I’m not sure how it’s done in other states, but here in Kansas every high school team is in the postseason tournaments for both football and basketball. It starts at the district level, then onto sub-state, and finally the state tournament. Yes, the teams with the worst records play the teams with the best records, but each and every team has a chance, however slim it might be.
In Michigan every team makes the basketball tourney but far fewer make football based on some computer formula. An all inclusive tourney is doable for basketball just because you can get more games in a week.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that in Kansas, the last 3 games of the regular season are all district games; the top two district finishers continue on to the next round.
You know Washington was a 10 point dog to Oregon in the Pac-12 championship game right? And Georgia was a 6 point favorite over Alabama right? If we went with “I think that’s what it’d be doing” and eye tests and all that nonsense, Oregon and Georgia are in. Instead we played the games on the field and let that decide.
No kidding. What is Millionaire Caleb Whatshisname going to learn from Maurice Gausdwards about finance that he either needs to know or can’t hire someone to handle for him? That Oceanography class to fulfill that one weird requirement? Fuck You! I’m a Goddamn Multi-Millionaire because I can throw a ball! Fuck the Ocean!
Saw a clip today which pretty well shot down the argument that they picked “the best 4 teams” for this playoff.
They essentially said that Vegas would put a line on an Ohio State - Washington game of around 7 points. Similarly Georgia would be a 8.5 point favorite over Washington. Which I think is a heck of a good argument. Pretty much no one thinks that Washington is one of the 4 best teams but there wasn’t an excuse like an injured QB to point at.
And Vegas said Utah would beat Washington … except they didn’t. The game is played on the field not in a sportsbook.
That’s not the point though.
The point is that the perception before the game is that those teams are better. If the argument is that right now the experts believe that these are the best 4 teams…then they should be favored over all the other teams on a neutral field.
There is only one answer to the question, “Which team is better?”
The answer is the team that has more points after the game. That is the only real answer. Every other answer is wrong.
So when you’re figuring out tournament/playoff seeding and you’re using any metric other than wins, then you are not really putting the “best” teams in there.
College is complicated because you have so many teams, so they have “style points” and such. But I’d favor a far more objective approach. There has to be a way to establish tiebreakers between teams with identical records aside from “they look better”.
Sure. That’s obvious. But the context is that we’re simply countering what the CFP committee (and the talking heads) is saying. Today, it’s not a proper tournament. There are too many teams with too many competing interests. It’s not based on wins today, so the purist’s position is academic.
The CFP is telling us that they believe that Michigan, Washington, Alabama and Texas are the 4 best teams. Vegas is telling us they are not. If you think the CFP is smarter than Vegas, you can make that case, but pointing out the fallacy of any rankings in principle is a different discussion.
Yeah, I agree with you. They’re trying to have their cake and it eat it too.
These teams are the best because they’re undefeated. Okay… What about this other team that’s undefeated? Oh, well they’re not as good because they don’t win decisively and they lost their star QB and did you see how much they struggled on the field? They looked bad even though they won.
Pick one or the other. Are you going by record or which teams look the strongest? They’re using both metrics simultaneously, making it a case-by-case thing. That’s awful.
CFP can claim 4 things I think.
- It’s based on wins and losses.
- It’s based on Conference titles.
- It’s the best 4 teams.
- It’s completely arbitrary and largely based on TV ratings.
One is demonstrably false. If it was wins and losses then it would be Michigan, FSU, Washington and Liberty. Or if not Liberty, then at least Michigan, Washington, FSU and Texas.
Two is defensible since they picked the B1G champ, SEC champ, Pac 12 champ, Big 12 champ and left out the ACC champ. Between the ACC, Pac 12 and Big 12, I’m not sure which P5 conference title is the flimsiest. If you say that record is irrelevant and titles matter, I’d actually be OK with that. Just make it a 6-team playoff so all P5 schools plus one G5 team. Of course the long history of including two SEC or B1G teams would make this argument extremely dubious. Also, if Iowa had beat Michigan the shit storm would have been hilarious.
Three is subjective and likely the closest to what the CFB thinks they are doing. Of course, they are so biased to the blue bloods that they can’t help themselves. I think Vegas is the best and most objective judge so this year’s crop is very obviously not the “best” and I bet in most years there’d be a similar issue.
Four is of course what the truth is. But no one can say that out loud.
Are they; is it somewhere in their mandate to pick the 4 best teams? Think of Major League Baseball back before there was interleague play. The winner of the AL and the winner of the NL played in the World Series. That doesn’t mean they’re the first and second best teams in the game, just that each might potentially be the best.
Agreed. The conference champs aren’t necessarily the best team in the conference. What does “best” mean? The Steelers lost to the Patriots last night, but which team is better? The Patriots were better last night. If Iowa upset Michigan in the Big 10 game, would that mean they are a better team, or just “one of those games” that sometimes happens?
The playoff system seems to have created as much controversy as it solved. In a way, I prefer the old method of regular bowl games and arbitrary rankings everyone could bitch about. Now we just bitch about who makes the playoffs.
If we have to have a playoff, this is the system that I’d actually be happiest with.
Round 1:
B1G Title Game
SEC Title Game
ACC Title Game
Pac-12 Title Game
Big 12 Title Game
Wild Card Game 1 (G5 Champ + P5/Independant At Large)
Wild Card Game 2 (G5 Champ + P5/Independant At Large)
Wild Card Game 3 (G5 Champ + P5/Independant At Large)
This leaves out 2 of the G5 Champs, so there’ll need to be some ranking mechanism in place to decide which 3 G5s get in. But I think that’s tolerable and if there’s a situation where there’s really more than 3 strong G5 champs, then they can be considered for an at-large bid too. The biggest downside is that you’ll potentially have Alabama-Georgia or Texas-Oklahoma facing off in Round 1. I personally don’t care. We already have Michigan-OSU or whoever getting “eliminated” in their rivalry weeks prior. Also Notre Dame getting a cupcake in the 1st round every year would be relatively annoying, but again, just make the damn Conference title games officially the play-in games they already are. Teams losing their Championship games should not be getting playoff bids. This isn’t round robin.
Yes, that’s exactly what they are saying. What else are rankings if not their statement of who is best?
There’s a difference between
“These are the four best teams.”
and
“These are the four teams most likely to be #1.”
You’d have to do some serious contortion to justify that claim.
As I said, the CFP is actually only concerned with serving their interests. So I don’t really know what the contention here is. I’m not asserting anything about what is or isn’t just here, just pointing out the CFPs inconsistency.
nitpick: ‘independent’ is the correct spelling.
Before there were divisions and playoffs, the winner of each league was indisputably the best team in that league. So while the WS might not have showcased the two best teams in the game, it certainly had the best team.
I don’t argue that it’s a bit of a clusterfuck this year, but saying it’s either 1-3 or completely arbitrary is an unnecessary exaggeration. The reality is that every year it is a combination of 1 and 3, and this is the first year they got called out on it. So they are saying* it’s the best team that decides, but wins and losses still play into that. Washington is in on win/loss criteria, Alabama mostly on “best team”, and Texas on a little win/loss, a little best team.
*has the CFB actually said they based it on best team, or is that everyone else saying it must be?