Oh, and I suppose the SEC and the Big 12 coaches are the only ones who vote, huh?
You were saying?
Then don’t complain. Especially not ridiculous, insupportable complaints like “well you guys would have all wanted Houston in the game if they didn’t lose, you’re so biased, I mean, Houston? You guys are just hatin’.”
Meanwhile, the audience to your complaints is just thinking “wait… Houston?”
Sure. why not? Undefeated is undefeated. How can you make a cogent argument against undefeated? You can’t. I hear it every year. Hell, Iheard it from my (USC-fan and Arky-fan) office mates and my Big 10-fan boss this year.
That the difference between 2 and 3 is .0086. There are 59 coaches who vote in the coaches poll.
The SEC has 6 votes. The Big 12 5. Do you think that vote might count for a thousandth of a percent?
I was saying sense. You were saying?
No, you’re not saying sense. Sure, the difference between 5 and 6 could account for a difference that small. So what? By saying so, aren’t you accusing Big 12 coaches of homerism as much as SEC coaches? What basis do you have to say that anyway? How do you know that SEC coaches voted in a block, or that Big 12 coaches voted likewise? And even if both groups did, what about the rest of the country?
Look, what I’m saying is this: Alabama was the established #2 team. It would have taken something truly, truly remarkable to make Oklahoma State jump them last night. A 44-10 win, as impressive as it looked, was not enough to get it done. It was close, but the vote hinged, as I have said, not on conspiracies, but on the quality of the teams’ loss. A narrow defeat to the undisputed #1 looked better than a narrow defeat to a 5-loss nobody.
Hawaii, Boise State, Utah, TCU. Why not Houston too?
I think you ought to at least get your story straight. In your weird schoolyard combat version of what’s going on here, why am I complaining? Me and my SEC superfriends won, and cheated our way to our sham national championship matchup. If anything, I ought to be gloating about you guys complaining.
Or maybe I’m telling the truth and I think the attempts to make this into some kind of stupid tribal conflict are boring, and I don’t care which conference is super lame; I just think the logic against Alabama being in the title game doesn’t hold up.
Alabama is undeserving, and I have no problems in saying that. What irks me the most-- and I’ve said this before-- is that virtually the same argument some people (mainly the SEC apologists and Bama fans) are putting forth now are the same arguments these same people were likely to reject back in 2006. That year, Michigan lost to the #1 team by three points, yet they were passed over for the #4 team for many of the same reasons people who think Okie St. should be playing for the national title this year are using.
“They had their chance and lost!”
“They didn’t win their conference!”
“They didn’t beat anyone!”
“Florida has a stronger SOS!”
Etc.
It makes no sense. It’s hypocritical and makes it seem like you’re trying to have your cake and eat it, too.
Anyway, I’m a little peeved at this “every game matters” crap. It’s a lie. That LSU - Bama game prevented Bama from playing for the conference title, but it didn’t seem to hurt them. Furthermore, LSU was projected to be in the national title regardless of the outcome of the SEC championship game because of “what they had done to that point”. It’s entirely conceivable that Georgia could have beaten LSU and the national title game would have been between the second and third best teams in the SEC. You don’t consider that to be a joke? The line should be “every game matters; unless you play in the SEC”.
/soapbox
Except that Florida’s loss was to the #11 team in the nation that year. Oklahoma State’s loss was to an unranked team. I’m not saying Michigan wasn’t deserving. I’m just saying that the circumstances were not the same.
Yes, I am saying sense. I’m not accusing anyone of homerism, just familiarity.
I have no problem with an SEC coach thinking “we played those guys, and they were harder than nails. I think our league/conference is the best there is.”
Nor do I have a problem with a Big 12 coach thinking the same.
And the rest of the country have more than valid opinions. That’s the point. If 48 division I coaches split on their votes for #s 2 and 3, we can have a debate about that tie. But when it comes down to two conferences with 5 and 6 votes (respectively) I expect familiarity/pride/loyalty will win out. And this time, that single vote may have determined we would have a shit championship game.
And of course coaches vote for their conferences. I don’t think I even need to defend this statement to an intelligent and sane person.
2008 Utah was undefeated and beat 5 teams which were ranked that year. 4 of them were in the top 25 after the bowls, so it wasn’t just early meaningless rankings.
How many ranked teams did Houston beat again?
There was no groundswell of support for Houston getting a shot because they played nobody. Utah actually did deserve a shot, and is a good argument in favor of an expanded playoff.
I have no idea.
But you just claimed without support that people would have wanted Houston in the title game because of SEC hate. And you claimed earlier, also without support, that, despite the history of the Big 10 rematch getting broken up in favor of the SEC with the full support of college football fans, somehow college football fans are more critical of an SEC rematch.
You can’t expect me to decipher your motivations in addition to pointing out the absurdity of your arguments.
“May have”. Until we know the breakdown of the votes, this entire argument is nothing but speculation and unsubstantiated weeping.
Nice riposte.
I give a fuck what the votes are or are not–the fact that one conference has more than another is inherently unfair.
Full stop.
To avoid conflation of arguments, register your disagreement with this point here.
Your (the SEC’s) arrogance is unbecoming, as is your sense of entitlement.
Register your disagreement with this point here.
No one else in the country has any enthusiasm about this “championship” game. Until LSU plays OSU, the vast and silent (my bad) majority of this country will not have an NCAA football champion.
Register your disagreement with this point here.
For the record:
I don’t hate the SEC. In fact, while I would be against the rematch regardless of the conference involved, the SEC is the least repellent. They wanted an expanded playoff but were turned down. Having said that, “least repellent” is not exactly pleasant either.
FWIW: Florida beat Ohio State 41-14
Yeah, I’m just fucking inscrutable that way. What could my motivation possibly be. It’s like I’m just banging on the keyboard. 5,000 votes for Houston, more than Alabama. This took three seconds. And this is without them even finishing the undefeated season I was talking about. Maybe I just made up entirely that anyone has ever said this absurd thing that nobody would ever say. Certainly it isn’t a thing that I’ve already heard people say despite the fact that I was talking about a hypothetical scenario. I made it up to try to profit from it on the internet.
I swear to god, there is no sports conversation on this website that won’t immediately degenerate into this tedious gotcha nonsense.
Ah, but you haven’t said that to this point. Alrighty. Yes, it’s unfair. Now that we have that out of the way, show me that it was the one SEC coach who made the difference.
Five national titles in a row is not a “sense of entitlement”. It’s a proven track record of beating all comers. As for being “unbecoming”, oh gosh. What in the world shall I do without your approval?
Oh well. See you next year!
I don’t know why SEC has 6 votes and Big XII has 5.
Other than 6 votes from the SEC represent 50% of their teams
and 5 votes votes from the Big XII represent 50% of their teams.
USA Today has published the Coaches votes in the past. It will be interesting to see if any coach had over the top homerism.
By voting either Bama or Okie State lower #5 in their ballot. I can see no justification for any vote lower than 5th for either team. (4th is probably the worst case scenario).
IMO, it is a perfectly theory to penalize a team on who they lost to, (and who that team lost to) rather than who they beat. Bama lost to a team that lost to no one. Okie St lost to team that barely beat Kansas who was probably one of the 3 worst AQ teams in the country.
FWIW, four of the computers ranked Bama #2 (Billingsley, Sagarin, Massey, and Wolfe) while Colley and Anderson voted OkSt #2.
So it just wasn’t people that voted Bama #2, 4 out of the 6 computers formulas picked Bama #2.
Oh my. The perversity is almost too much to handle. Next year, you’ll say “six national titles in a row” while either ignoring or being deaf to all the legitimate complaints.
You, sir, are obtuse.
A ridiculous justification. The circumstances were exactly the same. A loss to any team not #1 is worse than a loss to the #1 team. Ergo, Florida was undeserving, because their loss was “worse” than was Michigan’s loss.
That score only matters because Florida was given the chance to play in the championship game.
That’s not true. Alabama fans, SEC homers and ESPN are excited about the game. Everyone else? Not so much.
Stick it in yer ear, buddy. I specifically said “five in a row” to exclude any possible controversy stemming from this year’s selection. As it happens, though, the SEC took on all comers for the last five years, and beat them all.