College Football playoff?

Great Debates
41

I will freely admit that the Big 8 kicked the Big 10’s ass in 1994 and 1995. But here’s what I actually said:

I think that the data both I and Hubzilla have provided support that assertion. If you would also like to look at bowl records, check these out:
Year: Big10, Big12
1998: 5-0, 3-4
1997: 2-5, 2-3
1996: 4-3, 2-3
Total: 11-8, 7-10

Lastly, I would like to point out an excellent site for college football http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~dwilson/rsfc/rate . It is a compilation of all the computer ranking systems and the polls. I find that it is the most unbiased ranking available (although it too has its flaws) because these biases tend to average out. According to this ranking:
1998 Big10:
2,4,10,12,17,33,50,62,77,86,89; avg=40
1998 Big12:
6,9,15,16,20,29,40,44,54,68,75; avg=38
These data seem to indicate that the Big 12 is better overall although the Big 10’s top 5 teams are clearly better.

1997 Big10:
3,11,17,19,25,32,46,58,80,91,105; avg=44
1997 Big12:
1,7,22,35,37,38,44,71,74,76,86,101; avg=49
Note the 5 to 3 ratio of Top 25 teams.

1996 Big10:
2,6,16,17,22,24,35,55,57,60,83; avg=34
1996 Big12:
4,7,18,21,32,41,54,59,69,70,71,73; avg=43
Except for Illinois, every Big10 team is ranked higher than the corresponding Big12 team.

Each piece of data here is not conclusive in and of itself, but I think the overall picture is that the Big 10 has been better than the Big 12 for the last three years (although I have and will freely admit that the Big 8+4 was better in 1994 and 1995).

Jason, that’s an interesting point you bring up and I wholeheartedly agree. If we dropped the Big West, and combined the best of the MAC and C_USA into one conference, and redistrbuted the independents we could have 8 conferences of approx. 12 teams and have an 8 team playoff of their champions. But the logistics of that would be ungodly.

TheDude

42

I think you guys are falling into a circular logic pit fall. While I agree that we need to prune the D-IA, it is unreasonable to base that statement on the Tier I/ranking ratio. I’d counter that the conferences rated Tier I were rated as such because of their dominance, and not that the ratings were influenced by the Tier of their conference. Make sense?

For the record, the Big 10 is historically and recently a decidedly better conference. Not to mention that way too many of the Big XII schools play on turf, that is a big minus. I like to remind you of the importance of non-conference schedules. While I don’t have the data, I’d wager with the likes of Notre Dame, Syracuse, and frequent PAC-10 rivals the Big 10 makes efforts to face the toughest competition. The difference is that Big 10 teams expect to be National Champs, Big XII teams conceed Nebraska and hope to make a bowl.

43

TheDude, I understand you said the “last three years”, but I was also answering an earlier posting by Omniscient:

I suppose I wanted to kill two birds with one stone. My bad.

What a terrific site! Especially the compilations. I wish I had seen this earlier, especially during the Nebraska/Michigan debates I had last year.

http://www.mratings.com/cf/compare97.htm
Of the 47 polls listed in 1997, Nebraska is #1 in 36 of them, Michigan only 9. In fact, Florida State finished #2, above Michigan in many of them.

Fine, I’m an NU fan first, Big XII fan second. Nebraska won the championship in 1994 and 1995. Plus the above compilations speak strongly for the legitimacy of NU’s claim in 1997. I’m satisfied, TheDude (and I will admit that 1998 is best forgotten by Nebraska fans, anyway).

Omniscient said:

O-o-o-o-kay…

“It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument” - William McAdoo

44

Uh, folks?

I know we all have strong opinions about who the best team was in any given year, but that really isn’t the issue on this board. On this board, the issue is, why should NCAA football championships come down to a vote by sportswriters, rather than a real playoff!
Whether you’re a Nebraska/Big 12 booster or a Michigan/Big 10 fan OUGHT to be irrelevant.

In recent years, Nebraska has shared a national title with a Big 10 team and squeaked past another undefeated Big 10 team (Penn State). I enjoy arguing hypotheticals as much as the next guy (for the record, I think Nebraska was probably better than Penn State, but I had zero respect for Scott Frost, and think Michigan was better than Nebraska. But again… who cares about MY opinion, or John Cooper’s opinion, or ANY sportswriters’ opinion? Why can’t the top teams play each other? No sane person can argue that sportswriters’ educated guesses are a better way to determine a champion than playing it out on the field.

But if you REALLY think polls are the way to go, why stop at college football? Abolish the Super Bowl! Let the writers vote as to whether the NFC’s top team would beat the AFC’s top team. Of course, with a stupid system like that, the Colts would be the 1969 football champs, and the Packers would have walloped the Broncos in all the polls.

45

OK, see if this math makes it for you:

NFL: 31 teams, 17 week 16 game season, 6 week 3-4 game post season, good players play for 12-13 years.

NCAA: 116 teams, 15 week, 11-12 game season, 4 week 1-2 game post season, good players play for 4 years MAX, most play 1-2 years as starters.

Or how about this:

Playoffs: a whole bunch of meaningless games, with only one that matters to ANYBODY.

Bowl Games: a dozen games which make a whole lot of schools and advertisers BUTTLOADS of cash, and allow more than just 1/116th of all Div I-A schools claim a victory in their last game of the season.

In a perfect world, none of this would matter. In the real world, it is the ONLY thing that matters. FTR, I am opposed to the BCS, since it takes the WORST parts of both a playoff and bowl game system (the existance of a predetermined championship game reduces the importance of all other bowl games, but the polls make the teams that appear in it arbitrary)…

For how I correct for these problems, see my explanation above…