OT: NCAA College Football Games Thread (Championship Weekend) 12/6-12/7 Fri-Sat

[JayDogSmooth]

If “conference champs matter” and “wins matter”, why isn’t Army in the CFP?

$$$
See last year and the infamous snub as proof that the ESPN cartel controls the purse strings

Let’s hope the committee does the right thing this year and puts SMU in

I think the backlash for leaving them out and putting Bama in will be too much, and they will reluctantly (but deservedly for SMU) have to include them in the playoffs

 

[Doctor Worm]

Very good point. If Tim Pernetti succeeds in lobbying for Rmy in the CFP, some people's heads will explode.

I think everyone's head is safe.

 

[Knight Shift]

If “conference champs matter” and “wins matter”, why isn’t Army in the CFP?

Picking Army would be a good solution to the SMU Bama debate.

 

[Knight Shift]

I think everyone's head is safe.

Not everyone.

 

[RU_Goo]

You also have to realize the tantrum the SEC will throw if bama doesn’t get in over smu , and in that case we could very well see the SEC break away with the BIG and do their own thing

 

[Doctor Worm]

Picking Army is IMO indefensible.

What conference champion does Army leapfrog? Boise State? Arizona State? Clemson? All were ranked ahead of Army going into the weekend. What did any of them do to justify being dropped?

 

[zappaa]

If “conference champs matter” and “wins matter”, why isn’t Army in the CFP?

Write down the reasons why you think ARMY will be omitted.
I believe it will help answer your questions

 

[rutgersguy1]

Couple thoughts

1. Nitts came back, but oregon is legit. Theyre record since 2000 and since JF arrived vs top 5 teams is atrocious

2. Clemson kicker has ice in his veins

3. Can’t keep SMU out. No way, no how

4. Selection teams and Herbie kept a certain 13-0/conference champ out last year, even though they won the final 3 game w their backup QB (and the conference champ game w their 3rd stringer), citing the starter being out as the primary reason. By that methodology, shouldn’t UGA be out as well?

*** this is obviously being said tounge in cheek as UGA deserves to be in, I would just like to see the selection committee and Herbie’s hypocrotical spin on this if they were asked

I mentioned that earlier in the thread during the game but the difference is UGA performed better with the backup than they did with Beck lol.

Will that continue in the playoffs if Beck is out, who knows. Also more room this year to accommodate. Even if they lost, my question wasn’t about them being out with their backup in place but just how far in seeding might they drop.

 

[JayDogSmooth]

I mentioned that earlier in the thread during the game but the difference is UGA performed better with the backup than they did with Beck lol.

Will that continue in the playoffs if Beck is out, who knows. Also more room this year to accommodate. Even if they lost, my question wasn’t about them being out with their backup in place but just how far in seeding might they drop.

Backup only played 2nd half though
Not exactly an apples to apple sample size, but point taken nonetheless

 

[rutgersguy1]

If “conference champs matter” and “wins matter”, why isn’t Army in the CFP?

You're always looking for black and white when it's not black and white but shades of gray.

If all the teams were equal resources and the like then everything you want in terms of all conference champs or hard and fast rules can work but that's not the case.

Everyone isn't the same so they can't be treated the same. The most you can do is give a little opportunity to others down the totem pole which I think is good.

You know if Army had beaten ND instead of get blown out, I think there would have been a good chance they got in. It would have been similar to Cincy getting in the 4 team playoff while undefeated and beating ND on the road. It still took a lot of things happening and going Cincy's way even with all that but I think Army would have the chance to jump Boise.

 

[rutgersguy1]

Backup only played 2nd half though
Not exactly an apples to apple sample size, but point taken nonetheless

That's true but that's all you have to go on. 2nd half for UGA was much better than the 1st.

 

[NickRU714]

Picking Army is IMO indefensible.

What conference champion does Army leapfrog? Boise State? Arizona State? Clemson? All were ranked ahead of Army going into the weekend. What did any of them do to justify being dropped?

Why do they have to jump a conference champion?

If "conference championships matter" (see Boise, ASU and Clemson getting seeded higher than they should be based on the rankings) and number of losses/bad losses matter (Alabama 3 v. SMU 2) then Army would seem to have a great resume.

Of course that is pretending those rules actually matter.

 

[NickRU714]

You're always looking for black and white when it's not black and white but shades of gray.

If all the teams were equal resources and the like then everything you want in terms of all conference champs or hard and fast rules can work but that's not the case.

Everyone isn't the same so they can't be treated the same. The most you can do is give a little opportunity to other down the totem pole which I think is good.

You know if Army had beaten ND instead of get blown out, I think there would have been a good chance they got in. It would have been similar to Cincy getting in the 4 team playoff while undefeated and beating ND on the road. It still took a lot of things happening and going Cincy's way even with all that but I think Army would have the chance to jump Boise.

As long as everyone is in the same league (which all 130 are), they should be treated the same.
All 300 CBB teams and conferences get treated the same.

Not a hard "black and white" concept to understand.
Only CFB fans seem to have this concept.

 

[rutgersguy1]

As long as everyone is in the same league (which all 130 are), they should be treated the same.
All 300 CBB teams and conferences get treated the same.

Not a hard "black and white" concept to understand.
Only CFB fans seem to have this concept.

The 134 teams in the FBS aren't the same regardless of whether they're in the same "league" or whatever you want to call it.

CBB can treat 300 CBB teams the same because they have the luxury of space with 68 spots and talk of even more in the future.

CFB doesn't have that luxury even if it expands to 14 or 16 in the future.

If you limited CBB down to some smaller number you wouldn't get the treatment of all conferences that you get now.

This isn't a hard concept to understand either.

 

[NickRU714]

Write down the reasons why you think ARMY will be omitted.
I believe it will help answer your questions

They'll be omitted because conference championships and wins and bad losses don't actually matter.

Despite what everyone (including the CFP itself) says.

 

[JayDogSmooth]

That's true but that's all you have to go on. 2nd half for UGA was much better than the 1st.

It was better, but not by a lot. They put up 13 points in the second half versus six in the first half

I get what you’re saying and I’m not disagreeing, I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy of the NCAA

 

[NickRU714]

The 134 teams in the FBS aren't them regardless of whether they're in the same "league" or whatever you want to call it.

CBB can treat 300 CBB teams the same because they have the luxury of space with 68 spots and talk of even more in the future.

CFB doesn't have that luxury even if it expands to 14 or 16 in the future.

If you limited CBB down to some smaller number you wouldn't get the treatment of all conferences that you get now.

This isn't a hard concept to understand either.

It's easy to understand.
It's just a dumb concept.
That's not to understand either.

 

[rutgersguy1]

It's easy to understand.
It's just a dumb concept.
That's not to understand either.

It’s easy to understand but you bring this same point up all the time. If you have room you can do it and if you don’t you can’t.

 

[LotusAggressor]

If “conference champs matter” and “wins matter”, why isn’t Army in the CFP?

Brand matters more.

 

[NickRU714]

It’s easy to understand but you bring this same point up all the time. If you have room you can do it and if you don’t you can’t.

You keep acting like there is some structural issue. It's not.
It's personal "this team is better so they deserve it". Which is fine. Then get rid of all AQ and go straight CFP rankings.

16 team playoff:
9/10 conference champs (PAC 12)
6/7 at large
Literally the same.
What is the "room" that's needed?

FCS seems to make it work and has plenty of room to include all conferences.

 

[Knight Shift]

Write down the reasons why you think ARMY will be omitted.
I believe it will help answer your questions

Think this is a good list.
Army' wins:

Lehigh 42-7 (FCS, but made it to FCS playoffs)
FAU 24-7 (3-9/1-7)
Rice 37-14 (4-8/3-5)
Temple 42-14 (3-9/2-6)
Tulsa 49-7 (3-9/1-7)
UAB 44-10 (3-9/2-6)
East Carolina 45-28 (7-5/5-3)
AIr Force 20-3 (5-7/3-4)
North Texas 14-3 (6-6/3-5)
UTSA 29-24 (6-6/4-4)
Tulane 35-14 (9-4/7-1)

Eight reasons- nine of their wins were against teams in a weak conference without a winning record or FCS.
Ninth reason:
Army played Notre Dame (currently #4) and lost 49-14.

Tenth reason:
Beating Tulane to win the AAC conference sounds nice, but Tulane beat all the cupcakes in conference plus 8-3/6-2 Navy. But when Tulane played ranked P5 Kansas State (who is no longer ranked), they lost. When they played mediocre P5 Oklahoma (6-6/2-6), they lost> Tulane also lost to the 3rd place team in the AAC, Memphis.

 

[gmay8]

Alabama and SMU should play next Saturday night on a neutral field in Arkansas. Winner goes as the 12 seed.

 

[NickRU714]

Think this is a good list.
Army' wins:

Lehigh 42-7 (FCS, but made it to FCS playoffs)
FAU 24-7 (3-9/1-7)
Rice 37-14 (4-8/3-5)
Temple 42-14 (3-9/2-6)
Tulsa 49-7 (3-9/1-7)
UAB 44-10 (3-9/2-6)
East Carolina 45-28 (7-5/5-3)
AIr Force 20-3 (5-7/3-4)
North Texas 14-3 (6-6/3-5)
UTSA 29-24 (6-6/4-4)
Tulane 35-14 (9-4/7-1)

Eight reasons- nine of their wins were against teams in a weak conference without a winning record or FCS.
Ninth reason:
Army played Notre Dame (currently #4) and lost 49-14.

Tenth reason:
Beating Tulane to win the AAC conference sounds nice, but Tulane beat all the cupcakes in conference plus 8-3/6-2 Navy. But when Tulane played ranked P5 Kansas State (who is no longer ranked), they lost. When they played mediocre P5 Oklahoma (6-6/2-6), they lost> Tulane also lost to the 3rd place team in the AAC, Memphis.

Ok good points.
But similar to FSU last year "they can only play their schedule. Not their fault the conference sucked".

Now what about Clemson?
They have a better win "SMU".
Similar Loss (38-3 Georgia) and more losses.

The point is that all these "reasons" aren't fake and everyone just wants who they think should be.
And wants out who they think should be out.

Seemingly nobody just wants the best 12 teams for some reason.

 

[Roy_Faulker]

Can you guys confirm my understanding - the teams that won their conference championship games all get byes into the bowl (neutral location) games correct? So Clemson is in and doesn’t have to play a first round game?

 

[NickRU714]

Can you guys confirm my understanding - the teams that won their conference championship games all get byes into the bowl (neutral location) games correct? So Clemson is in and doesn’t have to play a first round game?

No.
The perfectly sensible rules say:
Only 5 of 10 conference champs get an AQ to the CFP.

The top 4 ranked champions are the first 4 seeds (regardless of their actual ranking.
The 5th champion is seeded where they end up in then final ranking.

If the 5th champ is outside the Top 12 rankings, they get the 12th seed (because of their AQ status).

 

[NickRU714]

So if ASU is ranked 9th and the 4th conference champ, they get the 4 seed and a bye
If Clemson ends up ranked 11th as the 5th conference champ, they will be seeded 11th.

Or, if ASU gets ranked 13th they jump up to 4 seed and a bye while Clemson would go from 14th rank to 12th seed.

Totally makes sense.....

 

[Knight Shift]

Ok good points.
But similar to FSU last year "they can only play their schedule. Not their fault the conference sucked".

Now what about Clemson?
They have a better win "SMU".
Similar Loss (38-3 Georgia) and more losses.

The point is that all these "reasons" aren't fake and everyone just wants who they think should be.
And wants out who they think should be out.

Seemingly nobody just wants the best 12 teams for some reason.

Was that the argument for FSU? I forget, but that was only 4 teams, and having beat end of year ranked LSU and Louisville, they have a better argument for 2023. Forget if the beef was 2 B1G teams over FSU or TCU over FSU. At least the first round of the CFP last year justified the choices of two B1G teams and TCU, but in the National Championship TCU got routed by Georgia.

Don't think it would be well-received for football, but perhaps in a situation like last year and this year, 1 or 2 play-in games would make sense? But wouldn't that open a whole new can of worms for teams #15 and 16 screaming this is not fair?

Not sure if it was you, but don't see the comparison with the NCAA basketball tournament as being legitimate. Basketball is a completely different animal, and that Animal Farm operates differently.

 

[shields]

Army was blown out by ND.

 

[Knight Shift]

 

[NickRU714]

Army was blown out by ND.

Ok. So 1 blowout to a Top 7 team overrides 1-2 additonal losses to mediocre teams?

Plus the all important "conference championship".

 

[Knight Shift]

 

[koleszar]

If Championship games were just for seeding as the committee said, then Alabama should be out. If SMU is left out, it's time for conferences to reconsider Championship games. I know the money is too big, but SMU should not be penalized for playing an extra game while Alabama sat on the couch.

 

[rutgersguy1]

You keep acting like there is some structural issue. It's not.
It's personal "this team is better so they deserve it". Which is fine. Then get rid of all AQ and go straight CFP rankings.

16 team playoff:
9/10 conference champs (PAC 12)
6/7 at large
Literally the same.
What is the "room" that's needed?

FCS seems to make it work and has plenty of room to include all conferences.

I do see it as structural from a resource stand point and/or a space stand point. In the FBS CFB there are issues with both. If you either had more space or everyone had largely the same resources you could do it. We have neither.

I don't know how FCS works but I'm pretty sure there are more than 12-16 spots. I think it's 24. 10 autobids and 14 at larges. I looked it up and yea that's what it is.

On top of which, I'm guessing FCS schools are similarly resourced and don't have the gross disparities in the resources we have at the FBS CFB level.

Despite all that they have more space and more at larges.

I don't know how many teams are in CBB but you said 300. So 68 out of that would be around 20% of teams getting in.

In FCS football there are 129 teams. 24 get in and that again is around 20%

In FBS CFB we had 4 out of 130+ which is 3% and now it's 12 out 134 which is 9%. So it's not the same. If you bumped up the number of bids to the same 24 or slightly more to get about 20% of teams then I'm all for it. But that's not likely to happen. At most it's 16 out of 134 which is 12% which is still short of the percentages you see in other sports.

That along with resources are structural problems to what you want. You can have one of them and do what you want but if you have both it's not feasible.

 

[rutgersguy1]

If Championship games were just for seeding as the committee said, then Alabama should be out. If SMU is left out, it's time for conferences to reconsider Championship games. I know the money is too big, but SMU should not be penalized for playing an extra game while Alabama sat on the couch.

I think with paying players very likely coming up next year, conferences will be loathe to get rid of any revenue generating streams. They need more not less. Plus it's probably written in all the tv contracts so it's not something that would get done soon until expiration.

 

[rutgersguy1]

Can you guys confirm my understanding - the teams that won their conference championship games all get byes into the bowl (neutral location) games correct? So Clemson is in and doesn’t have to play a first round game?

Only the top 4 ranked conference champs get byes not all of them. The 5 the one won't. This year it's likely to be Oregon, UGA, Boise and ASU. Clemson is likely to be ranked below all of them so they would play in the first round. If by some chance Clemson got ranked ahead of Boise or ASU then they would get the bye and Boise or ASU would get bumped and play in the first round.

The bye teams have tie ins with bowls. SEC Sugar. B10 Rose, etc..

 

[Knight Shift]

NCAA College Football Rankings: AP Top 25 Football Poll

The official page for the AP Top 25 college football poll, a tradition since 1936. Keep up to date and view the latest ranking updates each week.

apnews.com

 

[rutgersguy1]

View embedded media

NCAA College Football Rankings: AP Top 25 Football Poll

The official page for the AP Top 25 college football poll, a tradition since 1936. Keep up to date and view the latest ranking updates each week.

apnews.com

 

[NickRU714]

If Championship games were just for seeding as the committee said, then Alabama should be out. If SMU is left out, it's time for conferences to reconsider Championship games. I know the money is too big, but SMU should not be penalized for playing an extra game while Alabama sat on the couch.

I can see the argument:

If Championship Games can automatically move you up into the CFP, then losing it could also move you out.
It's both positive and negative.

Not sure I agree but I could see that.

 

[Knight Shift]

View embedded media

How does he come up with that? SMU is 12 in the AP poll.

 

[Knight Owl]

I’m guessing Alabama would be an objective favorite against SMU on a neutral field and they actually are better in every metric. Alabama should be in and be glad they don’t have to play any 6-6 record teams in the playoffs.🤣
SMU’s strength of schedule is bad which made it much easier for them to avoid the ebbs and flows traps over the course of the entire season.
SMU will always have their come-from-behind late win over three win Nevada. The committee can’t take that away from them.