,189
7	Notre Dame	1,122
8	Penn State	1,060
9	Michigan	995
10	Florida State	971
11	Missouri	927
12	Utah	887
13	LSU	804
14	Clemson	689
15	Tennessee	629
16	Oklahoma	566
17	Oklahoma State	538
18	Kansas State	526
19	Miami (FL)	492
20	Texas A&M	292
21	Arizona	237
22	Kansas	231
23	Southern Cal	172
24	North Carolina State	171
25	Iowa	140

Bama, Ole Miss, Missouri, LSU, OU, aTm. All SEC teams. All overrated as proven by the final poll.

Kentucky had one conference win…over the mighty Ole Miss Rebels who have assured us they should be in CFP. Same KY that got boatraced in their rivalry game by ”ACC also ran” Louisville.

Bama lost to Vandy who lost to 3-9 Georgia State. Vandy is the one program that even SEC sycophants dismiss when announcing their conference strength. TBF, I think we have to give Vandy credit this year so I don’t think that loss would‘ve disqualified Bama. But losing by 3 TDs to a 5-6 B12…err SEC Team in November is what cooked Bama. It wasn’t a last second FG…It was a blow out when a team is supposed to be building on their CFP resume. But shouldn’t matter b/c “y’all just don’t know the grind of the SEC”. GTFO with that. Again OU was a B12 team less than a year ago. So was Texas BTW.

LSU lost to 6-6 Southern Cal who at last check was not in SEC & I‘m told by non-ND fans that they’re a joke of a team that no one should lose to. I guess LSU was tired of that SEC grind that led into the first game of the season.

UO HC Dan Lanning has a chance to change (or level) the narrative. His team is in the Pacific NW yet they had to travel cross country four times to secure the #1 seed. Tell those SEC schools to travel that far that much in a given season. I don’t care who the opponent is, your players are still adversely affected by the time change and travel…yes even 18-23 year olds.

The common refrain from SEC fans is “who would you pick to win in the following matchups”:
Bama vs SMU
Bama vs ASU
Bama vs BSU
Bama vs PSU
Bama vs ND
Bama vs IU

SEC is undefeated in hypotheticals & Vegas odds are always correct

Can’t have it both ways while proudly pronouncing your team playing the toughest conference of the past two decades but then whine when you aren’t afforded more mulligans b/c you’re team turns out to be not as invincible (3+ losses) as you claim.

Right. A positive feed back loop. I hate preseason rankings and even rankings before like week 6. They do nothing but pollute reality and drive a predetermined narrative.

 

[jprue24]

Right. A positive feed back loop. I hate preseason rankings and even rankings before like week 6. They do nothing but pollute reality and drive a predetermined narrative.

I'll ask you the same question....what reference should strength of schedule use?

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

FFS. Alabama did not not make the playoffs because they played too challenging a non conference schedule. Unless he’s saying that Mercer beat them up and so they came out flat against Oklahoma?

Bama got their shit pushed in the only game they traveled to outside the Deep South.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

I'll ask you the same question....what reference should strength of schedule use?

A true Strength of schedule cannot be determined until all the games have been played. So using that to rank teams during a season is illogical. Otherwise it’s pure speculation. Look at FSU for example. “Ranked” preseason #10 and by the end of the season they were 1-9 and scoreless in the second quarter against Charleston Southern.

All this is is a three body problem. A problem that cannot be solved because conditions continuously change. There is only one solution. To make it not a three body problem. An NFL style playoff and no subjective committee. No one complains about the NFL playoffs because those teams there based on WL records not a subjective selection committee.

 

[jprue24]

That's what they all do, though. ESPN for example, uses the current avg. Top 25 team as a reference.

Here is how the guy that has ND #1 ranks them the conferences...right now.

The WIN50% is the rating required to win 50% of the games if playing an
infinite number of round-robins in the given group at a neutral location.


CONFERENCE CENTRAL MEAN SIMPLE AVERAGE TEAMS WIN50%

1 SEC (A) = 81.95 81.62 ( 1) 16 81.62 ( 1)
2 BIG 12 (A) = 77.38 76.81 ( 3) 16 76.81 ( 3)
3 BIG TEN (A) = 77.18 76.84 ( 2) 18 76.84 ( 2)
4 ACC (A) = 74.22 74.38 ( 4) 17 74.38 ( 4)
5 I-A IND. (A) = 67.46 68.78 ( 5) 3 68.78 ( 5)
6 PAC-12 (A) = 66.71 66.71 ( 6) 2 66.71 ( 6)
7 SUN BELT EAST (A) = 65.83 65.56 ( 7) 7 65.56 ( 7)
8 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 63.54 64.31 ( 8) 12 64.31 ( 8)
9 AMERICAN ATHLETIC (A) = 63.01 62.81 ( 9) 14 62.81 ( 9)
10 SUN BELT WEST (A) = 61.84 61.11 ( 10) 7 61.11 ( 10)
11 MAC (A) = 57.71 57.36 ( 11) 12 57.36 ( 11)
12 CONF-USA (A) = 55.89 55.92 ( 12) 10 55.92 ( 12)
13 MISSOURI VALLEY (AA)= 55.13 55.74 ( 13) 10 55.74 ( 13)
14 I-AA=>I-A (Aa)= 55.11 55.11 ( 14) 2 55.11 ( 14)
15 BIG SKY (AA)= 52.66 52.89 ( 15) 12 52.89 ( 15)
16 UNITED ATHLETIC (AA)= 47.96 47.56 ( 16) 9 47.56 ( 16)
17 COASTAL (AA)= 46.73 46.07 ( 19) 15 46.07 ( 19)
18 SOUTHERN (AA)= 46.38 46.28 ( 17) 9 46.28 ( 17)
19 IVY LEAGUE (AA)= 46.21 46.17 ( 18) 8 46.17 ( 18)
20 SOUTHLAND (AA)= 45.82 44.95 ( 21) 9 44.95 ( 21)
21 BIG SOUTH/OVC (AA)= 44.66 44.96 ( 20) 9 44.96 ( 20)
22 PATRIOT (AA)= 40.52 40.81 ( 22) 7 40.81 ( 22)
23 MEAC (AA)= 39.23 39.62 ( 23) 6 39.62 ( 23)
24 SWAC-EAST (AA)= 38.69 38.61 ( 24) 6 38.61 ( 24)
25 I-AA IND. (AA)= 38.54 38.54 ( 25) 2 38.54 ( 25)
26 NORTHEAST (AA)= 36.82 36.66 ( 26) 8 36.66 ( 26)
27 SWAC-WEST (AA)= 35.43 34.86 ( 27) 6 34.86 ( 27)
28 PIONEER (AA)= 35.14 34.54 ( 28) 11 34.54 ( 28)
29 ___UNRATED___ (__)= -91.00 -91.00 ( 29) 1 -91.00 ( 29)

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

Bishop in the wild.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

A true Strength of schedule cannot be determined until all the games have been played. So using that to rank teams during a season is illogical. Otherwise it’s pure speculation. Look at FSU for example. “Ranked” preseason #10 and by the end of the season they were 1-9 and scoreless in the second quarter against Charleston Southern.

All this is is a three body problem. A problem that cannot be solved because conditions continuously change. There is only one solution. To make it not a three body problem. An NFL style playoff and no subjective committee. No one complains about the NFL playoffs because those teams there based on WL records not a subjective selection committee.

And to go further with the FSU example… GT beat them and got credit for beating #10 team. Then FSU drops to 17 and loses and that team got credit for beating #17. Then FSU drops just out of top 25 next week. It took 3-4 weeks for FSUs preseason ranking to stop positively influencing SOS. Then it started negatively influencing the SoS of later teams like us. We smoked them so bad and it had the same weight as playing a FCS during a glorified scrimmage. My point is that all this preseason ranking, tracking of SoS throughout the year does nothing to logically support what teams are “good” and which are “bad”. The only thing it does if create a perceived reality that isn’t borne out by any accurate data. If you question it the fallback fallacy is the “eye test.” The eye test had FSU being full of NFL talent and a chip on their shoulder from being left out of the playoffs after a 14-0 season.

And I don’t think anyone had SMU smoking the ACC regular season with a bunch of Texas AM and Miami transfers preseason.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

ND #3 in final coaches poll.

https://sportsdata.usatoday.com/football/cfb/coaches-poll

 

[InKellyWeTrust]

ND #3 in final coaches poll.

https://sportsdata.usatoday.com/football/cfb/coaches-poll

By essentially every data point except the CFP rankings, ND is the 2nd or 3rd best team in the country.

 

[ab2cmiller]

Freeman will undoubtedly play the "disrespect card" inside our locker room. The boys will be fired up and will play with an edge.

 

[Te'o4Heisman]

I can’t argue the fact that they beat 3 top 25 teams. That was a great accomplishment by Alabama.

You brought up that teams will stop scheduling tough OOC games. I just don’t see the correlation there because Alabama didn’t have a tough OOC game.

Alabama’s performances against Vandy and Oklahoma did them in, not a OOC loss against a tough team.

The correlation here is that if playing a tough schedule and beating good teams while having some setbacks through the gauntlet is going to be outweighed by playing a softer schedule and having a better record, then teams will schedule cupcakes OOC. It doesnt matter where bamas losses came from this particular year, its the premise that was set.

 

[Te'o4Heisman]

Was there a Big 10 team that was wrongfully left out this year?

I would’ve thought Alabama fans would’ve been content for a while since they were gifted a CFP spot last year.

How many games are Alabama, Ole Miss, and South Carolina allowed to lose?

Which one out of Bama, Ole Miss and south carolina would you feel good about backing smu in a h2h matchup if your house was on the line?
Dont argue that bama shouldnt have lost games they should have been able to win then because smu lost several games too against a weaker schedule.
If anything South Carolina probably had the best argument to get in. Multiple top 25 wins, and all 3 losses against top 25 teams, 2 of them by 5 pts total and they were rolling down the stretch.

 

[Te'o4Heisman]

Was there a Big 10 team that was wrongfully left out this year?

I would’ve thought Alabama fans would’ve been content for a while since they were gifted a CFP spot last year.

How many games are Alabama, Ole Miss, and South Carolina allowed to lose?

How many games would smu have lost if they played LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama, Missouri, Tex A&M, clemson, Vandy, and even a mid OU team this year. Going back to my previous post, In a hypothetical would you bet your house it is still 2 or less? Thats the schedule SC had 3 losses against and barely to Bama and LSU.
If SOS matters you cant put a 2 loss team who played nobody against a 3 loss team that played everybody.

 

[Nor’easter]

I agree. Winning consistently is one of the criteria for being one of the best. I think my guys are good enough to beat anyone on a given day this year, but WAY too inconsistent to be considered one of the best teams.

I would put the Morgan Freeman “He’s right, you know” meme here if I wasn’t drunk and lazy

 

[jprue24]

And to go further with the FSU example… GT beat them and got credit for beating #10 team. Then FSU drops to 17 and loses and that team got credit for beating #17. Then FSU drops just out of top 25 next week. It took 3-4 weeks for FSUs preseason ranking to stop positively influencing SOS. Then it started negatively influencing the SoS of later teams like us. We smoked them so bad and it had the same weight as playing a FCS during a glorified scrimmage. My point is that all this preseason ranking, tracking of SoS throughout the year does nothing to logically support what teams are “good” and which are “bad”. The only thing it does if create a perceived reality that isn’t borne out by any accurate data. If you question it the fallback fallacy is the “eye test.”

So what is your reference for SOS, then? You think using the current top 25 is bad?

As far as I'm aware, in all the current SOS models, GT gets credit for beating 2-10 FSU, not #10 FSU. The CFP polls came out after two months, I believe that's what's being used for "avg. top 25 team".

 

[GATTACA!]

Which one out of Bama, Ole Miss and south carolina would you feel good about backing smu in a h2h matchup if your house was on the line?
Dont argue that bama shouldnt have lost games they should have been able to win then because smu lost several games too against a weaker schedule.
If anything South Carolina probably had the best argument to get in. Multiple top 25 wins, and all 3 losses against top 25 teams, 2 of them by 5 pts total and they were rolling down the stretch.

I would bet my house that SMU beats Vandy and Oklahoma.

It's pointless to cry about the difficulty of Alabama's schedule compared to SMU's because 2/3 of Alabama's losses were to terrible teams that had no business even covering the spread against them. So go ahead and soften your OOC schedule Alabama, that's completely irrelevant to why you were left out. You got left out for SMU because you had triple the amount of regular season losses and 2/3 of them were really really bad.

 

[arrowryan]

Which one out of Bama, Ole Miss and south carolina would you feel good about backing smu in a h2h matchup if your house was on the line?
Dont argue that bama shouldnt have lost games they should have been able to win then because smu lost several games too against a weaker schedule.
If anything South Carolina probably had the best argument to get in. Multiple top 25 wins, and all 3 losses against top 25 teams, 2 of them by 5 pts total and they were rolling down the stretch.

The SEC is undefeated in hypotheticals.

Again, how many games should SEC teams be allowed to lose then? 4? 5? Should 7-5 Florida fans start to bitch now?

 

[Bishop2b5]

Right. A positive feed back loop. I hate preseason rankings and even rankings before like week 6. They do nothing but pollute reality and drive a predetermined narnarrative

Except that the systems/polls that come out after several games, as well as most of the computer rankings almost always look just about exactly like the AP and Coaches polls.

 

[TracyGraham]

Which one out of Bama, Ole Miss and south carolina would you feel good about backing smu in a h2h matchup if your house was on the line?
Dont argue that bama shouldnt have lost games they should have been able to win then because smu lost several games too against a weaker schedule.
If anything South Carolina probably had the best argument to get in. Multiple top 25 wins, and all 3 losses against top 25 teams, 2 of them by 5 pts total and they were rolling down the stretch.

Is it fair to say Bama, ole Miss, SMU, S.Carolina all have kinda mediocre situations. When the 12 system playoff was announced, I imagined if ND was #13 with 3 losses, it would be borderline embarrassing to whine about being left out unless we lost by like 3 points to the top 3 teams or something. But here we are with Bama fans complaining... If anything, at least SMU is a good story.

 

[T-Boone]

I would rather play SMU in the first round. or Clemson

 

[FU BK]

Fuck it....just bought tickets for the quarterfinals in New Orleans. Still pretty cheap

 

[NDFAN2008]

Fuck it....just bought tickets for the quarterfinals in New Orleans. Still pretty cheap

Tickets are like 170 bucks if ND wins they'll jump up to 1,000

 

[stlnd01]

The correlation here is that if playing a tough schedule and beating good teams while having some setbacks through the gauntlet is going to be outweighed by playing a softer schedule and having a better record, then teams will schedule cupcakes OOC. It doesnt matter where bamas losses came from this particular year, its the premise that was set.

I don't really understand this argument.

These were the last five teams out of the CFP this year, and who they played out of conference. None of them lost a single one of these games. In fact SMU was probably BYU's best win, and beating Clemson helped put South Carolina back in the fringes of the playoff conversation. If Miami had played and beaten us instead of backing out they would be in and we would not.

Bama: @Wisconsin, USF, Western Kentucky, Mercer
Miami: @Florida, USF, Ball State, Florida A&M
Ole Miss: @Wake Forest, Georgia Southern, Middle Tennessee, Furman
South Carolina: @Clemson, Akron, Old Dominion, Wofford
BYU: @SMU, @Utah, Southern Illinois, @Wyoming, Southern Illinois.

No one missed the CFP because of their out-of-conference schedule. Much bigger issues were unbalanced conference schedules that had Bama play four ranked SEC teams while Texas played one, and the lack of in-conference quality opponents that left a team like Miami with 10 wins but no argument it should make the field. Scheduling more cupcakes out of conference doesn't change either of those things.

 

[DillonHall]

Yeah the big issue was the unbalanced conference schedules. This year it bit Alabama (though they could’ve helped themselves by beating Oklahoma and/or Vandy). Next year they might have a much easier conference schedule so I don’t know how much they should complain, but the only fair option would be to go to a 10-game conference schedule

I don’t see why any SEC team would play ND. We’ll probably start to see those future games get canceled

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

So what is your reference for SOS, then? You think using the current top 25 is bad?

As far as I'm aware, in all the current SOS models, GT gets credit for beating 2-10 FSU, not #10 FSU. The CFP polls came out after two months, I believe that's what's being used for "avg. top 25 team".

I wouldn’t rely on it all till the final games are played. SOS is meaningless till all games are played. If you are using it before it is not a valid data point. Because it’s based on arbitrary initial conditions.

Not sure if. I’m not being clear here. When GT and FSU played GT got credit for beating #10 FSU. By end of season they got hurt by FSU sucking. The changing SOS throughout the year is exactly what I’m saying. It’s worthless till all the games are played.

It’s similar for the SEC because they always have 8-9 ranked teams and they all mostly play each other. They all get credit for winning against ranked teams and they all get credit for losing to ranked teams. I mean look at ND, if you were to ask I’d bet most people would say outlet biggest win was against TAM on the road who ended up being ok not great. 😂

Injuries are also a huge impact to SoS. Again look at FSU last year. Left out because of a an injury. Teams play games without the same lineups through out the year. Some teams overcome it with depth most cannot. How do you include injuries in SOS schedule to account for a senior QB injury leading to an inexperienced qb deputy? if the committee can use it as a criteria to leave an undefeated team out of the playoffs how does SOS normalize that?

Until we have a NFL style divisional winner playoff based on W and L, the subjectiveness of selecting the best teams is a dog and pony show.

 

[InKellyWeTrust]

Yeah the big issue was the unbalanced conference schedules. This year it bit Alabama (though they could’ve helped themselves by beating Oklahoma and/or Vandy). Next year they might have a much easier conference schedule so I don’t know how much they should complain, but the only fair option would be to go to a 10-game conference schedule

I don’t see why any SEC team would play ND. We’ll probably start to see those future games get canceled

$$$ will keep teams scheduling ND. Plus, we're talking about a 3 loss team. This isn't a travesty Bama or anybody else with 3 losses got left out. At some point the team just isn't very good and doesn't deserve to be in the playoffs.

 

[mrmcgrail]

It's so insane that people are arguing this....how did teams of years past get past schedules like that and not lose 3 games? Shit in 88 ND beat 4 of the top 7. Previous bama teams have had schedules similar to this and didn't drop 3 games

 

[NDPhilly]

Should really try to schedule another P4 team in 2026. At 8 right now with MSU flaking.

USC, FSU, Miami, and SMU could all be ranked or none of them could be.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

All this conference expansion was done out of greed. Now the conferences are deeper, like the SEC, and they simply expect a three loss team that lost 24-3 to a .500 team to just get into the 12 team playoff? Oh, remember Texas wasn't going to have a chance, too?

Sorry, not sorry. Next time go on Joe Rogan's podcast and don't lose three games. SOS might matter but in the end so do results. Or maybe we just don't have conferences anymore if not winning one is fine as long as you're in the one that's perceived to be better than everyone else.

Alabama's arrogant AD talking about reevaluation of their OOC opponents also rings hollow. They played Mercer in November and lost three conference games. Maybe skip the idea of adding FSU and Clemson? Or cry more.

 

[Fbolt]

Move forward. Beat Indiana.

Is it 2026 when the CFB will re-evaluate? If so, it may be straight rankings at that point.

I will say the playoff worked as far as TV ratings. I would not have watched any of the games this weekend had it not been for ND's seed. Due to that interest, I watched all the games on Saturday.