Florida
Nebraska
Michigan
All looking for coaches…some traditional powerhouse programs there.
How do you figure that tOSU ranks ahead of Baylor/TCU? Seems like strength of schedule pretty clearly favors either Big 12 team. OSU has one win against a currently ranked team, TCU has two and Baylor will have three if they beat Kansas State. Both of their losses are much less embarrassing than tOSU’s.
And BTW, I hate to break the news to you, but the Ducks also played that game in 95 degree heat. Best of luck in your bowl game, though!
Alabama-Birmingham has officially dropped its football program, although they have not decided yet whether or not to accept a bowl bid if they are offered one this year. While this could be good news for other schools, who can have UAB players transfer and play immediately (the “one-year sit out” rule does not apply if the school you leave dropped the sport you were playing), I see some other problems for UAB’s other sports.
Problem #1: if I read the website correctly, UAB now only has five men’s sports (basketball, baseball, soccer, golf, and tennis). One problem: all NCAA Division I schools must sponsor at least six men’s sports. This shouldn’t be a problem for this academic year, but the school is going to have to do something about it. The options include:
(a) Drop down to Division II, but I don’t see that happening unless the NCAA lets it stay in Division I in baseball and men’s basketball, and I think they would only be allowed to be in Division I in one men’s sport (which would almost certainly be basketball, if for no other reason than the TV contract money);
(b) Put a man on the women’s rifle team - voila, now it’s the “coed” rifle team (which is how the NCAA treats all schools’ rifle teams anyway, at least in terms of championships), which counts as the sixth men’s sport;
© Find five scholarship football players who don’t want to leave UAB and can run 10K - voila, UAB now has a men’s cross-country team! (Alternatively, if they need 12, or 13 if one is willing to accept a 30% reduction in scholarship money, they can form a men’s track team).
I wouldn’t be surprised if UAB does add one or two new men’s sports next year, in part because they need to spend money on men’s sports in order to maintain the balance.
Problem #2: apparently, Conference USA doesn’t allow non-football schools. I wonder if the AAC is accepting any more “basketball-only” schools.
Problem #3: 85 men’s scholarships, and quite a bit of men’s sports spending, just disappeared. UAB has to reduce the number of women’s scholarships and women’s sports spending accordingly; this could even result in dropping one or two women’s sports - for example, bowling and outdoor (sand/beach) volleyball (although adding men’s sports should alleviate the problem a bit). Either that, or try to convince five Supreme Court justices that “Title IX only applies to helping women.”
If beating historically good teams that are having down years is a criteria, then FSU should be the undisputed #1 team in the country.
For christ sakes, Out of Conference they beat FLORIDA (two National Championships in the last ten years). FSU beat Notre Dame who played for the National Championship two years ago. FSU beat Oklahoma State who was ranked #3 in the final 2011 AP Poll. There is not Power5 Conference teamthat approached that kind of OoC schedule
Michigan, Nebraska and Penn State sucked this year and this was eloquently addressed by DinoR last night.
The B1G had far more statement Losses than they did Statement wins Out of Conference.
Lets take things out of context, shall we? Last time I checked, Notre Dame has some football cred, unlike say a Jacksonville St. They played for the Nat’l Championship two years ago. FSU should be applauded for playing the OoC schedule that they played. Not criticized because those programs are in a down year and that they didn’t beat them enough.
Somehow I think if FSU had a cremepuff OoC schedule like Western Michigan, Northern Illinois and Akron and beat them 63-10 in each game, they would not be criticized as much.
Scroll up the thread, the discussion centered around teams being forced to play a couple games OoC against Power5 Conference. FSU played three (if you included Notre Dame)
FSU played 8 conference games that they are forced to play. Clemson, Boston College, Miami have had (or have) successful football programs. OoC they had Florida, Okie State, and Notre Dame. There is no apologizing for that schedule. They can’t help that these teams had down years. Those teams had a better chance of being Top 10 teams than J-Ville State, Wyoming and Eastern Michigan.
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From the link you provided earlier (emphasizing relevant portion)
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If you can point to any other Statement OoC wins from the B1G other than the aforementioned Indiana win against Mizzou I will concede the B1G Conference Championship is noteworthy. As I said…it was absolutely inevitable that some team from the B1G was going to win the B1G Championship.
notfrommensa, I discussed the schedule issue above. I do think that FSU deserves a lot of respect for putting together what seemed at the time to be a very tough schedule; every other major team, as far as I can tell, scheduled at least 2 gimmes, while FSU scheduled only one. So, congratulations. What they don’t deserve is to be treated as if they played a stronger schedule than they actually did. If Wyoming somehow became a powerhouse and lost only one game to, say, Cal, would you say that Cal shouldn’t get credit for a quality win because they expected the game to be easy when they scheduled it?
OK, let’s pretend that conference championships don’t matter and just compare a hypothetical 12-1 tOSU and FSU directly. tOSU would have two wins which are better than FSU’s best (Michigan State and Wisconsin). OTOH tOSU’s loss would be to a much worse team than FSU’s was. So it’s a debatable case; you could still argue that tOSU had a better year even without considering the championship. Unless, I guess, you just arbitrarily declare that all the journalists and coaches who vote in the polls don’t know what they’re talking about and none of the Big 10 teams are really any good at all. Oh, and by the way, I’ll emphasize this because you’ve ignored it the last 2 times I’ve brought it up: THE BIG 10 WAS 3-1 AGAINST THE ACC THIS YEAR.
New CFP rankings out! FSU has fallen to #4, which I think is ridiculous but can’t help chuckling a little about after the day’s discussions.
Not sure how Ole Miss and Miss St BOTH fall in the ratings after the Egg Bowl, though I have been arguing that Ole Miss is overrated for some time and think the new ratings are closer to right. OTOH Georgia Tech moves ahead of Wisconsin, slightly denting my argument in the post above (but I also thought Wisconsin was overrated previously. Maybe the committee are reading my posts!).
:dubious::dubious:
I haven’t denied the B1G is 3-1 against the ACC. Maryland beat Syracuse and Nebraska beat Miami and Iowa beat Pitt. Syracuse, Miami, and Pitt were 8-16 in Conference play and the Iowa, Neb, Maryland were 13-11. Add in Va Tech and tOSU records and we get the B1G teams at 21-11 and the ACC teams was 11-21 in league play.
Congratulations, the B1G avg to best teams were better than ACC’s worst to average teams. Predictable and Big Deal.
I will not concede that Michigan State and Wisconsin are more noteworthy wins for tOSU over FSU’s Clemson win. Neither Wisky beat any relevant team OoC. Wyoming (4-8), E. Michigan (2-10), J-ville St (FCS), Western Illinois (FCS), South Florida (4-8), Bowling Green (7-5). Clemson beat an average SEC teams OoC (UGA and USCe) and their three losses are against UGA, GT, and FSU. Wisky lost against an average SEC team
The Selection Committee is a bunch of whores owned by ESPN. Whatever. Frankly I’d rather end up #4. We play 'Bama close to home and the winner moves on. Fuck 'em.
Having seen how this committee thing is working out this year, it’s first, I have to say that it seems like a stupid, arbitrary and completely objectionable way to put together a small tournament for the purpose of declaring someone a “champion”. There are no clear cut criteria, no standards, no benchmarks… it seems like bullshit, in other words. I thought it sounded like bullshit when they announced the whole thing last year, and it seems like bullshit now that I’m watching it happen.
At least with the coaches polls, there was plenty of volume to dilute the idiotic or self-gratifying voters.
notfrommensa, I’m going to cry uncle now. Clearly we aren’t going to reach a consensus. Have a nice evening, and sorry if I got testy.
Bo, I certainly agree that it would be nice to have more transparency and objectivity in the process. I don’t see why they can’t just say that undefeated and one-loss champions get in automatically, then if necessary look at the pool of two-loss champions and one-loss non-champions. Break ties by lottery. Everyone knows what they have to do to guarantee a spot, and if they lose the lottery they can’t really accuse the ping-pong balls of conference bias. The merits of this exact system aside, it shouldn’t be that difficult to work out a simple system based on objective on-field results.
On the other hand, I do note that the CFP and coaches poll currently have the same four teams in their top four, albeit in different orders, so it doesn’t seem that things have gotten dramatically worse.
Yesterday, I corrected a **Omar Little ** post saying that FSU had not beat a single Top 25 team
FSU of course has beaten Clemson. Upon Further Review, FSU has also beat Louisville which is of course in the Top 25, and been there for two weeks. And they are in the CFP Top 25 poll as well.
If tOSU happens to beat Wisconsin this weekend they will have as many wins against Top 25 teams that FSU has right now.
So lets examine at this FSU schedule which Thing Fish claimed to be “lame”.
Non Conference: Okie State, Florida and Notre Dame (and their one and only cupcake Citadel)
Conference: Miami, Louisville, Clemson, Boston College, Wake, Syracuse, NC State, Virginia
If Okie State wins this weekend, FSU will have beat 8 Bowl Eligible teams.
Edit: Saw Thing Fish last post after posting. I apologize if I got testy as well.
With FSU dropping in the CFP rankings, and the committee is claiming that they are not emphasizing Margin of Victory, they are lying!
I’ve seen several quotes from the committee saying that they look at “control of the game.”
I’d guess that a team that led 9-0 early in the game, and stayed at least 9 points ahead for the entire game, could win by 9 and still be said to have been in control of the game at all times, since they were never in danger of losing the lead. 9 points is a fairly small margin of victory.
But a team that won by 30+ points, a large margin, would likely have been leading by 9 or more for much of the game. And a team that trailed most of the game, but rallied in the last couple of minutes to win by a small margin, could not be said to have had control of the game. So although in practice there’s probably a strong correlation between margin of victory and control of the game, they’re not the same thing.
ETA: That said, if Condoleezza is on the committee, then yes, they’re probably lying.
I’m going to have to agree with you here. Dropping FSU to #4 is fucking idiotic!
Pretty damn Subjective if you ask me
How much “control of the game” did 'Bama have against Ole Miss?
Oregon against Arizona St?
TCU against Baylor?
/Rhetorical
FSU had control of the game when it was over for each of their 12 games. And that should trump anything that a one loss team has.
So if only the last play in Marshall’s season (the 2 pt conversion by WKY) went differently they’d also be 12-0. Should they be in in that case ahead of Alabama, Oregon, and TCU? Why shouldn’t they get the #1 seed instead of FSU after say a non-subjective coin flip?
They didn’t win so the question is moot. They didn’t get it done against a lesser opponent.
But, if they are winning their conference championship against Louisiana Tech, they still should be considered (at least just as much as Ohio State as presumed B1G Champions w/ One loss)
The best* B1G teams had a combined 1-4 record against teams from Power Five Conferences. Losses to Oregon (MSU), TCU (Minn), Va Tech (tOSU), and LSU (Wisc). A win against Miami (Neb).
*Best = Teams with a winning Conference Record.
From what I’ve heard is that the former head coaches on the committee, primarily Barry Alvarez and Tom Osborne, have dominated the discussions within the committee meetings and are driving much of the group think.
I also don’t get the separation of Baylor and TCU from #3 to #6.
Same record; Minnesota vs. Buffalo; Head to head match-up…
As I said above, I expected TCU to be ahead of Baylor this week, but not 3 notches and not ahead of FSU.
Don’t get it.