In the latest coaches poll?
more SEC BS
Eh, they won. They won ugly, and barely, but they won. Losing a place after a win is dumb, no matter who it is. It was also bullshit when Alabama jumped Cincinnati a few weeks back after their win over independent powerhouse New Mexico State.
You’ll be happy to know they dropped to #4 in the AP poll.
Nope,not happy at all, really don’t think they belong in the top 10
So you have two teams in a virtual “tie”. Different polls rank them in flipped order. The one higher in poll A squeaks out a win over an unranked team. The one ahead poll B wins convincingly over a higher ranked team. You claim poll A would be dumb to reverse the rankings?
Based on the results of a single week? Yeah. What if Higher-Ranked-A was undefeated and Higher-Ranked-B had two losses but was still in the top 25 because of conference bias?
So if Alabama beats Georgia, two SEC teams are in the CFP. But if Georgia beats Alabama, and Michigan, Cincy, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma State all win, can Alabama possibly be in the CFP?
I don’t see how they could get in, but I’m not on the committee.
Notre Dame’s regular season is already done. If they are in the top 4 come the next rankings, they are likely in the playoff. I imagine Michigan will get in if they beat Iowa. Oklahoma State really should be in if they beat Baylor. Cincinnati (if they beat Houston) will be undefeated and have a great claim to make as well.
Yes, Michigan is certainly in with a win. And I don’t see how Cincy can be excluded if they win. So it may come down to Okie State vs Notre Dame.
All of this speculation, however, assumes that Georgia beats Alabama.
I disagree vehemently. Just winning doesn’t necessarily mean anything- eking out a win over a mediocre at best team doesn’t necessarily mean that a team should hold their position in the rankings- in fact, a close win over a shit team shouldn’t be counted as much better than losing to them, especially in the rare air of the top 5 or so.
Fundamentally the problem is that there’s not a good way to realistically or accurately assess the relative competence of football teams with such a short season. And sportswriters are notoriously bandwagon-ey in terms of who they get aroused about, even if those teams are obviously not worth their rankings.
I mean, Cincinnati is 12-0 and beat Notre Dame early in the season, but they haven’t played any other Power 5 conference teams. Who’s to say that they’re not a decent team that got lucky and beat Notre Dame, or that they’re legitimately a top 5 team? Smart money says they’re going to get beaten like a red-headed stepchild in the CFB, but who knows?
Alabama is another one of those teams who haven’t been as dominant this year as in previous seasons, but they’ve got enough “they must be good, they’re Alabama.” bandwagon votes going even when they scrape it out vs. Auburn.
I don’t see it either, and I don’t see the committee doing that, either. It’s one thing to snub a Cincy but totally another to snub a one loss Big 10 champion (esp with that win over OSU) or a one loss Big XII conference champion (with wins over OU and Baylor).
It’s a rigged game but rigged in favor of the major players, and Michigan and Oklahoma State are definitely a part of the cabal.
If Alabama loses, I wouldn’t even be shocked to see one-loss Michigan and Oklahoma State over Cincy for a playoff slot. The committee is openly biased towards the Power 5 conferences.
OK, so it would be Georgia, Michigan, Oklahoma State, and who? Certainly Cincy would be in over Notre Dame, yes?
In the case of an Alabama loss with wins by all the other teams, I imagine Ohio State. Their losses aren’t that bad (and one loss is to Michigan) and there’s precedent for a team that didn’t play for the conference championship (looking at 'Bama here) to get into the playoffs anyway. Then again, there’s never been a two loss team in the playoffs, but OSU is a really big name.
I think they’ll snub Cincinnati again and Notre Dame will round out the 6. Or even jumping Notre Dame over Cincy into a playoff spot, despite the loss. I don’t trust the committee at all, to be honest. They’re not remotely objective.
I wouldn’t be shocked to see Cincy sneak into 4 with Ohio State and Notre Dame at 5 and 6 just to toss a bone to the Group of 5 but with playoff expansion all but a done deal, I think they stick with their old tricks and punt the Group of 5 to next season.
There are only four teams in the college football playoffs.
And I really cannot see any 2-loss team being in that group of four over an undefeated Cincinnati.
So, if Georgia, Michigan, Cincy, and Oklahoma State all win, I believe those will be the four teams in the CFP. Should any of the last 3 lose, Notre Dame will replace that team.
Yes, I know, but this happened last year as well.
One-loss A&M and two-loss OU (!) were ranked 5 and 6 in the final standings and undefeated Cincinatti got put in 8th. They made a big deal about 5 and 6 for prestige reasons and even there, an undefeated Group of 5 team didn’t make the cut even to the extent of being also-rans for a playoff spot.
There’s the argument about strength of schedule and a COVID shortened season, but there was the usual fan outrage about how low an undefeated team was in the final rankings.
They have a better case this year, but I can totally see the committee jumping a one loss team over an undefeated Cincinnati. They did it last year and they’ll probably do it again this year for the same reason - “strength of schedule” despite the win over Notre Dame. I’m ~70% sure they’ll rank Notre Dame over Cincy when all is said and done.
Rather than throw any particular stat out there in response to this, I’ll ask you: is there any objective measurement you believe shows how good a team is, and have you looked at any such measurements for this season? Stats don’t know Alabama is Alabama, and pretty much across the board this year’s Bama is a top 4 team statistically.
I agree with you that you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t in most cases with 100+ teams and 12 or 13 games to sort them out, but it is a little weird to me that the big argument for having a playoff (instead of rankings deciding) was that the only thing that matters is if you play and win, yet when a team stays in the playoff because it keeps winning, it is no longer true that winning is what matters. It’s not like if Georgia wins every game 104-0 and then loses to Bama 12-10 in the championship, Georgia still gets to be champion. Why is merely winning treated differently two months before the playoff?
Honest question: what are the stats that you believe prove that Alabama is a top 4 team? They are 7th in total offense and 7th in total defense according to ESPN. No other team is in the top 7 in both categories. Does that make them a top 4 team?
Rankings are a joke and the committee sees everything through dollar-colored glasses.
A tournament of only teams who’ve won their conference championship is the best way to determine the national champion. Decide which conferences get to send their champion at the beginning of the season, and go from there.
Stats are a little too funky for me to ever use the word “prove” with a straight face, but Alabama is #3 in Football Outsiders’ FEI (acronym not important) overall metric, and also #3 in Bill Connelly’s SP+ (acronym also not important) rankings, meaning that they’re also #3 in Football Outsiders’ F+ metric that combines the two, and which I use as the best overall measure of how a team has played:
They have Alabama this year at actually #2 in offense, and #13 in defense, taking into account a lot more data than total yards. Their numbers say that’s good enough for #3 overall. Georgia is #1 with a bullet at 1 and 3–the only team in even the top 12 for both. As with all such metrics, you kinda either have to spend an hour poring over the formula to decide whether it’s meaningful to you, or take them at their word to some extent. I think these are pretty good metrics, but I don’t think anybody else has to. Thus my previous question about what indicators there are that Alabama is not as good as their ranking.