You got that right. Ugh. (SC vs Stanford…can they both lose?)
When there’s a small number of playoff teams (as opposed to March Madness), the whole point of the playoff is to pair off teams who don’t have any context against each other. Each conference is playing more or less in a bubble – let’s pick the best teams from each bubble, see how they do against each other, and determine a winner.
Which is my way of saying: if you’re not the #1 team in your conference there’s no way you can be #1 in the country.
Again, the SEC has had several big OOC games this year. Alabama FSU, Georgia ND, Auburn Clemson, Florida Michigan, and LSU Troy (:D). They also have other legit match ups. LSU played BYU and Syracuse, South Carolina played NC State, Tennessee played GT. Plus there are standing intra-conference rivalry games like Georgia GT and Clemson SC.
8 conference games + 1 legitimate OOC opponent just brings some SEC teams up to the same level as those conferences with 9 conference games. Then, we get to discuss the remaining 3 OOC opponents.
Italics are the “worst” score in a category, bold the “best”.
I did not include G5, FCS, or Independent schools.
I do think it’s a little interesting to note that only the SEC and ACC played each other after September. All of the Big1$, Pac12, and Big12 inter-P5 games were played in September.
The NCAA tried that in basketball through 1974 or so. Too many instances of the top two teams in the country being in the same conference. Or do you want to go to Villanova and demand they give back their 2016 basketball trophy since they didn’t win the Big East tournament?
When you build a tournament with 64 teams, it’s a whole different dynamic. The regular season exists only to provide entry and seeding into the tournament. The “national champion” is actually just the winner of the tournament. So it’s perfectly valid to take multiple teams from the same conference.
When you’re only selecting 4 teams for a shot at the “national championship” then the criteria has to be different.
A lot of college football fans love to talk about how overrated the SEC is. Right up until New Year’s Day. About the time an SEC team punches their team in the mouth and takes their lunch money.
I heard an interesting commentary on Sports Talk Radio this morning where one of the dudes mentioned that Bowl games are so different from the regular season games because most of them are essentially Exhibition Games (outside the playoffs) so coaches use unusual formations, try players in unusual positions and of course have much more time to prepare. There’s also the factor of high profile players either not playing or maybe playing safe in preparation for the NFL Draft.
Let’s see what happens in the bowls…especially the cute little flag / nerf football west coast teams of the PAC 12 when they face the might of the S - E - C
No, why would I remember Texas A&M? They were forced on us because the Big 12 was done with them. They were an orphan and we gave them a home. They had the audacity to violate our etiquette by beating our number 1 team when this was clearly an exhibition game. All’s good though. Order has been restored. We will force Kevin Sumlin and his Nerf game out of the conference and rebuild A&M into a better, more physical program.
