Alabama lost to Mississippi.
Mississippi lost to Auburn.
Auburn lost to Texas A&M.
Texas A&M lost to Missouri.
Missouri lost to Indiana.
Indiana lost to Maryland.
Maryland lost to Wisconsin.
Wisconsin lost to LSU.
LSU lost to Mississippi State.
Mississippi State lost to Alabama…
Thanks for the help in completing my chain. Of course it’s silly, you can construct them to mean about whatever you want. But in truth the season is so short and there are so few out of conference games that there really is never any definitive proof that a team from conference A is better than a team from conference B. I wish CFB would take a page from basketball and open up the tourney to more teams. I don’t care what conference you’re in, be it MAC, Sun Belt, WAC, whatever, if you win the championship you should get in. So I say take every conference champion plus enough independents/runners up to make a 16 team tourney. Let the top 8 teams as ranked by a committee host the bottom 8 in mid-December. New Years Day then 4 major bowls can make the quarter finals, a week later have the semis and then the finals the next week.
Really wish the college playoffs would be expanded to 8 teams, not 4.
Here’s a list I found on Usenet:
Bowling Green beat Indiana
Western Kentucky beat Bowling Green
Alabama-Birmingham beat Western Kentucky
Florida International beat Alabama-Birmingham
Bethune-Cookman beat Florida International
Hampton beat Bethune-Cookman
Morgan State beat Hampton
Holy Cross beat Morgan State
Brown beat Holy Cross
Georgetown beat Brown
Dayton beat Georgetown
Drake beat Dayton
Grandview beat Drake
Marian IN beat Grandview
Robert Morris beat Marian IN
Siena Heights beat Robert Morris
St Joseph’s IN beat Siena Heights
Missouri S&T beat St Joseph’s IN
William Jewell beat Missouri S&T
South Dakota Tech beat William Jewell
WI River Falls beat South Dakota Tech
WI Stout beat WI River Falls
Dakota Wesleyan beat WI Stout
Northwestern IA beat Dakota Wesleyan
Bacone beat Northwestern IA
Wayland beat Bacone
Sul Ross beat Wayland
Trinity TX beat Sul Ross
Willamette beat Trinity TX
Puget Sound beat Willamette
Occidental beat Puget Sound
Cal Lutheran beat Occidental
Claremont Mudd Scripps beat Cal Lutheran
My prediction:
Auburn beats Alabama
Mississippi beats Mississippi St.
Four teams from the SEC now go to the playoffs: Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, Miss. St. or maybe Georgia gets in somehow.
I would prefer a top ten playoff scheme. The six top-performing conferences (based on overall OoC records) would send their top team, and there would be four WCs, all seeded by the old-style three-legged BCS ranking.
In the first round, mixed in with the early “consolation bowls” in December, it would be #10vs#3 through #7vs#6; in the second round, #1 and #2 would face the lowest-seeded winners, giving the highest-seeded winners of the first round a bye; thence, in late December or early January, the “final four” elimination games, perhaps as major venue bowls, followed by the single championship game, and thus not drawing out the season any longer than it already is.
I can top that one!
FSU lost to…well…um…
Okay, last year FSU lost to…well…darn.
Wait, got it! In 2012 FSU lost to Florida.
So, something, something, something, SEC Rulez!!!1!!!1
I don’t get a flying fuck what ESPN’s Fuckbag College Football Playoff Committee™ says, we are number one until somebody beats us. If any SEC school had that record, they wouldn’t be talking about fucking Game Control*, they’d be number one until proven otherwise.
- Only Game Control I ever heard about (until the giant SEC cocksucking of 2014) was the scoreboard and it only counts when the clock reads 0.
Some technical football talk about how Melvin Gordon and Wisconsin outplayed the famed Blackshirts of Nebraska:
And from Grantland:
His frozen dreadlocks cutting like Samson’s mighty mane through the icy nimbus of a slate-gray Wisconsin afternoon, Gordon’s magnum opus in his team’s biggest game of the year fully warrants the hyperbole. Sleeveless in the snow, undaunted by the threat of frostbite or fatigue, Gordon careered through the catacombs of the Cornhuskers defense time and again, a phantom appearing to mere mortals as an evanescent swirl of cardinal and white en route to the end zone.
In my opinion, the worst possible thing that can happen, as long a shot as it is, is:
(a) Somehow, Florida State stays undefeated but ends up #5 in the CFP;
(b) The #3 or #4 team, which is ranked behind FSU in both of the polls, ends up winning the CFP championship;
© The coaches in the Amway (USA Today) poll think long and hard, and enough of them decide to put FSU #1 in the final poll - note that, unlike the BCS, there does not appear to be any agreement between the American Football Coaches Association and the CFP that requires that the coaches vote the CFP champion as its own national champion as well;
(d) The sportswriters in the AP poll also decide that FSU deserves the #1 spot.
What’s the problem? I’m getting to that…
(e) The CFP champion school tries to give out “College Football National Championship” rings to its players.
(f) The NCAA points out that, since the CFP champion is not the national champion chosen by the national coaches’ association in that sport nor by any national wire-service poll, the bylaws prohibit that school awarding separate “national championship” awards of any sort, and any player that receives one risks losing any remaining football eligibility, in addition to any punishment given to the school.
Then again, what would probably happen next is:
(g) I think the players can receive “CFP Championship Game Participation” rings - the bylaws aren’t clear on this (they are allowed for bowl games, but the NCAA does not consider the championship game a “bowl game”) - and the NCAA does not mind if they carve “CFP National Champions” on those, similar to what Auburn got in 2004, as long as they don’t receive separate rings just for the CFP championship.
Alternatively, the rings the players can receive from the school for being in the Rose or Sugar Bowl can be modified accordingly.
The NCAA members jumped through a number of hoops to get ready for the CFP, but seemed to have forgotten this one.
Nominations for the Overwriting Award For 2014 are now closed.
I’d be happy for any team but Alabama to win the championship.
Yeah, maybe not. We happened to be in Madison Saturday. There was no snow. It was wake-you-up bracing, but “snow” is just right out.
Sure looks like snow to me:
Snowed from the end of the third quarter through the end of the game.
There was rain mixed with snow before that.
Of course the Grantland thing was overwritten. That’s in the tradition.
Just put a “g” in the middle of “beat” and it sounds downright Biblical.
If Ole Miss beats Miss St. and UGA/Mizzou beats Bama in the SEC CG, there would be no SEC teams with fewer than 2 losses. Assuming Oregon, FSU, Ohio State, TCU and Baylor all win out, does an SEC team get in the playoffs then?
Sadly, I think that based on strength of schedule, a good case could be made that the two-loss SEC champion (Ole Miss, I think, could also theoretically win the title with two losses) would still have a better resume than OSU or Baylor (I assume that, even though TCU is currently ranked higher, the committee couldn’t overlook both the conference championship, which Baylor would have if it wins out, and the head-to-head win). The exception might possibly be if Missouri wins the SEC, since there seems to be a consensus that they are not on the same level as the other SEC teams with comparable records. Now, if Georgia loses to Georgia Tech (or Charleston Southern! Can’t overlook Charleston Southern!) and then wins the SEC title with THREE losses, especially over a two-loss Ole Miss team, it could get interesting.
I have been looking overa few sites which crunch numbers to rank strength of schedule, and this has confirmed my belief that, like Bob said above, this is far from an exact science. For example, I was wondering specifically if my impression that Baylor’s schedule is stronger than Ohio State’s is correct; all three of these sites agree that it is, but only one sees a significant difference, and one site sees Baylor as #11, while the others have them down in the 50s or 60s. There does seem to be pretty good general agreement that the SEC West schools have the toughest schedules, though.
By the end of the season, typically there are few enough 0 and 1 loss teams that it sorts itself out.
Rarely have I seen a team ranked 5 that I thought should have a shot. I think 4 top teams, as long as record is a substantial component and humans only do some fine tuning, I think it should be ok.
So, in response to, um, no particular demand, here is my top 10:
1. Florida State
Weakest schedule of the contenders, but you have to respect the 0. Although they have no real good wins, I also want to give them credit for being the only contender that restricted itself to one cupcake on the nonconference schedule.
2. Oregon
Toughest schedule of the one-loss teams
3. TCU
4. Alabama
5. Miss. St
There’s a real conundrum at this 3-5 zone, which of course is exactly where you don’t want a conundrum: Miss St has a tougher schedule than TCU, which has a better loss than Alabama, which beat Miss St. I’ll keep TCU in the playoff zone for now, but that could change, since both SEC schools still have the opportunity for quality wins, and TCU doesn’t.
6. Baylor
Baylor’s loss is sufficiently embarrassing that I’m keeping them below TCU despite the head-to-head win, but a win over KSU and a Big 12 title should get them into the top 4.
7. Ohio State
Lame schedule and a really laughable loss means they need help to crack the top 4. I think the Spartans are better, but will respect the head-to-head result.
8. UCLA
Toughest schedule of the two-loss teams
9. Michigan State
see above
10. Arizona
Best win of the year and no bad losses
Bit of a hijack, but it does put things in perspective.
We Are FSU.
It occurred to me that not everybody would know what I was talking about.
For those of you who haven’t heard, FSU had a campus shooting last night at the University library building. 3 people were injured (and we’re lucky it wasn’t more) and the shooter was killed by FSU PD.
While most people responded appropriately, there were, as there always are, others who did not. Those who tried to tie this to the football program. To Jameis Winston. To a culture of athletic worship. These people include a writer for the NY Times and an ESPN “intern”.
To those people, I say:
We Are FSU.