Well that’s sort of a fluke of the system, but at least strength of schedule is being quantified. With the polls, by the second half of the season the order of teams is in place, and they just drop teams that lose and slide the rest up one slot. Which is why “date of loss” becomes just as important as strength of schedule, which is sort of dumb.
Except that “date of loss” is a truer indicator, IMHO, of how good a team is/will be at the end of the season. Which is when the bowl games are. So if a team is playing subpar at the end of the season - whether due to injury, other teams getting their acts together, etc. - and therefore less likely to win a bowl game than another team (such as the one ranked #1) then the pollsters have every right to say that the team with the late season loss shouldn’t be in the championship game.
Personally, I’d simply be happy with a step in the BCS flowchart that says “If X team is #1 in both polls at the end of the season, that team plays in the Championship game.”
Bob, the idea of using the existing bowls for the first round of the playoffs cannot work for purely logistical reasons. While fans of a given team can afford to travel to one bowl game a year, asking them to travel for a bowl game, then, if their teams wins, to travel to a 2nd round playoff game at a neutral site, and then to a championship game at a neutral site, all within 3 weeks is too much to ask. The basketball tournament works because it has smaller venues to fill up with fans, and it can fill up a first and second round site with fans from 8 teams.
How is strength of schedule calculated? Isn’t it based on where a team is in the polls? I really don’t know.
I do like the idea suggested by KKBattousai but I might even go further and say if team X is #1 and team Y is #2 then they play in the BCS championship game. The best future for the BCS may as a way to settle any differences between the two polls.
Perhaps the coaches take away their automatic vote for the BCS game winner and be allowed to vote with their conscience. You can’t tell me that Pete Carroll is going to be happy that he HAS to vote for either OU or LSU. I read something this morning that said the guy in charge of the coaches poll will count votes that place USC number 1.
That’s true to some degree, but I believe this season USC lost a week or two before LSU did. This means that in the polls, once LSU lost they dropped below USC, and had no chance of getting back above them as long as both teams kept winning. And I don’t think losing to a mediocre team in the 5th game of the season is any better than losing to a good team in the 7th game.
The SOS component is based on a teams winning percentage, their opponents winning percentage, and their opponents’ opponents winning percentage. I’m not sure how it’s all calculated, but the polls aren’t involved.
Regardless of the whole “strength of schedule” based rankings, I think USC’s performance against Michigan showed that they are just as deserving as any other team to be considered for the national championship, if not more deserving than anyone.
Recent wins count for more in my book as well - they show how a team wih it’s current motivation, fitness level and injuries performs. A team that lost yesterday is obviously not as good as one that won convincingly at the start of the season, and vice versa. Teams change over the season, even losing badly (like Auburn did to USC) can negatively affect the next game, which can affect the one after that.
The BCS obviously doesn’t work - USC proved that by pasting Michigan. This is the second time that the PAC 10 has been screwed over as well. Back to the drawing board.
In a couple days, either LSU or Oklahoma will have beaten an even better team than Michigan. Before the bowls, LSU and OU both already had a more impressive list of quality wins than USC. After the bowls, the gap in this area will only have increased.
Even with its flaws, the BCS is better than the old way. This year was probably the worst case scenario and we still ended up with the top 4 teams playing each other in bowl games. The old way sucked.
You’d also have to factor in how USC & LSU/OU opponents did in bowl games.
FWIW, my count in this Bowl Season has USC’s opponents at 5-1, LSU’s at 4-1 and Oklahoma’s at 2-6 (as of Friday night).
Not true.
Washington State, a team USC blew out, just beat the best team Oklahoma beat all year, Texas.
Oklahoma’s overrated opponents are being exposed in the bowls.
So who are all these “quality teams” Oklahoma beat? Care to name them?
Hint: they only beat two ranked opponents all year, and neither of them is as good as WSU.
Obviously head-to-head doesn’t prove everything. Oklahoma beat Texas, who beat Kansas State, who beat Oklahoma. Texas had a better overall season than Washington State. And beating two ranked teams in the regular season is better than beating one, like USC did.
USC beat the crap out of Michigan, who previously had beaten the crap out of Ohio State, whe went on to beat Kansas State, who had previously beaten the crap out of Oklahoma. I think USC would have had OU for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner.
LSU in the title game by strength of schedule is a laugher. Look at LSU’s non conference foes: Louisiana-Monroe, Arizona, Western Illinois, and Louisiana Tech. Look at USC’s: Auburn, BYU, Hawaii, and Notre Dame. Which school said “We’ll play anybody” and which said “one order of creampuffs, please”?
LSU will beat OU and claim one-half of a title that it didn’t deserve.
FYI, LSU was supposed to play Marshall instead of LA-Monroe (or maybe LA-Tech, I forget), but they left us hanging. Regardless, LSU plays in a much better conference than does USC and overall has had tougher competition.
I prefer the BCS to the old way of doing things. The BCS has provided better matchups and, in most years, an undisputed champion. Most of the teams in the championship games would never have been paired up under the old system.
Strength of schedule is very important. Remember, the much-loved basketball playoff depends on RPI to guide its selection committee, and RPI is nothing but strength of schedule.
Earlier here, we had a thread dissin’ the BCS because a “worthy” TCU team was going to be denied a chance at the National Championship. TCU did have a fine season, but the BCS has proved correct in ranking them out of the championship picture.
FWIW, I think USC was the best team I saw this year. I only saw Oklahoma twice, once when they struggled to beat nine-time loser Alabama, 20-13, and then in the Kansas State game, so I didn’t see them at their best.
Predictions? LSU in a squeaker!
Since this is the only college football thread going that I’m aware of, where are all the Big Ten guys that were predicting a clean sweep for their conference in the bowl games? Big Ten= 3-5 in bowl games by my count.
And USC lost to Cal who lost to UCLA who OU beat the crap out of. Cal also lost to Kansas St, who got beat by Texas, who OU beat the crap out of. These arguments don’t really mean much.
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It’s not just non-conference foes that count, it’s the entire schedule. Auburn was a good team this year, and I know Notre Dame is rivalry game. But when you play in the Pac Ten, you should schedule teams better than BYU and Hawaii if you want to compete for a national championship. Also LSU was supposed to get a return game from Va Tech (plus that Marshall game), so its not like they are trying to avoid good teams. But even with those cancellations, they managed to have a better overall schedule than USC.
Right, and the Pac-10 is 4-2. Maybe the Pac-10 isn’t quite as soft as people thought.
Two years ago, BYU almost went undefeated. And when they were appearing on USC’s schedule then, the game looked like a good one.
And who spoiled that perfect season for BYU? Hawaii.
College football schedules are filled out years ahead of time. There’s not a lot of wiggle room to dump a team on short notice just because they’ve gone into the tank (as BYU did)
Except in ** BobLibDem’s ** scenario all those games were played at the end of the season when your team supposedly should be at the top of your game barring injury,which none of those games had IIRC. Good example the LSU/Ga.title game.Absolute domination the 2nd time after a so so first win.
Early season losses a lot of times are from poor motivation or the team’s not beginning to jell at the time.Takes time sometimes to be hitting on all cylinders.
I think the bowl matchups (at least the BCS ones with the exception of Noles/Canes) shed light on “who’s the best”- ** right now **,and that’s what I think it should be about in lieu of a “Superbowl”
On the other hand, pretty much every year of the BCS, we would have had a better championship game if we had just let the top two teams in the polls play.
Remember when the BCS put #4 Nebraska into the championship game, despite Nebraska getting blown out by Colorado in their last game and losing their conference?
Then #2 Oregon blew out Colorado in their bowl game, despite many people predicting Colorado would win.
An eerily similar situation to this year, except that this year Oklahoma lost so we didn’t end up with one undefeated team.
Oh… and remember that Colorado, with two losses, was ahead of Oregon, with one loss, in the BCS.
And the year before that, when the BCS passed over Miami in favor of Florida State, a team Miami had already beaten.
Miami lost only one game that whole year - to the Rose Bowl champion Washington Huskies - and clearly belonged in the championship game.
Even Florida State’s coach implied he knew his team didn’t belong there.
So really, this year is no worse than the other years of the BCS. The only difference is that Oklahoma lost.
And every one of those years we would have had a better game if we just matched up #1 and #2 in the polls.