College football "deservingness" discourse is so dumb. What the playoff selection committee is doing is trying to select the best teams that have won games. Like, if Texas, Ohio State, and GA all said, "we are clearly the best teams so we are just going to sit our best players throughout the season," they would still be the best teams, but would have also lost a bunch of games, so they are going to be out. Likewise, there are teams who have won a bunch of games, but because they haven't played anyone no one really knows if they are the best team. You have to make a judgement call. Indiana, SMU, and Texas all did not have any wins over teams who ended the season ranked. Texas is probably pretty good. We now know that Indiana and SMU aren't. Should the committee have left out SMU and Indiana? Maybe, but there's no objective criteria to make that call, and every judgement call is going to have hits and misses.

I mean, in the future having no ranked wins could be a disqualifying criterion (I'd certainly support this). Then you can't sail through on an easy schedule and it would keep the regular season from being a race to the bottom. And if you're going to cry about your super-talented team getting left out, you have no one to blame but yourself for not scheduling anyone with a pulse.

Agree with both posts above. A good tournament should have one round so as to include the legitimate "what about me's." Basketball needs a round of 64 for this purpose. How many great games are there in the 1/16, 2/15, 3/14 and even 4/13 match-ups? Football gets it done in the current 12 team format. I would rather have the "what about me's" take an L than have them whining forever. Including them and having them go out like they did affirms the committee's work. Kinda keeps them accountable.

Also kinda like the idea of needing at least ONE win against a ranked team even if you have to extend it to a win over a top 30 team or something.

The issue with that is schedulers would have to be prognosticators.

The real issue is TV contracts have put almost all the best teams into two conferences. Simplify by building parity across more division within all conferences.

That way, at the end of the season, the best teams will be at the top of each division and the playoff works out the rest.

There would be no reason for BS rankings based on opinions during the season. It would be more difficult for ESPN to control the narrative.

The conferences are too big now so the teams don't play all of the other conference members. Creating very different SOS.

The ACC overall seems weak as Clemson and SMU are both out. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be in the playoff. That's why there is a playoff. To pair teams from different conferences and settle it on the field instead of making judgements based on SOS.

Bill Superman said:

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OBJTEX said:

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Committee got it right. It is a mix of deserving and eyeball test. No issues. Best teams advanced. But the others earned their spot.

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Now that's funny. And to think, he paid for that opinion.

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Unless we just want CFB to be a regional sport, its cool to have spots for smaller conferences.

Sooner or later one will break through. And i am calling my shot. ASU wins next week. Fresher team. The Austinites are beaten up.

Having no wins over a ranked team should be a disqualifier….but the team you are disqualifying had a role in that final lower ranking by winning. Hmm, tough spot.

OBJTEX said:

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Sooner or later one will break through. And i am calling my shot. ASU wins next week. Fresher team. The Austinites are beaten up.

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There will be years where this logic doesn't work and the SEC will have 6-7 legit deserving teams. Not saying this year that was the case but if Bama hadn't lost a couple and A&M hadn't lost 2 of Auburn SC or Texas what would you then say? Years like that will occur in the SEC. it's just too good a league to let these flyboy weak teams in ahead of the quality we have. Not every year but many this will be an issue.

OBJTEX said:

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Committee got it right. It is a mix of deserving and eyeball test. No issues. Best teams advanced. But the others earned their spot.

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Maybe is there was any semblance of balance in schedules. But this is the weak-schedule lottery winners and a mix of the best teams

Having 2 or less teams ranked in the top 25 should make that conference not get an automatic bid.

Some weird stuff happened at the end of the year with Miami, Bama, Ol Miss, even BYU and Colorado falling on their faces against bad teams.

Most years you will probably have a stronger group in the 6-12 range of the rankings

offenseguru said:

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There will be years where this logic doesn't work and the SEC will have 6-7 legit deserving teams. Not saying this year that was the case but if Bama hadn't lost a couple and A&M hadn't lost 2 of Auburn SC or Texas what would you then say? Years like that will occur in the SEC. it's just too good a league to let these flyboy weak teams in ahead of the quality we have. Not every year but many this will be an issue.

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11-2 Tennessee got whipped in the first round.

Yet people argue Alabama or South Carolina need to be in?

OBJTEX said:

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Bill Superman said:

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OBJTEX said:

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Committee got it right. It is a mix of deserving and eyeball test. No issues. Best teams advanced. But the others earned their spot.

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Now that's funny. And to think, he paid for that opinion.

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Unless we just want CFB to be a regional sport, its cool to have spots for smaller conferences.

Sooner or later one will break through. And i am calling my shot. ASU wins next week. Fresher team. The Austinites are beaten up.

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"Sooner or later one will break through" is a poor excuse for putting weaker teams in the playoffs. You could put a 1-11 team every year, and, sooner or later one will break through. But a more deserving team got left out each and every year until that happens.

I LOL at people that think ASU has a remote chance at beating sip.

Wabs said:

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I LOL at people that think ASU has a remote chance at beating sip.

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I don't think they'll beat sip, but I have a feeling that the game will be a lot closer than people expect it to be. I think ASU would beat Clemson.

These first round games are almost always going to be blowouts, outside of the few odd years. Very rarely are there more than three teams that are legit national title contenders. The playoffs were expanded to account for that one odd year out of every five.


That being said, the playoffs will be expanded even further eventually because the money for the other bowl games will be much higher if it's billed as a playoff game.

Fdsa said:

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Having no wins over a ranked team should be a disqualifier….but the team you are disqualifying had a role in that final lower ranking by winning. Hmm, tough spot.

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Rankings are opinions with an angle. Why use them?

solishu said:

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College football "deservingness" discourse is so dumb. What the playoff selection committee is doing is trying to select the best teams that have won games. Like, if Texas, Ohio State, and GA all said, "we are clearly the best teams so we are just going to sit our best players throughout the season," they would still be the best teams, but would have also lost a bunch of games, so they are going to be out. Likewise, there are teams who have won a bunch of games, but because they haven't played anyone no one really knows if they are the best team. You have to make a judgement call. Indiana, SMU, and Texas all did not have any wins over teams who ended the season ranked. Texas is probably pretty good. We now know that Indiana and SMU aren't. Should the committee have left out SMU and Indiana? Maybe, but there's no objective criteria to make that call, and every judgement call is going to have hits and misses.

I mean, in the future having no ranked wins could be a disqualifying criterion (I'd certainly support this). Then you can't sail through on an easy schedule and it would keep the regular season from being a race to the bottom. And if you're going to cry about your super-talented team getting left out, you have no one to blame but yourself for not scheduling anyone with a pulse.

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How could you possibly have a "rule" that having no ranked team wins disqualifies you from the playoffs? You don't have any control over who you play in the conference. Is it a team who played us' fault that we couldn't beat Auburn and dropped in the rankings? The out of conference schedules are set years in advance. If you schedule what is typically an elite team and they happen to have a down year when you play them should you be penalized?

It just doesn't work. I do think they should stop allowing teams in the FBS to schedule ANY FCS schools. Power 4 teams should probably be required to schedule other Power 4 teams out of conference. And the SEC would have less of an issue if we stopped being panzies and schedule 9 conference games per year.

Fdsa said:

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Having no wins over a ranked team should be a disqualifier….but the team you are disqualifying had a role in that final lower ranking by winning. Hmm, tough spot.

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In Indiana's case, their best win was over a 5 loss team. No other win on their schedule had less than 6 losses.

The majority of the top half of the SEC would have had the exact same record or better with that schedule.

In my opinion, if you don't have any wins over teams with 3 losses or less, you need to be undefeated AND win a conference title to be in.

Heineken-Ashi said:

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Fdsa said:

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Having no wins over a ranked team should be a disqualifier….but the team you are disqualifying had a role in that final lower ranking by winning. Hmm, tough spot.

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In Indiana's case, their best win was over a 5 loss team. No other win on their schedule had less than 6 losses.

The majority of the top half of the SEC would have had the exact same record or better with that schedule.

In my opinion, if you don't have any wins over teams with 3 losses or less, you need to be undefeated AND win a conference title to be in.

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Amusingly Ohio State would have dropped the Michigan game with that schedule. Let's call playing itself a tie.

So the Buckeyes would have had a worse record than the Hoosiers if OSU had to play Indiana's schedule.

Also Texas wouldn't have made it with the requirement of a win over a 3 loss or less team. The Horns would have needed to forfeit the game against A&M (for Texas' 2nd loss) to make the CFP.

Sweet rule.

TexAggie1999 said:

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solishu said:

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College football "deservingness" discourse is so dumb. What the playoff selection committee is doing is trying to select the best teams that have won games. Like, if Texas, Ohio State, and GA all said, "we are clearly the best teams so we are just going to sit our best players throughout the season," they would still be the best teams, but would have also lost a bunch of games, so they are going to be out. Likewise, there are teams who have won a bunch of games, but because they haven't played anyone no one really knows if they are the best team. You have to make a judgement call. Indiana, SMU, and Texas all did not have any wins over teams who ended the season ranked. Texas is probably pretty good. We now know that Indiana and SMU aren't. Should the committee have left out SMU and Indiana? Maybe, but there's no objective criteria to make that call, and every judgement call is going to have hits and misses.

I mean, in the future having no ranked wins could be a disqualifying criterion (I'd certainly support this). Then you can't sail through on an easy schedule and it would keep the regular season from being a race to the bottom. And if you're going to cry about your super-talented team getting left out, you have no one to blame but yourself for not scheduling anyone with a pulse.

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How could you possibly have a "rule" that having no ranked teams disqualifies you from the playoffs? You don't have any control over who you play in the conference. Is it a team who played us' fault that we couldn't beat Auburn and dropped in the rankings? The out of conference schedules are set years in advance. If you schedule what is typically an elite team and they happen to have a down year when you play them should you be penalized?

It just doesn't work. I do think they should stop allowing teams in the FBS to schedule ANY FCS schools. Power 4 teams should probably be required to schedule other Power 4 teams out of conference. And the SEC would have less of an issue if we stopped being panzies and schedule 9 conference games per year.

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I mean, it would definitely introduce some serendipity into the equation, but you can at least improve your chances by scheduling real teams for your non-conference games.

I don't think it's outrageous to say that to qualify for the playoff you need to be either the conference champion or have at least one quality win at the end of the regular season.

The only tweak needed is either not having the top 4 conference champs getting a bye and maybe reseeding.

Teams 11-13 will likely never win it so it doesn't matter. No different than March madness never seeing a 9+ seed winning it all.

If they just rank teams and then giving a conference champ a place, this would fix everything.

The 8-12 team likely will rarely win it.

Deserving seems to mean a team played a cupcake schedule and beat nobody. Yiu just can't prove they aren't really that good other than what the eyeball test tells us. This year we had SMU and Indiana in this category

That's why I favor a 16 team playoff where such teams are seeded in the teens, at the bottom. They can play a top seed in round 1 to determine if they belong. Likewise the top seed gets an easy first round in all likelihood

By round 2 those teams are gone and we have our proof of what the eyeball test told us

Faustus said:

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Heineken-Ashi said:

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Fdsa said:

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Having no wins over a ranked team should be a disqualifier….but the team you are disqualifying had a role in that final lower ranking by winning. Hmm, tough spot.

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In Indiana's case, their best win was over a 5 loss team. No other win on their schedule had less than 6 losses.

The majority of the top half of the SEC would have had the exact same record or better with that schedule.

In my opinion, if you don't have any wins over teams with 3 losses or less, you need to be undefeated AND win a conference title to be in.

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Amusingly Ohio State would have dropped the Michigan game with that schedule. Let's call playing itself a tie.

So the Buckeyes would have had a worse record than the Hoosiers if OSU had to play Indiana's schedule.

Also Texas wouldn't have made it with the requirement of a win over a 3 loss or less team. The Horns would have needed to forfeit the game against A&M (for Texas' 2nd loss) to make the CFP.

Sweet rule.

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I mean, go look at the stats. Michigan didn't go out and beat OSU. They played worse than they did against Indiana. QB had less than 100 yards and 2 INT's. OSU played a historically bad game with Howard throwing two boneheaded picks and their FG kicker missing two FG's. One of them ties the game and both win it. Why do you think OSU had a come to Jesus meeting that was so widely publicized? Because they underestimated an opponent and didn't take them seriously. The OSU from literally any other game that year smokes Michigan. But you're right, they lost.

That same Michigan QB threw no INT's and doubled his yards against Indiana. They scored more points against Indiana than they did against OSU. More proof that Michigan was Michigan both games. OSU just shat the bed against them and Indiana squeeked out a win. That common opponent means nothing frankly.

All of this discourse is dumb.

Don't watch the first sets of games if you hate it, but at the end of the day we will know the final 4 actually deserve it and won't be left guessing. The whole point of this is that we don't have that one team that never should have remotely been considered for the 4th slot.

jamey said:

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Deserving seems to mean a team played a cupcake schedule and beat nobody. Yiu just can't prove they aren't really that good other than what the eyeball test tells us. This year we had SMU and Indiana in this category

That's why I favor a 16 team playoff where such teams are seeded in the teens, at the bottom. They can play a top seed in round 1 to determine if they belong. Likewise the top seed gets an easy first round in all likelihood

By round 2 those teams are gone and we have our proof of what the eyeball test told us

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Agree with this. But the argument will inevitably shift to the 17-20 teams when a 12-16 gets blown out in game 1. There will always be teams on the outside who think they should be in. You have to measure it somehow, and choosing the Indiana's and SMU's of the world over the Alabama's and South Carolina's, without factoring strength of schedule and strength of record is ridiculous.

The only way I'm ok with straight up records mattering without strength of schedule included is if every power team is forced to play 2 other power teams every single year. Even if they are cream puff Maryland or Northwestern type teams, at least you are going up against a higher level of talent 2 more times.

Madmarttigan said:

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All of this discourse is dumb.

Don't watch the first sets of games if you hate it, but at the end of the day we will know the final 4 actually deserve it and won't be left guessing. The whole point of this is that we don't have that one team that never should have remotely been considered for the 4th slot.

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No team ranked 5 or worse, outside of maybe us in 2012 before we even had a playoff, would have won a championship. We had enough proof with Cincinnati and TCU. Didn't need expansion to tell us what was already known.

Yeah but if a 2 loss Ohio State or Alabama gets left out at 5 or 6 that would have beat TCUs ass wouldn't that solve the problem?

Madmarttigan said:

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Yeah but if a 2 loss Ohio State or Alabama gets left out at 5 or 6 that would have beat TCUs ass wouldn't that solve the problem?

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Ohio State losing to Michigan after already losing to Oregon would have been disqualification enough.

The other hypocritical part is we as aggies are largely relying on the 12 team playoff to ever even get a whiff of it. We would be thrilled to be team 12 and ****ting ourselves that we made it.

This board would be going nuts to get that chance. Let's face it, with our history we 100% should be for an expanded playoff. There shouldn't be one person on here complaining because it will take an act of God to get Aggies into the top 4 spots with the old system. It's just our luck as a program.

Madmarttigan said:

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The other hypocritical part is we as aggies are largely relying on the 12 team playoff to ever even get a whiff of it. We would be thrilled to be team 12 and ****ting ourselves that we made it.

This board would be going nuts to get that chance. Let's face it, with our history we 100% should be for an expanded playoff. There shouldn't be one person on here complaining because it will take an act of God to get Aggies into the top 4 spots with the old system. It's just our luck as a program.

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Rational thought has no place in this board sir.

Heineken-Ashi said:

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jamey said:

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Deserving seems to mean a team played a cupcake schedule and beat nobody. Yiu just can't prove they aren't really that good other than what the eyeball test tells us. This year we had SMU and Indiana in this category

That's why I favor a 16 team playoff where such teams are seeded in the teens, at the bottom. They can play a top seed in round 1 to determine if they belong. Likewise the top seed gets an easy first round in all likelihood

By round 2 those teams are gone and we have our proof of what the eyeball test told us

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Agree with this. But the argument will inevitably shift to the 17-20 teams when a 12-16 gets blown out in game 1. There will always be teams on the outside who think they should be in. You have to measure it somehow, and choosing the Indiana's and SMU's of the world over the Alabama's and South Carolina's, without factoring strength of schedule and strength of record is ridiculous.

The only way I'm ok with straight up records mattering without strength of schedule included is if every power team is forced to play 2 other power teams every single year. Even if they are cream puff Maryland or Northwestern type teams, at least you are going up against a higher level of talent 2 more times.

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Indiana played a full schedule of power teams like Maryland or Northwestern though.

Problem is there's enough weaker teams in the BIG for an Indiana to slip thru the cracks if they get an easy schedule by luck of the draw