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Topic: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?
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Cincydawg · « **Reply #112 on:** October 07, 2019, 12:50:01 PM »

Maybe if the game were not at Clemson, maybe. Their only road games against an opponent with anything at all is at South Carolina and NCSU. Yippee. About the best I can see out of this is some underwhelming wins for them.

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MikeDeTiger · « **Reply #113 on:** October 07, 2019, 12:55:38 PM »

I think the B1G and Big 12 and SEC are pretty comparable this year. They seem like a clear step above the other conferences and it's hard to make a meaningful distinction at this point. SEC used to be a deep conference, but now once you get past a couple of elite (probably?) teams it's pretty bad. It's the middle that fell out....there's always scrubs any given year but you could count on some tough middle-of-pack teams. Really the possibility of 3 or 4 standout teams is what keeps the SEC afloat in my mind.

Maybe only two elite (probably?) teams in the B1G, but who is the gimme in that conference? I see a lot of teams Ohio State and Wisconsin have to wake up and take seriously, teams I might be inclined to favor against similar SEC competition.

Kinda the same thing in the Big 12. One elite (probably?) team, one good team getting better by the minute (probably?), and then a handful of other teams they better take seriously. I'd rather play through Arkansas, A&M, and Clanga right now than K-State, Baylor, and WVU.

NorthernOhioBuckeye · « **Reply #114 on:** October 07, 2019, 01:01:19 PM »

Quote from: OrangeAfroMan on October 05, 2019, 11:01:57 AM

Sports as a whole are a sliding scale of competition (finding out who's best - ie...for the players/coaches/etc) vs entertainment (for the fans buying a ticket). Yes, the entertainment matters, as otherwise, football games with no one watching don't have rankings and playoffs and billions of dollars.

But without the competition aspect, it doesn't work, either. It's only entertaining because of the competition (although some people might like football because of the pretty colors or tight pants). Akin to Herm Edwards' "YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME" - the fans watch to "SEE WHO WINS THE GAME" and how.

As a sliding scale, it can move up and down - towards and away from either end (competition/entertainment), but it may not get too close to either end. At the expense of either end, the game loses meaning. If it's all about competition, you sort of get what baseball was this year (HR derby disguised as the game of baseball) and it's not as fun to watch. If it's all about entertainment, (like college basketball), it doesn't really matter who ends up winning...which saps the motivation of the competitors themselves.

I'm simply wary of the scale tipping too far towards the entertainment side of things. It's not about "SEC vs the world" or anything like that. I just want the best team to be deemed the champion as often as possible - with the best team being the best combination of roster and results. This does NOT include rewarding them fully for winning this set of games (conf) and ignoring losing this other set of games (OOC).

If we are simply looking for the "best team" by your standards, why play any games at all? We just look at Alabama's roster every year and hand them the trophy.

The issue I see is that people are saying that the playoff is about deciding the best team, but no one is saying what "best team" really means. It is all subjective.

IMHO, the playoff was put into place to make money, plain and simple. And if we are going to have a playoff, we need to set up criteria to make the playoff that everyone knows and understands. As it is now, a group of people sit in a room for a couple of days and try to tell the rest of us who are the 4 best teams on a sliding scale of criteria. The only criteria so far that I have seen that is consistent is 1 "Your team is named Alabama". Anything else to this point seems to be very subjective and really smells of preordained biases.

If we went to a system that everyone knew what the criteria was going in, there would be no need for teams to put their hopes into a group of individuals sitting in a room for a few days to decide their fate. I like the idea that if you win your conference, you're in. Then if we want to fill out the rest of a 6 or 8 team bracket using something like we have now, go for it. However, if you don't win your conference, you have no complaint if you are left out.

In the current system, you can win your conference and still not make it while sitting at home and watching non-conference winners being selected. That just tells me that there is too much weight given to certain conferences based on opinion. Let the teams decide it on the field and the only true way would be to include the P5 champs.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #115 on:** October 07, 2019, 01:06:26 PM »

A large playoff creates a playoff champion, nothing more than that. It's often not the "best team" (however one thinks of that term, I'd say it is the team that would beat every other team more than half the time if the games were played that often). And of course teams progress through the year at different rates, injuries, young players learning, coaching, etc.

I could see a 6 game playoff but I personally would not like 8. I could see 5 with a play in game. Then you could include every conference champ but ND would be out, as would any G5 team.

This usually is an off season topic. And I THINK Ohio State will be 13-0, so they needn't worry (except that I'm often wrong).

betarhoalphadelta · « **Reply #116 on:** October 07, 2019, 01:20:35 PM »

Quote from: NorthernOhioBuckeye on October 07, 2019, 01:01:19 PM

If we are simply looking for the "best team" by your standards, why play any games at all? We just look at Alabama's roster every year and hand them the trophy.

The issue I see is that people are saying that the playoff is about deciding the best team, but no one is saying what "best team" really means. It is all subjective.

The problem is that if you have 130 teams, or more accurately about 65ish P5 + credible independent, how do you determine the "best team"? Especially when they only play 12 regular season games, mostly missing out on direct comparisons due to most of those teams playing in disparate conferences.

In 2018, I think Ohio State had a credible qualification to be within the group of "best teams". They had one really bad loss when a lesser team was absolutely playing out of their minds. They had a couple close victories (PSU/UNL/Maryland), but they also had some big convincing wins (OrSU, MSU, NU).

Now, I'm not saying they should have gotten into the current iteration of the CFP over the teams that were selected. Bama/Clemson/ND were all undefeated, and Oklahoma's loss was not as bad as OSU's loss (although Oklahoma also had some squeaker wins against lesser competition).

What I'm saying is that if you TRULY want to settle "who is the best team" on the field, it's hard to claim that the current CFP is inclusive enough to do so. After all, the #1 seed has never won the CFP, and the #4 seed has won it twice in five years. If the #4 seed has won it twice, how do we know that the #5 or #6 seeds might not have been better than the #4 in those years? How do we know that Ohio State wouldn't have won an 8-team playoff last year?

As I said before, I wouldn't mind just doing away with all of it and returning to the days when the mythical national champion was just that. But I just don't think you can have an "objective" champ with a two-team BCS or a 4-team CFP that excludes some conference champions that can credibly be at least "in the discussion" for the best team in the land.

The NCAA basketball tournament is too big, at least as it stands for crowning a champion. Beyond the 4 seed line, only 3 champions have been produced in 35 years. Beyond the 8 seed line, no team has EVER even made the national championship game. So a 68-team field is more about entertainment than crowning a champion.

But the CFP is conversely too small. If the lowest seed has won 40% of the time, it tells you that the next team down has a better shot than you might think. And going to 8 teams, actually HELPS ensure that it's more likely that the best team wins the whole thing. Variance is reduced with larger sample sizes, and 3 games is a larger sample size for a playoff than 2 games.

FearlessF · « **Reply #117 on:** October 07, 2019, 01:24:19 PM »

Quote from: MikeDeTiger on October 07, 2019, 12:55:38 PM

I think the B1G and Big 12 and SEC are pretty comparable this year. They seem like a clear step above the other conferences and it's hard to make a meaningful distinction at this point. SEC used to be a deep conference, but now once you get past a couple of elite (probably?) teams it's pretty bad. It's the middle that fell out....there's always scrubs any given year but you could count on some tough middle-of-pack teams. Really the possibility of 3 or 4 standout teams is what keeps the SEC afloat in my mind.

Maybe only two elite (probably?) teams in the B1G, but who is the gimme in that conference? I see a lot of teams Ohio State and Wisconsin have to wake up and take seriously, teams I might be inclined to favor against similar SEC competition.

Kinda the same thing in the Big 12. One elite (probably?) team, one good team getting better by the minute (probably?), and then a handful of other teams they better take seriously. I'd rather play through Arkansas, A&M, and Clanga right now than K-State, Baylor, and WVU.

that's a bunch of probably

MikeDeTiger · « **Reply #118 on:** October 07, 2019, 01:50:22 PM »

Quote from: FearlessF on October 07, 2019, 01:24:19 PM

that's a bunch of probably

Probably so.

NorthernOhioBuckeye · « **Reply #119 on:** October 07, 2019, 02:21:10 PM »

Quote from: bwarbiany on October 07, 2019, 01:20:35 PM

The problem is that if you have 130 teams, or more accurately about 65ish P5 + credible independent, how do you determine the "best team"? Especially when they only play 12 regular season games, mostly missing out on direct comparisons due to most of those teams playing in disparate conferences.

In 2018, I think Ohio State had a credible qualification to be within the group of "best teams". They had one really bad loss when a lesser team was absolutely playing out of their minds. They had a couple close victories (PSU/UNL/Maryland), but they also had some big convincing wins (OrSU, MSU, NU).

Now, I'm not saying they should have gotten into the current iteration of the CFP over the teams that were selected. Bama/Clemson/ND were all undefeated, and Oklahoma's loss was not as bad as OSU's loss (although Oklahoma also had some squeaker wins against lesser competition).

What I'm saying is that if you TRULY want to settle "who is the best team" on the field, it's hard to claim that the current CFP is inclusive enough to do so. After all, the #1 seed has never won the CFP, and the #4 seed has won it twice in five years. If the #4 seed has won it twice, how do we know that the #5 or #6 seeds might not have been better than the #4 in those years? How do we know that Ohio State wouldn't have won an 8-team playoff last year?

As I said before, I wouldn't mind just doing away with all of it and returning to the days when the mythical national champion was just that. But I just don't think you can have an "objective" champ with a two-team BCS or a 4-team CFP that excludes some conference champions that can credibly be at least "in the discussion" for the best team in the land.

The NCAA basketball tournament is too big, at least as it stands for crowning a champion. Beyond the 4 seed line, only 3 champions have been produced in 35 years. Beyond the 8 seed line, no team has EVER even made the national championship game. So a 68-team field is more about entertainment than crowning a champion.

But the CFP is conversely too small. If the lowest seed has won 40% of the time, it tells you that the next team down has a better shot than you might think. And going to 8 teams, actually HELPS ensure that it's more likely that the best team wins the whole thing. Variance is reduced with larger sample sizes, and 3 games is a larger sample size for a playoff than 2 games.

I may not have been clear, but I completely agree with you. I was replaying to OrangeAfroMan. I was just stating that when someone throws out the term "best team", what are they talking about?

Are they saying the best team on paper, is so just hand Alabama the trophy.
Are they saying most deserving? If so, then how do you justify a team being included in the playoff that failed to win it's own conference?
What about best resume? Sounds good, but we still see Clemson making it in playing essentially nobody.

Best team could mean different things to different people. Going back to a past post, let's take Northwestern in some future year. The lose their QB and tailback before the season starts and lose a couple of non conf games. Then both players make it back, they win their division and win the B1G championship game. At the moment, they are playing the best in the country and passing they eye test. But the pollsters punish them for losing a couple of games without their best players. One could argue that at selection time, they are one of the best teams in the country. But they are ranking outside the top 10. So what? They won their conf and should be in the playoff.

I believe that you and I are on the same page here.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #120 on:** October 07, 2019, 02:57:04 PM »

"Best team" to me means the team that would beat every other team at least 51 times out of 100. That is a hypothetical of course in most cases, 1995 Nebraska might be an exceptions. One can imagine a team that is truly great and demolishes everyone in its path and then gets shocked by some 10-4 team in the championship game. There is a finite if small probability that it would happen. They are still the best team, but that 2 times in 100 happened.

medinabuckeye1 · « **Reply #121 on:** October 08, 2019, 02:19:04 PM »

Quote from: medinabuckeye1 on October 04, 2019, 02:10:03 PM

I kind-of agree and that is probably what they will do, but I still think it sucks that four of the best teams in the country get completely left out of the premier bowls.

I thought of something else that is problematic to me about leaving the quarter-final losers out of the premier bowls altogether. Most of those losers are going to be teams that had to play a road game in the quarter-final. Some will be teams that got a home quarter-final. Either way, that fanbase doesn't get an opportunity for a neutral site game to travel to. They either get a road game that will be nearly impossible to get tickets for or a home game.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #122 on:** October 08, 2019, 02:28:44 PM »

I like the old bowl silliness.

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #123 on:** October 08, 2019, 03:06:43 PM »

Quote from: NorthernOhioBuckeye on October 07, 2019, 01:01:19 PM

If we are simply looking for the "best team" by your standards, why play any games at all? We just look at Alabama's roster every year and hand them the trophy.

How in the holy hell can you get this from my post? Do you not know what a SLIDING SCALE means?!?!?!? Honestly.

It's not an either/or proposition: it's not just the best team on paper, AND it's not just the best resume...IT'S BOTH!

CWSooner · « **Reply #124 on:** October 08, 2019, 10:17:27 PM »

Quote from: Cincydawg on October 08, 2019, 02:28:44 PM

I like the old bowl silliness.

I do--or did--too.
Joni Mitchell wrote a great song about the situation such as we are in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bdMSCdw20

NorthernOhioBuckeye · « **Reply #125 on:** October 09, 2019, 06:22:19 AM »

Quote from: OrangeAfroMan on October 08, 2019, 03:06:43 PM

How in the holy hell can you get this from my post? Do you not know what a SLIDING SCALE means?!?!?!? Honestly.

It's not an either/or proposition: it's not just the best team on paper, AND it's not just the best resume...IT'S BOTH!

My point is that best roster may be a component of best team, but should have absolutely nothing to do with determining a champion. Right off the bat, you eliminate all but a handful of teams every year. Also best roster is subjective at best, based on opinions of sports writers. Sure, they have a pretty good idea, but if the hand full of teams with the best rosters are all that good, it should show on the field and most likely will.

My point is simply that if we are going to crown a champion, that should be open to all 120 some teams in the FBS, not limited to the hand full of teams that are perceived to the best of the group at the start of the season. We should also have a clearly defined criteria for playing the tournament that is known and understood by everyone and not a small group of people meeting for a few weekends behind closed doors deciding on who they believe should be playing.

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Topic: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

Cincydawg

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

MikeDeTiger

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

NorthernOhioBuckeye

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

Cincydawg

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

betarhoalphadelta

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

FearlessF

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

MikeDeTiger

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

NorthernOhioBuckeye

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

Cincydawg

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

medinabuckeye1

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

Cincydawg

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

OrangeAfroMan

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

CWSooner

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?

NorthernOhioBuckeye

Re: Is the Big Ten top to bottom the 2nd best conference in America?