The problem with this analysis is that you subjectively annointed some Non-AQ teams to BCS status. The non-BCS teams east of the Mississippi play some very good football as well. Troy St had a very good season, as did Central Michigan, and East Carolina.
And there are some non-AQ teams that deserve to be demoted to I-AA status like New Mexico St, San Jose St, Tulane, Memphis, and Western Kentucky.
Its fashionable to annoint the WAC and Mountain West to near BCS calibre. But there might be a very legitimate reason why teams like Boise run roughshod through their conference each year. Their conference competition is not very good. Look at Nevada for instance, They get blown out by a mediocre Notre Dame team, lose at home to a mediocre Missouri, and lose to terrible Colorado St. Yet they are a solid 2nd place in the WAC.
I would like to see more inter-division play. That is why I like the Bowl season so much. When else do we get see matchups like Boston College and USC and Miami and Wisconsin.
I like the weighting factor, but I don’t like the scaling factor of the weights. Instead of weights from 1 to 34, I would make the weights from 11-44. Essentially a 10 pt bonus for each game that is picked correctly. But I don’t think Yahoo (or ESPN) allows you to customized it that way.
Are we going to do this here? (Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have this debate about what system we should have, but I don’t know if this is the proper thread. If someone wants to make another thread, I’ll go there. Since notfrommensa started this, I’ll leave it up to him whether or not we should continue this, start a new thread, or ask a mod to adjust the title accordingly. That said…
This is a great system… this year, when we happen to have 2 non-BCS conference winners that are undefeated. But it’s hard to plan an 8-team playoff with this system. (If you are proposing an 8-team playoff with the 6 big conference champions and 2 at-larges, then fine. I’m just saying that the chances of having exactly 2 undefeated non-big-6’s is slim.)
I’m in favor of a type of “+1” system. One that doesn’t screw up the “traditional bowl system” too much*. You basically have the traditional bowl system, perhaps with a few added restrictions**, with the major bowls happening on or around Jan 1, and then have another BCS poll, with the new, post-bowl games #1 and #2 playing each other ~ Jan 10 in the NCG.
The futility of these 8- and 16-team playoff proposals is that they will never pass with the people in charge. (The most brilliant, benevolent, and beneficial bill ever written by a politician is absolutely worthless if it has no chance of passing.)
** I’m proposing the following restrictions for the “traditional bowl games” The feasibility and necessity of these is certainly debatable. These are listed in order of necessity/debatability:
1.) The post-season BCS #1 and #2 cannot play each other in a bowl game.
2.) The BCS #1 can only play, in their bowl game, a team ranked 3-5.
3.) The BCS #2 can only play, in their bowl game, a team ranked 3-6.
4.) The above restrictions can be modified by a ranking or 2 in order to preserve a “traditional” matchup. For example, if Big-10 champ is #2 and Pac-10 champ is #7, then the Rose Bowl can have that matchup. (This is done as a carrot to the Rose Bowl committee, which seems to love this traditional matchup, and seems to have a lot of clout with the BCS system. See * above)
I have no idea how the bowl matchups are done currently, but my thinking is that the bowl games get picked by the order of BCS rankings and bowl allegiance. For example, this year, the first pick would go to the Sugar bowl, since an SEC team is the BCS #1. They would get to match Alabama with either #3 Cinci, #4 TCU, or #5Florida. GaTech is too far out of reach at #9, (unless we expand rule #4 significantly.) They probably wouldn’t pick Florida for a rematch, so let’s say they pick Cincinatti.
I don’t know what bowl has a traditional tie-in with the Big-12, but whoever it is gets to pick who they want to play Texas. Their options now are TCU, Florida, or Boise St. Let’s say that they pick Boise St.
Now, the next BCS bowl in line gets to pick. Let’s say they pick TCU vs. Florida.
The Rose Bowl gets 4th option and picks Oregon vs. Ohio St.
After the bowl games, the votes happen again, and the #1 and #2 teams play each other. This year’s hypothetical wasn’t a good example, but I figure that most years, there will be 3 major bowl games involving the top 6 or 7 teams that have real NC implications. This system isn’t as structured as a 1v4 and 2v3 playoff system, but it leaves more room to preserve the “tradition”*, doesn’t add too many games that impose on the students’ school time (maybe this is a BS argument, but it is an argument that is used against a playoff system, so see * above.), and mostly clears up any controversy. Most years this system will produce 3 major bowl games with NC implications. (the 4th major bowl will probably get screwed, since it will be pitting a ~#5 team against a ~#10 team, but you never know.)
Let’s say, in another hypothetical year, that the #6 team beats the hell out of #2, #3 wins a squeaker against #1, # 4 beats #8 solidly, and #5 beats #10 solidly. Now it’s up to the voters to rank these teams again, based on their entire body of work. The chances that there will be more than 2 undefeated teams at this point are almost nil.
I think that this system would virtually eliminate controversy (over whether or not an undefeated non-big-6 team should get a chance at the NC, for example), and, most importantly*, have a significant chance of being adopted by the powers that be.
OK guys. Haven’t gotten any feedback on this so I assume that means everyone is cool with whatever. Here’s what we’ll do.
The top 5 confidence weights (34-30) must be the 5 BCS games:
Rose Bowl
Orange Bowl
Sugar Bowl
Fiesta Bowl
BCS Championship Game
The next 8 confidence weights (29-22) must be from the following list of Omni approved Bowl games:
Cotton Bowl
Capital One Bowl
Gator Bowl
Chick-Fil-A Bowl
Holiday Bowl
Champs Sports Bowl
Las Vegas Bowl
Sun Bowl
The rest of the games are wide open, any ranks from 21-1 may be used.
We’re using the honor system, adjust your picks accordingly sometime between now and the first bowl game on the 19th. Only 10 people signed up so far, hopefully we’ll gain a few more before kickoff.
Rucksinator: I’ve always thought the +1 was the easiest to implement, maintained the most traditon and still virtually guaranteed an undisputed champion. Your proposal is nicely thought-out.
Omni: any objections if we share the password with friends & family who are outside the SDMB community?
Not a big fan on the interface Yahoo has chosen. I like the way they do confidence points in Pick Em leagues better. Just seems easier to use. That noted, my picks are in, and the bowls weighted according to the rules noted above. Good luck all.
Probably of little interest to anyone, but Illinois has poached Arkansas’ Offensive Coordinator Paul Petrino to fill the same role at Illinois. This could be a huge addition for the Illini in a wide open Big Ten, Arkansas had the top offense in the SEC last year so there’s some serious potential. There’s a lot be read between the lines with this move.
First its very bizarre that Petrino would bail on his brother at Arkansas for a lateral move. Certainly the Illini will pay more and there’s a lot of speculation that Paul is having trouble garnering credit for the offensive production in the shadow of Bobby, so this could be a step toward building his own credentials. The Illini will have to hope that he is carrying his own weight and that he’s learned well from big brother.
Another wrinkle is that Petrino was interviewing for lower tier head coaching jobs. Western Kentucky specifically. So, obviously he has those aspirations so the Illini could be looking at a short term solution.
…unless Petrino has found himself a juicy situation under a lame duck coach in Zook. Perhaps Zook has just hired his future replacement and this OC position will be essentially an extended interview process.
No one recruits like Zook, and if Petrino is able to bring the Xs and Os from Arkansas it could be a match made in heaven while it lasts. The Illini have a lot of talent and they could recapture another Rose Bowl bid if the offense can become scary again, their running back group is an especially good fit for what Petrino may want to do.
The Illini still need to find a Defensive Coordinator but I’m excited about the potential of this move.
OK, doing some more reading it appears the Illini have made some more moves.
They added Quarterback’s Coach Jeff Brohm from FAU to reunite with Petrino from their Louisville days. Great news with Juice Williams moving on and the need to sculpt a replacement to run the new system. His credentials are excellent.
Adding Louisville Tight Ends coach Greg Nord means the Illini are essentially trying to recreate the 2006 Louisville Cardinals offense. I like the sounds of that.
I was right that Illinois broke the bank for Petrino. Guenther is serious about fixing that program, great news. That Petrino got 2 years lends credence to the possibility that he could replace Zook if they struggle again, but I’d hate to lose his recruiting.
The Illini apparently have found a Defensive Coordinator in Kansas State’s Vic Koenning. I don’t know him well and his credentials are solid but not outstanding, I do like that he’s adding experience from outside the Big Ten and perhaps his schemes from the Big 12 and SEC could be foreign to the existing regimes in the Midwest.
Most of the Illini’s defensive assistants will remain in reduced roles, so perhaps that makes them overqualified to do what they’ll be doing. In any case that modicum of continuity should help on a Illini defense that actually showed some potential last year within the conference.
Yes, yes. First and foremost it is a At-Large bid. However, undefeated teams winning a non-BCS conference are an automatic qualifier should the case arise (just like they’re an automatic qualifier if they’re in the top 8[?] this year). Important to keep in mind these “automatic qualifiers” were probably/hopefully at the top of the At-Large bid list anyway. Add some rule requiring a quality win or two for non BCS schools, and you’re off.
Second choice: unlike rucksinator, I wouldn’t tie the 8-team playoff to conference championships. I would use the BCS formula to seed the playoff. So if one conference has 2 teams in the top 8, they get 2 teams in the playoff. If a conference champion or an undefeated team isn’t in the top 8, they don’t get a ticket to the dance.
Thinking back on what I just wrote, this is kind of a disincentive for conference championship games. If Florida and Alabama (for example) were both teetering on the edge of the Top 8, they would be very reluctant to play each other before the postseason tournament.
Can someone shed some light on something for me? Oklahoma vs. Stanford. OK is an 8 point favorite, yet the “Y! Experts” and 63% of people picked Stanford. I’m trying to figure out why. My best guess is that Stanford plays best against good opponents. Their MO this year has been to beat ranked teams and lose to unranked teams. I guess if there was more (like their GB and offensive line getting DUI’s), then it would be reflected in the spread. (FWIW, I initially picked Stanford, but am wondering why OK is such a big favorite amongst the bookies.)
[BTW, I don’t think I said anything about an 8-team playoff. That was probably Cyberhwk]
Sorry about the mis-attribution…I was just too lazy to scroll up.
I think Stanford gained some aura by convincing wins over USC and Oregon, becoming the media darling for about a week. Lost some luster by losing to Cal, then regained it by beating Notre Dame. Toby Gerhart is a wrecking ball – the game will be fun to watch, just for him.
On the other hand, they will be without their starting QB. And their defense stinks. Stoops has been to a bazillion bowls; Harbaugh exactly zero. I think Oklahoma wins, and quite likely covers.
