If there ever was a year where College football needed a playoff format, this could be that year... The BCS is broken.

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by dsc123

I agree with you except for ND.  They played a harder schedule than Bama, Kstate, and Oregon and didn't take the #1 spot until they all lost.

Nope. Sagarin strength of schedule rankings have ND at 21, behind Bama (19) and K State (14).

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by dsc123

I dont know that you're right about that.  That doesn't happen in any other sport.  You don't see the Tampa Bay Rays fans complaining that they got screwed out of the playoffs and that they deserve to be there.  They won 90 games.  They are really talented.  But they didn't win as many games as the other teams.  There's no debate.  Only college football.

College football is really unique in that its really the only sport that "best" team isn't simply determined by your record.  Its really record plus public opinion of your team's talent.  In every other sport, you play your games and at the end of the year, the teams with the most wins get in.  But in college football, due mostly to historical quirks, that's not what we have.  I think that's fine, actually, but if we're going to have a playoff, why are we preserving this strange win-plus approach? Ditch the polls and do it like everybody else.

My proposal kept (but minimized) the polls.  I would actually get rid of them completely.  Maybe expand to 8 and give some of the lesser conferences automatic bids.  That would do a lot for parity.  Teams in the Mountain West would send a team to the playoffs each year.  They only have to be the best in that conference, and go on a run in the playoffs, to win the championship.

It's impossible to compare college and pro sports. In the MLB, there is considerably more parity, more games (reduces the impact of fluke games), and far fewer teams. In college football, there are (currently) 124 FBS programs (not to mention all the FCS schools). That means, at best, a given team could play 10% of the teams in FBS. Not apples to apples at all.

That's why it's impossible to determine the "best" team by record alone.

[dsc123]

Originally Posted by geauxforbroke

Nope. Sagarin strength of schedule rankings have ND at 21, behind Bama (19) and K State (14).

I guess its subjective, but prior to the championship games, I think it was true.  There was an article on yahoo that broke it down, which I posted earlier. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--sec-rout-of-notre-dame-far-from-guaranteed-205348035.html

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by dsc123

I guess its subjective, but prior to the championship games, I think it was true.  There was an article on yahoo that broke it down, which I posted earlier.  http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--sec-rout-of-notre-dame-far-from-guaranteed-205348035.html

I'm going by end of the year rankings. And I would take whatever Pat Forde says with a very small grain of salt. He also says in the article that he "doesn't foresee a blowout".

[dsc123]

Originally Posted by geauxforbroke

I'm going by end of the year rankings. And I would take whatever Pat Forde says with a very small grain of salt. He also says in the article that he "doesn't foresee a blowout".

That's what we call an ad-hominem attack.  Its a logical fallacy because the identity of the author is not indicative of whether the statements are true.

For example, I shouldn't discrediting everything you say just because of your LSU avatar.  Just because you're an LSU fan doesn't mean that you're going to tout the superiority of the SEC over everyone else right?  I mean, you're proabably a smart guy.  You recognize that half the SEC sucked this year and that LSU lost a bowl game to the ACC and Florida lost to a Big East team, and that most of LSU's wins came against the likes of Idaho, North Texas, Washington, Towson, and SEC teams having bad years.  If I were to make an ad-hominem attack, I might say that nothing you say is of any value because the only way you can justify LSU being ranked 14, despite being what, 3-3 against teams that aren't terrible, would be to pump up the idea of SEC Superiority.

But that wouldn't be fair, and it wouldn't have any relevance to whether the Pat Forde article makes sense, so I don't say those things.

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by dsc123

That's what we call an ad-hominem attack.  Its a logical fallacy because the identity of the author is not indicative of whether the statements are true.

For example, I shouldn't discrediting everything you say just because of your LSU avatar.  Just because you're an LSU fan doesn't mean that you're going to tout the superiority of the SEC over everyone else right?  I mean, you're proabably a smart guy.  You recognize that half the SEC sucked this year and that LSU lost a bowl game to the ACC and Florida lost to a Big East team, and that most of LSU's wins came against the likes of Idaho, North Texas, Washington, Towson, and SEC teams having bad years.  If I were to make an ad-hominem attack, I might say that nothing you say is of any value because the only way you can justify LSU being ranked 14, despite being what, 3-3 against teams that aren't terrible, would be to pump up the idea of SEC Superiority.

But that wouldn't be fair, and it wouldn't have any relevance to whether the Pat Forde article makes sense, so I don't say those things.

Not exactly an ad hominem argument. My comments were based on his statements (both in that article and in the past), not his character or actions. A better example of an ad hominem argument would be the one that you spelled out against me, in that you would attempt to discredit me based on my fan allegiances, rather than my statements. Or if I said "Don't believe what Pat Forde says, he went to Missouri."

In the interest of full disclosure, I do believe that the SEC is the premier football conference, and has been for the past 7 years. I am a graduate of LSU, and a die-hard fan. However, I'm perfectly capable of removing my purple-and-gold glasses and seeing the college football landscape as others see it. Hence the lack of pro-LSU or pro-SEC comments from me.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by dsc123

That's what we call an ad-hominem attack.  Its a logical fallacy because the identity of the author is not indicative of whether the statements are true.

For example, I shouldn't discrediting everything you say just because of your LSU avatar.  Just because you're an LSU fan doesn't mean that you're going to tout the superiority of the SEC over everyone else right?  I mean, you're proabably a smart guy.  You recognize that half the SEC sucked this year and that LSU lost a bowl game to the ACC and Florida lost to a Big East team, and that most of LSU's wins came against the likes of Idaho, North Texas, Washington, Towson, and SEC teams having bad years.  If I were to make an ad-hominem attack, I might say that nothing you say is of any value because the only way you can justify LSU being ranked 14, despite being what, 3-3 against teams that aren't terrible, would be to pump up the idea of SEC Superiority.

But that wouldn't be fair, and it wouldn't have any relevance to whether the Pat Forde article makes sense, so I don't say those things.

But the gist of the article isn't facts ... it's his very loose interpretation of them.  For example:

"Ninth-best opponent: Notre Dame hosted Pittsburgh (66th) and won by three in triple overtime. Alabama hosted Western Kentucky (82nd) and won by 35. Georgia visited Kentucky (92nd) and won by five. Most impressive of the three: Notre Dame."

Seriously?  Beating the 66th best team in the country in triple overtime is more impressive than beating the 82nd best team by 5 touchdowns?  Seriously?  How do you come to that conclusion?  Nevermind the fact that he's basing his entire argument on margin of victory.  And there are several close ones that he gives to Notre Dame.  ND beat #113 by 38, Ala beat #127 by 33, and Ga beat #127 by 36, and he conveniently gives the edge there to ND as well.  Why?

This is false advertising.  It's clearly an opinion piece, but it's disguised to look like a scientific argument.  And then you factor in what actually happened on Monday, and it kinda blows Forde's argument out of the water.

[dsc123]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

But the gist of the article isn't facts ... it's his very loose interpretation of them.  For example:

"Ninth-best opponent: Notre Dame hosted Pittsburgh (66th) and won by three in triple overtime. Alabama hosted Western Kentucky (82nd) and won by 35. Georgia visited Kentucky (92nd) and won by five. Most impressive of the three: Notre Dame."

Seriously?  Beating the 66th best team in the country in triple overtime is more impressive than beating the 82nd best team by 5 touchdowns?  Seriously?  How do you come to that conclusion?  Nevermind the fact that he's basing his entire argument on margin of victory.  And there are several close ones that he gives to Notre Dame.  ND beat #113 by 38, Ala beat #127 by 33, and Ga beat #127 by 36, and he conveniently gives the edge there to ND as well.  Why?

This is false advertising.  It's clearly an opinion piece, but it's disguised to look like a scientific argument.  And then you factor in what actually happened on Monday, and it kinda blows Forde's argument out of the water.

I never said it wasn't an opinion piece.  I said strength of schedule is subjective, and this article makes a good argument that ND played a tougher schedule.  The ultimate point of the article was to show that ND had shown more than the others throughout the season.  That can be true regardless of what happened last week.  ND played better than Bama over the first 12 games of the season, even if they weren't the most talented team.

and to geauxforbroke, that's how you discredit the article.

[Mr. Desmond]

Wait?

A post a pic of the most interesting aspect of the BCS Game, and this is the discussion?

With legs up to her armpits?

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by dsc123

I never said it wasn't an opinion piece.  I said strength of schedule is subjective, and this article makes a good argument that ND played a tougher schedule.  The ultimate point of the article was to show that ND had shown more than the others throughout the season.  That can be true regardless of what happened last week.  ND played better than Bama over the first 12 games of the season, even if they weren't the most talented team.

Fair enough, but I choose to disagree with Forde's conclusion in regards to the schedule strengths, because he makes soom broad assumptions.  Although, to be fair, I do have to acknowledge that my disagreement is clouded by information (Monday's result) that he did not have at the time of the article.

If I'm honest with myself and rewind to Sunday, I had also been sucked into believing that ND had a puncher's chance. :)

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by dsc123

I never said it wasn't an opinion piece.  I said strength of schedule is subjective, and this article makes a good argument that ND played a tougher schedule.

And I disagreed with the opinions of the author, then pointed out that the author has a history of making broad assumptions and making somewhat outrageous predictions (to be fair, that's what he's paid to do). Then you launched in with an (incorrect) explanation of how my argument was invalidated because of my bias against the author.

Back to my original statement: historical powerhouses will always receive higher rankings than similar teams with similar records against similar opponents. I'm not condemning the bias towards these teams, merely pointing it out.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by geauxforbroke

Back to my original statement: historical powerhouses will always receive higher rankings than similar teams with similar records against similar opponents. I'm not condemning the bias towards these teams, merely pointing it out.

I totally agree with this.  And I've always thought the solution was to stop allowing the human polls until later in the season, but I don't think that will work anymore.  Alabama and SC (or whoever) will start next season at the top and if they never lose, it will be next to impossible for anybody to pass them.  My old thinking was that if you didn't have the preseason rankings, then people would wait to form their opinions after 5 or 6 games, and the historical bias wouldn't factor in.  But that seems silly now, because it's not like the voters wouldn't still be forming opinions in the preseason and throughout the first few weeks, they just wouldn't be writing them down.

PS ... Des is right though ;)

[dsc123]

Originally Posted by geauxforbroke

Back to my original statement: historical powerhouses will always receive higher rankings than similar teams with similar records against similar opponents. I'm not condemning the bias towards these teams, merely pointing it out.

I don't disagree with this .  I do think that ND doesn't necessarily qualify, because I think they have just as many haters as they have fanboys.  But I guess that's a minor quibble.    This is part of why they should scrap the polls altogether.

[Golfingdad]

Attention all BCS bashers!!!  I know it's pretty much time to let this thread die since, you know, it's not college football season anymore, but I have one more item.  If you have read some of my past posts, you know I'm one of the few who don't mind the BCS and don't think we really "need" a playoff.  A lot of you say the "BCS sucks" and I disagree, etc, etc.  Well, I think you guys win because ...

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/one-bcs-computer-still-ranks-notre-dame-no-185628284--ncaaf.html

One of the computers that the BCS takes seriously into its equations has Notre Dame as their number one team to end the season.  Holy crap!!  Pretty sure that takes the cake.

That's all.

[Beachcomber]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

Attention all BCS bashers!!!  I know it's pretty much time to let this thread die since, you know, it's not college football season anymore, but I have one more item.  If you have read some of my past posts, you know I'm one of the few who don't mind the BCS and don't think we really "need" a playoff.  A lot of you say the "BCS sucks" and I disagree, etc, etc.  Well, I think you guys win because ...

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/one-bcs-computer-still-ranks-notre-dame-no-185628284--ncaaf.html

One of the computers that the BCS takes seriously into its equations has Notre Dame as their number one team to end the season.  Holy crap!!  Pretty sure that takes the cake.

That's all.

LOL... Exactly. What a joke.

[zipazoid]

Know the difference between Notre Dame & Lucky Charms?

Lucky Charms deserves to be in a bowl.

[dsc123]

well everyone lost one game, and notre dames loss was to the #1 team in the country!

[zipazoid]

Originally Posted by dsc123

well everyone lost one game, and notre dames loss was to the #1 team in the country!

Ehem...one didn't.