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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2016 7:09:52 GMT -5
I'm not as hung up on conference championships as the rest of you I guess. When you only play 7 or 8 conference games, it's sort of a crap shoot. Wild card teams win the super bowl all the time. The sample size isn't very big.
Don't mistake me here-I think the current system is VERY flawed. But I think the whole way of deciding a conference champion is pretty flawed as well. You're rendering out of conference games meaningless if you want to focus all of your energy on the conference championship. Maybe CFB needs to be more like the NFL, ALL of your games count towards the conference championship, not just your in-conference games. This is especially brutal when you have a team like Iowa last year that didn't play any of the best teams in the Big 10 until the big 10 championship game.
Conference championships are even more whacky to me, when you consider that you don't play everyone in your conference. I have a hard time putting that shit on a pedestal.
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Post by daywork on Dec 3, 2016 10:29:44 GMT -5
I'm not as hung up on conference championships as the rest of you I guess. When you only play 7 or 8 conference games, it's sort of a crap shoot. Wild card teams win the super bowl all the time. The sample size isn't very big. Don't mistake me here-I think the current system is VERY flawed. But I think the whole way of deciding a conference champion is pretty flawed as well. You're rendering out of conference games meaningless if you want to focus all of your energy on the conference championship. Maybe CFB needs to be more like the NFL, ALL of your games count towards the conference championship, not just your in-conference games. This is especially brutal when you have a team like Iowa last year that didn't play any of the best teams in the Big 10 until the big 10 championship game. Conference championships are even more whacky to me, when you consider that you don't play everyone in your conference. I have a hard time putting that shit on a pedestal. I'm with you, I don't care for conference championships. I don't care for the 84 different bowl games. I'm all about the playoffs. And like you and others have said, its flawed right now. Maybe they will start working on correcting it.
I'm starting to get sad. Only a few more betting weeks left.
Oh and nice win by Washington last night.
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Post by ocmmafan on Dec 3, 2016 11:01:32 GMT -5
Agree it's not perfect but with a conference championship, every team controls their own destiny into the playoff. That's the key benefit. Out of conference scheduling will give you an advantage (theoretically) to having a bigger chance at the + 3 at large. Of course, it only works if you truly respect and reward a team playing an out of conference road team against a ranked opponent more so than beating some shitty school at home 57-3 like the SEC does. If Ohio State goes on the road and beats Oklahoma that has 20x more cred than Bama beating Hawthorne Technical College. So that's how an Ohio State still gets in after losing their conference.
But even with 8, I think it is still way too focused on the "majors" and a team like Western Michigan that goes undefeated would probably still be left out. They beat Northwestern and Illinois on the road (two big 10 teams), beat Georgia Southern who went 9-4 in 2015 and won a bowl game and won their conference. That's a team trying to schedule quality out of conference and they should be rewarded into an 8 team playoff. Or at least, it should be made public what "majors" turn down these kind of teams when they ask to play them home and away.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2016 12:33:40 GMT -5
I still wouldn't be shocked if Navy goes to the Cotton Bowl instead of WMU. If I'm betting money, I'm putting it on WMU. But I'm just saying, I don't know that it's a done deal. Navy has a much larger fan base, and the win over Houston could justify it (wrongly).
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Post by daywork on Dec 3, 2016 18:59:56 GMT -5
I still wouldn't be shocked if Navy goes to the Cotton Bowl instead of WMU. If I'm betting money, I'm putting it on WMU. But I'm just saying, I don't know that it's a done deal. Navy has a much larger fan base, and the win over Houston could justify it (wrongly). Fuck Navy. I had money on them today and they got their asses beat by Temple.
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Post by daywork on Dec 3, 2016 19:19:57 GMT -5
Bama is doing what bama does. I thought it would be a safe bet taking Fla +24.
Oh well.
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Post by daywork on Dec 3, 2016 19:29:22 GMT -5
LMAO, Florida's defense looks scared to tackle the bama RB's.
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Post by daywork on Dec 4, 2016 0:27:02 GMT -5
So, Who gets in? Ohio St or Penn St? You guys were talking about winning conference championships, Well Penn St won that. And they have a win over Ohio St. Ohio St is ranked higher.
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Post by Baph on Dec 4, 2016 2:11:35 GMT -5
Not caring about conference championships is odd to me. It's what college football is built on. Regional teams, regional players, regional championships, and then the big bowl games pit the best in conf A vs the best in conf B. That's what drives most bowl selections, just not the playoffs for some reason.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2016 9:49:41 GMT -5
If a team played everyone in their conference, maybe I would care more about them. As it stands now you can win your conference but dodge some of the toughest matchups. Also, these are 19 year old kids. They're going to have a bad day or two. Just because your chick wouldn't blow you the day before the biggest game of the year, and your team loses by like a field goal, the other team, with more losses, including a 39 point beatdown, wins the conference? It's a terrible system. And here's my bigger problem with it: You're allowing winning your conference, which disincludes all other games, to decide who gets to play for the NATIONAL championship. That doesn't even make sense. "Yes, you lost a game or two to out of conference opponents, now your reward is you get to go play more out of conference opponents."
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Post by daywork on Dec 4, 2016 11:55:09 GMT -5
Just waiting for the selection show.
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Post by daywork on Dec 4, 2016 12:30:33 GMT -5
Not caring about conference championships is odd to me. It's what college football is built on. Regional teams, regional players, regional championships, and then the big bowl games pit the best in conf A vs the best in conf B. That's what drives most bowl selections, just not the playoffs for some reason. IDK, for me I'm interested in who is the best for the year. The playoffs are the road to that. I really like watching College football, many times enjoy it more then the NFL. But I'm not as invested in college as you are and many others are. Its just entertainment for me.
To me, all the bowl games outside the playoffs are just fluffer. Sure they might be fun games to watch and some are competitive. But they don't mean much to me.
As I'm watching this selection show and the show I watched before this. They are all saying how Conference Championship just doesn't mean that much.
Its just so confusing sometimes. 1st they say how conference championships mean a lot, then not so much. They say strength of schedule means a lot but then they say Washington should get in even though their schedule was "hot garbage".
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Post by daywork on Dec 4, 2016 12:33:52 GMT -5
#1 Bama #2 Clemson #3 Ohio St #4 Washington
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2016 13:15:55 GMT -5
I'm not always on-board with Wilbon and Kornheiser, but they have been saying for WEEKS that this whole selection process is a tv event. And they are right. And that would also point to the fact that there is zero chance that 1-4 stay the same. Nobody is gonna watch for 2 hours for the talking heads to say "And all the rankings stay the same."
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2016 13:17:36 GMT -5
#1 Bama #2 Clemson #3 Ohio St #4 Washington I would switch Ohio St. and Clemson, and otherwise I'm on board. I think if the selection committee picks OSU over PSU, they are going to give them the number 2 spots to emphatically point out that they think the Big 10 is the best conference in America, and as such, the Big 10 representative should be #2.
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Post by Baph on Dec 4, 2016 13:44:14 GMT -5
Not caring about conference championships is odd to me. It's what college football is built on. Regional teams, regional players, regional championships, and then the big bowl games pit the best in conf A vs the best in conf B. That's what drives most bowl selections, just not the playoffs for some reason.
Fair, but then you wouldn't be the typical college football fan or the target demographic. Also, what you personally enjoy vs how a collegiate sport is ranked, structured, and executed are two different topics. Keeping conferences relevant, regional, and well run is vital to collegiate athletics. A for-profit sports network wants to assume control of all this? Well, of course they do. But that's what's good for ESPN and their casual fan base and not necessarily for the sport and for collegiate athletics as a whole. It's not exactly my job. Exhibit A: I saw ZERO football games this week. Missed Wash v Colorado, missed OU vs OSU (actually just DVR'd that). I enjoy it and enjoy analyzing and discussing it, but I'm moderate on the hardcore fan schedule. Exhibit B: I attended no games this year.
And that inconsistency comes from ratings focus over parity and logic. If different ratings/revenue scenarios present themselves, then bias changes with the flow. That's a big red flag. Inconsistency and lack of transparency (the committee) with a growing cry to centralize control of the whole season, take power away from regional conferences, and create some corporate-socialist-media controlled super sport to the detriment of all other sports, the universities and conferences, and the players themselves.
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Post by Baph on Dec 4, 2016 14:28:00 GMT -5
Finally got to watch Bedlam. Weird game.
Happy with how OKST started the game. The whole first half, really. Nice defense. Good line work. Solid run game. You could tell the rain was bothering Rudolph a bit but assume he'd adjust eventually. Some optimism building. With 2 min left in the first half OKST is up 17-10.
OU made some stellar adjustments at half. Likely out of necessity with Westbrook concussed and out. They got the run game going, focused on stopping the run and dared Rudolph to throw, and Rudolph could not answer the fucking bell. Just 11 completions on the day and 180 yds passing. Anemic. OKST scored 3 pts in the 2nd half. I believe all of those are season lows (scoring, 2nd half scoring, passing yards, completions). Trying to remember a worse outing for Rudolph during his tenure and nothing's coming to mind. They needed him to step up and he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. The scuttlebutt is that he's one of these guys who really grips the ball and he has an unusually difficult time in the rain. I though he just didn't live up to the moment or that coaches couldn't adapt and run shorter stuff to keep the passing game at least viable. That's disappointing because with just a good, like an 8 out of 10 good game from Rudolph and this is probably a nail biter right down to the wire. OU out coached/adjusted over the course of 3+ hours and that allowed them to pull away in 2nd half. And Mixon. You can see why there might be a temptation to turn a blind eye to some of his antics. Dude is DYNAMIC. He and Mayfield totally out classed the OKST d-backs in the 2nd half. At one point they even ran the same play 3-4 times over the course of 15 min because it KEPT working. OU was strategically agile and they eventually found ways to get off and then exploited that. OKST was rigid and stubborn and conservative and their QB was not sharp.
The take-away here was that Stoops, when engaged and motivated, is still damn good. Gundy got out-maneuvered. Also, OKST just has no answer for Mixon/Mayfield once they have a couple quarters to tweak the play calling. And at the end of it, you just can't beat a top 10 team on the road when you QB is having a bad day. This is a huge win for OU because they did something elite teams have to do: deal with rough starts/adversity and overcome. I've seen OU kind of look defeated/deflated when things don't go well, so some maturity emerged today. Hope they beat Auburn to continue to rub salt in the would of an abysmal SEC season.
In a sentence, Gundy and Rudolph had writers bock and Stoops was in rare form.
Still, OKSt started the season unranked and climbed inside the top 10. Last season they climbed from pre season 20 to as high as #6. This team scraps, over-achieves, and continues to improve. And they've got a LOT coming back with a more favorable schedule in 2017 (both 2016 losses are now home games in 2017).
Likely OKST will go Alamo to face USC, which is going to be a serious test against a team that's as hot as anybody right now. Hell, about half of the motivation to win Bedlam was to avoid a bowl match-up with USC.
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Post by daywork on Dec 4, 2016 16:44:02 GMT -5
I'm sure you are right Baph. I'm not the type of fan that they are looking for. I'm the type that looks at say the Sugar bowl (as you think OU will play Auburn) and think its a fun game, I'll watch it. But what's the point of the game? They posted the top 6 teams, I look at it as why even show #5 and #6.
I guess I'm just a bad fan. My favorite team is whoever I'm betting on that day LOL. Of course I root for some teams that are near me (TCU, Baylor, Texas, Aggies ...) and I root for Rutger (because my nephew goes there)
When I said you are more invested. I just meant your knowledge of College football is just head and shoulders above my knowledge.
Overall, I really like the playoff system much more then the old way. But still think there is plenty of room for improvement.
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Post by Baph on Dec 4, 2016 18:28:27 GMT -5
I'm sure you are right Baph. I'm not the type of fan that they are looking for. I'm the type that looks at say the Sugar bowl (as you think OU will play Auburn) and think its a fun game, I'll watch it. But what's the point of the game? They posted the top 6 teams, I look at it as why even show #5 and #6. I guess I'm just a bad fan. My favorite team is whoever I'm betting on that day LOL. Of course I root for some teams that are near me (TCU, Baylor, Texas, Aggies ...) and I root for Rutger (because my nephew goes there) When I said you are more invested. I just meant your knowledge of College football is just head and shoulders above my knowledge. Overall, I really like the playoff system much more then the old way. But still think there is plenty of room for improvement. Not a bad fan. No such thing. I mean within reason. Just on the more casual side of the spectrum. The point of the marquee bowl games is interconference elites matching-up. It impacts TV deals, recruiting, and many other factors. Agree the playoff system needs help.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2016 19:35:09 GMT -5
The playoff hunt is exciting, and gets people talking. I enjoy watching the 3 playoff games, and whatever bowl Notre Dame (usually) gets into. But when I was a kid, before the BCS even, I wanted to watch like 10 bowl games. I remember watching ESPN's pre-bowl show, and they'd go over the scenarios where like 8 teams would have some weird shot at a NC. It certainly was far from the best way to crown a champion. You ended up with co champs and all kinds of stupid bullshit. But from a straight up "I need to watch X amount of games" standpoint, it was actually better than what we have now. I'm sure Ok St and USC will be a great game. But I'm kinda like Daywork, I'll have a hard time finding any motivation to watch a "meaningless" bowl game.
It's time to get this thing to 8 teams, pronto.
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Post by Baph on Dec 4, 2016 20:02:05 GMT -5
Could not agree more. If you're going to introduce a playoff, then lets do a fucking playoff. 4 teams? That's called the semis, asshats.
OKST now gets Colorado at the Alamo Bowl. #10 vs #12. I like it.
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Post by ocmmafan on Dec 4, 2016 20:17:38 GMT -5
Pretty solid playoff but, imagine how awesome it would be if we had USC, Michigan, Penn State and Oklahoma added to this mix? It would rival NFL playoffs and shatter television records. As much as I root against the SEC, this is clearly a season where Bama is head and shoulders better than everyone else. The playoffs will still be fun and we have 4 outstanding coaches with time to prepare, so lets see what happens.
I see some fun match-ups in the other bowls and people will watch because of the multi-billion dollar gambling industry that thrives on football. But motivation for teams is hit and miss and some of these bowl games mean little to the players. That's the problem. How motivated is some 6-6 team playing another 6-6 team? Hard to know.
I do love the OKST vs Colorado match-up. Also dig Michigan vs Florida State, LSU vs Louisville and USC vs Penn State. Will be rooting for Western Michigan to upset Wisconsin and remain undefeated, and that's a game where we could see Western Michigan well prepared and Wisconsin not caring.
Bama is -15.5 vs Washington Ohio State - 3 vs Clemson
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Post by sooner2 on Dec 5, 2016 11:23:52 GMT -5
Dammit... it always goes by so fast.
I only watched bedlam and the acc championship. I wanted to watch the PAC 12 because it was the only other game that was likely to really matter, but missed it.
Can't say I have a huge argument with the "best 4" teams the committee named. Ok... tOSU didn't win their division. That has to count for something. But so far, the one thing the committee has ruled on is the exclusion of two loss teams. But like everything else... they basically make it up each year. It's not like the judicial system; where past rulings result in precedent and impact future decisions.
And for all the hand wringing i did last week about then wanting to stack the field with ratings grabbers... I gotta admit that they did not seem to do this; at least as it pertains to Michigan Or psu getting the. Nod over Washington.
Bedlam was wierd. Osu gashed us all first half but didn't convert on at least three red zone trips. They pushed in the collective shit of ous #90, 93, and big Canadian boy #95. And our lbs did not fill well and tackled poorly. Osu played two or three down linemen and ran aggressive run blitzes. In the second half, OU made adjustments and sure, did a somewhat better job... but the biggest difference was rudolf missing guys repeatedly. Does the kid have small small hands?? Something was odd.
I am still gradually coming around to an 8!team playoff idea... and not beciase my team didn't qualify. I personally don't think OU is one of the 4 most deserving. I just want more of a framework in place that takes more out of the hands of a committee who throws shit on the wall each week with poor consistency and makes it up as it goes along...then tries to explain itself with Kirby.
Some really good post season games in store! Live the um fsu game as well as psu USC. Auburn is a very dangerous matchup for OU. They thrive off gashkng runs between the tackles with a qb who is a big threat running. Third most run happyboffense in the country. Could be a long day for 90 93 and 95 .
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2016 12:18:24 GMT -5
Another thing that was mentioned this morning that might actually help, is getting rid of any committee rulings before this week. Why are they ranking teams in October? They should come out with one set of rankings, the day after the conference championships. That way they'd be less inclined to try to stick with the rankings they previously had.
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Post by sooner2 on Dec 5, 2016 12:27:49 GMT -5
I kinda like the idea of having some ratings aside from the final one . It does give us some idea of where teams sit. Of course... i really think the reason for rankings announcement show is that it sparks a huge amount of debate and controversy among passionate cfb fans.
One of the hosts on Sirrus 84 continually urges that a camera in the room for committee discussions would be a ratings bonanza. He might be right. It'll never happen though.
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Post by ocmmafan on Dec 5, 2016 12:32:19 GMT -5
I listen and read handicapping articles and on a neutral field, the vegas odds strength has it:
Bama Ohio State USC Michigan Clemson
I don't recall where Washington was. I think Ohio State was only a 1 point favorite on a neutral field over 3 loss USC.
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Post by sooner2 on Dec 5, 2016 12:58:00 GMT -5
That's very interesting. When it comes down to ranking, i could definitely see that Vegas has more riding on than any other entity and that their rankings may indeed be the most accurate. Can't let Vegas rank the teams for the playoff though now, can we?
I have watched Washington play 5 times this year. I am impressed with how they execute on offense and defense. But I see them as quite small. I was curious to see how they would the size and speed of USC and they really had no chance in that game after the first quarter. I think they will face a similar problem from bama, and will struggle with the size of bama offense and relative size and speed of bama defense. Micah Fitzpatrick, Allen , and Ruben foster are fucking beasts.
I personally would not have Michigan rated not quite that high in a neutral field matchup situation.
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Post by sooner2 on Dec 6, 2016 11:19:52 GMT -5
Heisman finalists announced. The fact that five guys are making the trip shows that there is no clear out in front winner. All five have pretty major flaws. None have had that "hiesman moment". I think Jackson's video game numbers and running ability put him as a front runner early... but he shit the bed in a few key games; especially Houston.
I think Watson wins. Peppers has no business being there; other than Booger eater going out of his way to play him on offense just to get him some exposure. Peppers is not a game changer. USC kid adorey Jackson is far far more of a multi dimensional difference maker.
Both Sooners are very good but both have serious flaws as well; coming up short in the biggest games (both this year and last). Dede has also missed some time due to injury. Not to mention they will have some "vote splitting from the same region" dynamic going on.
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Post by ocmmafan on Dec 6, 2016 14:09:15 GMT -5
I would have put Donnell Pumphrey into the final 5. He has a chance to be the all time rushing leader in college football history and even hardcore fans barely know who he is. But he honestly isn't even the best RB on the team - that would be Rashard Penny. SDSU has a strong stable in the backfield.
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Post by Baph on Dec 6, 2016 16:05:45 GMT -5
Maybe the least settled Heisman race in recent memory. Not even sure who I'd vote for, given the chance, to be honest. Lamar Jackson just threw this discussion into complete chaos with his turd outings in big games, but who on the list hasn't done that? Maybe one guy, but he's not really an elite player to begin with. Got a handful of really nice players who kind of came up short when their Heisman auditions happened during the season. Maybe Clemson takes it. I don't know.
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