Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

But I as mentioned earlier, if we all agree that who-beat-who-beat-who is basically meaningless, then why even worry about common opponents at all?

You're having half of a harmless, common conversation, but I'm trying to have a different sort of conversation. 

If we have two teams with the same record, one losing to the other and one losing to a lesser team, why does h2h carry more than 1 outcome's worth of value?

I come back to that question because while you correctly point out that all things are never actually equal, I guess I have to suggest that since we the fans (masses, consensus) seem to not be willing to dig that deep on how equal other outcomes are, then why does it matter at all?

Let's say 11-1 OSU beat 11-1 UM, with OSU's loss being to a sub-.500 Purdue by a big margin.  OSU wins the conference, right?  They have the best win and the worst loss.  OSU has shown the widest variance (ie - the lesser consistency).  And they're rewarded for it.

We could run down their schedules, but neither has another loss and while OSU beat Illinois by 25, UM beat them by 14.  But UM beat Iowa by 17 and OSU only beat them by 6.
The point is, the same people who want to reward h2h (lesser consistency) also can't be bothered to really comb through the outcomes and really see how equal/unequal the results actually are.

We're all "just fans," and may be forgiven for being lazy in this respect, as it's just supposed to be for fun.  I get that.  But I'm really confident that even if that 11-1 UM team had a little better outcomes vs their common opponents (again, which shouldn't matter at all) and a little better results in their non-common opponents, OSU would still be given the nod.  Because of h2h.  Even with UM having small advantages in the other 11 games of their schedules. 

I'm just questioning if that's prudent. 

But I as mentioned earlier, if we all agree that who-beat-who-beat-who is basically meaningless, then why even worry about common opponents at all?

You're having half of a harmless, common conversation, but I'm trying to have a different sort of conversation. 

If we have two teams with the same record, one losing to the other and one losing to a lesser team, why does h2h carry more than 1 outcome's worth of value?

I come back to that question because while you correctly point out that all things are never actually equal, I guess I have to suggest that since we the fans (masses, consensus) seem to not be willing to dig that deep on how equal other outcomes are, then why does it matter at all?

Let's say 11-1 OSU beat 11-1 UM, with OSU's loss being to a sub-.500 Purdue by a big margin.  OSU wins the conference, right?  They have the best win and the worst loss.  OSU has shown the widest variance (ie - the lesser consistency).  And they're rewarded for it.

We could run down their schedules, but neither has another loss and while OSU beat Illinois by 25, UM beat them by 14.  But UM beat Iowa by 17 and OSU only beat them by 6.
The point is, the same people who want to reward h2h (lesser consistency) also can't be bothered to really comb through the outcomes and really see how equal/unequal the results actually are.

We're all "just fans," and may be forgiven for being lazy in this respect, as it's just supposed to be for fun.  I get that.  But I'm really confident that even if that 11-1 UM team had a little better outcomes vs their common opponents (again, which shouldn't matter at all) and a little better results in their non-common opponents, OSU would still be given the nod.  Because of h2h.  Even with UM having small advantages in the other 11 games of their schedules. 

I'm just questioning if that's prudent. 

That's fair. I'm going to disengage going forward as I don't think we're necessarily disagreeing, and also b/c I'm on vacation 

For my parting statement, however, I think in your OSU/UM example, I can think of two things I believe that are not mutually exclusive:

• I believe that for inclusion in the conference championship game (i.e. assuming that there is an undefeated conference team ahead of both, such that only one of the two can make it) and no other teams with 8-1 conference records, I would give OSU the CCG berth. 
• If any one or multiple of the AP / coaches / CFP selection committee judged their overall records such that they ranked UM above OSU, I would not bat an eye. 

I believe very objective rules should govern the first scenario, with no room for subjective SoS / quality of wins/losses included. And that I think for the second scenario, by definition we agree that these are subjective evaluations and H2H should be a part of the evaluation, but it should not be a hard and fast rule that the winner of the H2H matchup is ranked more highly. 

What's with those facking fools in the deep south,bringing in lion fish,anacondas,Boas, plague afflicted monkeys. Why don't they play/watch football or go fishing or hunt gators like the rest of them fhs

There was a howler monkey that was loose in Columbus, back in the day.