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

A sentence in an article on CBSsports made me think to do this:


The SEC has 5 of the top 11 teams.  They don't all play each other, but still, that's a tough road to hoe.  So imagine a conference of similarly-ranked teams (using ESPN's FPI, because it ranks all the teams):

Ohio State, Clemson, Oklahoma, Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington, Texas, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Indiana, SMU, UCLA, Temple, Ohio U



Would there be major complaints if 2 teams from the conference listed above got 2 teams in the playoff?  Maybe without the SEC names, it's not as damning?

As we've discussed before, at least some of the complaints about the SEC have to do with SEC teams playing only 8 conference games and for most of them, at most one P5 OOC game.  Also a factor is that SEC teams play creampuff OOC games late in the season, like the week before conference rivalry games.  They pick and choose which team plays in which bowl to the conference's best advantage.  And they play those bowl games almost entirely within the conference footprint.
So here's Alabama this year, in order: Duke, NM State, USC-E, USM, Ole Miss, Open Date, A&M, Tennessee, Arkansas, Open Date, LSU, Mississippi State, Western Carolina, Auburn.  That's not bad, but it's not Murderer's Row either.  The schedule can be reduced to LSU and Auburn.
And I'm not bagging on Bama in particular.  If I'm bagging on anyone, it's the whole conference.
Over the past 15-20 years, the SEC has usually--but not always--been the strongest conference.  But IMO it hasn't been quite as strong as it appears to be because of the factors I listed above.  Factors that do not apply to this degree to any other conference.  And because the SEC is a bit overrated, it often gets breaks at the margin from human voters.  Breaks like having teams that not only aren't conference champions, they aren't even division champions, get selected for the highest level of post-season play.  The only non-SEC team I can remember doing that is Nebraska in 2001.  But we've had an all-SEC rematch in the BCSCG in 2011 and a CFP rematch in 2017.  In both cases, Bama got in and won the Natty without winning its division.  And it seems like every year we have to listen to all the scenarios in which a 1-loss SEC non-champion would still "deserve" to go to the CFP.
With only four slots in the CFP (which I agree with, BTW), the fans of teams in the other conferences have to gnash their teeth as by early October the mediots are babbling about their dream scenarios in which two of those slots are filled by SEC teams.  And the gnashing increases when those fans think about how the SEC's scheduling practices lead to the SEC teams having a bit of an additional edge in the selection process.

I did a terrible job of explaining this and forgot to type the most important caveat.  I have now added it. 

The caveat that I left out is that the point differential at each check (halftime, end of third quarter, end of game) is capped at 21 points such that the maximum possible MoV/MoD is 63/-63. 

In your example:

• Team A leads at halftime by 14
• Team A leads at the end of the third quarter by 21, sum of 35
• Team A wins by 28 but that is capped at 21, sum of 56. 
• Thus, Team A would be awarded a 56 point MoV and Team B would get a -56. 

Here is how a team could win but have a negative MoV:

• Team A leads 17-7 at halftime, 10 points. 
• Team A leads 17-14 at the end of the third quarter, 3 points, sum of 13. 
• Team B wins the game 21-17, a -4 for Team A, sum of 9. 
• Team A has a 9 point MoV but they LOST the game so they get a -1 and the winner, Team B gets a +1.

Thanks, Medina.

Between your caveat and me thinking it over some, I think I understand your logic.  Your method would effectively weight early point differential, thereby underweighting RUTS points in the 4th quarter.
I don't know how I failed to see how the winning team could have the negative MOV.  I wasn't considering the possibility of a comeback.

Capping it at 21 points seems really low to me.  I'd need it to be more than 3 scores, so 25 points at least.  

I've always said the same.  Same with when the Big XII/SEC complained in the late 90s/early 00s that they were at a disadvantage because they had a CCG, and the other conferences didn't.

Nobody made you do that.  You did it to make money, so you can't complain about the downside.

Same thing here.  You get more money, better tv contracts out of having better schedules?  Then don't complain about how it hurts your championship chances.

But my point is not based on the specifics - you can cite any weekly poll of any season and you'll find the same thing.  You're describing the 1-loss teams that I'd hypothetically think should be ranked ahead of an undefeated as uninspiring, but that's irrelevant, actually. 


A different point is the case of Minnesota (and/or Baylor and/or other lowly helmets):  their resume could be identical or better than a 'helmet' program, but they're not getting in, not getting the benefit of the doubt, not being held in equal esteem.  And we all know that.  Even among helmets, a recent successful helmet team gets the nod over an older one.



We could look at Clemson and UGA, just for an exercise. 
UGA is the better helmet, historically and is recently strong, but Clemson has been peaking and is their best-ever the last 5 years.  The Tigers get the nod because of that, despite nearly-equal resumes.  Say both win out and Clemson gets in and UGA ends up 5th (don't care if the other pieces can fall into place for this scenario, let's just explore it). 

Clemson's best win is probably their 2nd-closest - 14 pts over A&M.  UGA's is Florida and they also beat ND.  I wouldn't consider any of Clemson's other opponents newsworthy, and I think that's fair to say.  Clemson did escape with a 1-point win vs UNC and UGA lost in 2 OT to USCe.  Are we going to say Clemson gets into the playoff because of a failed 2-pt conversion by the Tar Heels over a UGA team that happened to miss an easy FG?  Is that the margin of error here?  Did Clemson have anything to do with Mack Brown deciding to go for 2 instead of taking it to OT? 

God knows I'm not defending UGA here, but it's not even really about the teams.  The larger point is the question - Would the undefeated Clemson be so clearly ranked ahead of 1-loss UGA?  I think we all cite quality wins when it suits us.  Conference champion when it suits us.  Best loss.  Helmet quality.  Conference strength.  Etc......

So if I am reading this right, this poll is lazy, in large part because of the clustering of one-loss or undefeated teams, but the actual details of a given poll are not in fact relevant?

That complaint in turn feels rather lazy. You give a cursory look, see somewhat of a pattern you disapprove of an read into it what you chose. 

The Clemson-UGA part seems to come to the conclusion that ranking all teams is a sort of fool's errand (It's not really about the teams, Is that the margin of error here?). The point of rankings is to arbitrarily or systematically decide margins of error, and football is a low sample-size sport with different kinds of useful data that we can discuss.

But if the Clemson-UGA thing is to a degree, unknowable (probably), it means the whole exercise is a frivolity (mostly), and that in turn means the charges of laziness don't hold much water because if something is pointless to begin with, working less hard on the pointless thing probably doesn't reflect much at all on the person doing it. 

("Are we going to say Clemson gets into the playoff because of a failed 2-pt conversion by the Tar Heels over a UGA team that happened to miss an easy FG?" The answer here would be no. We're going to let in Clemson because in a sport where the goal is winning, they'll have won 100 percent of the time against a schedule that generally gets a team in. And if UGA doesn't make it, it will be because the Bulldogs played a similarly close game, at home vs on the road, then came up short and then down the road lost to a better team. And when push comes to shove, if that happens, Clemson will have smushed SC on the road and UGA will have lost to an inferior SC team at home and that in the end will be the margin)

So if I am reading this right, this poll is lazy, in large part because of the clustering of one-loss or undefeated teams, but the actual details of a given poll are not in fact relevant?

That complaint in turn feels rather lazy. You give a cursory look, see somewhat of a pattern you disapprove of an read into it what you chose.
It's less lazy than it is a statistical certainty.  There's almost a 0% chance all the undefeateds are better than the 1-loss teams and the 1-loss teams are better than the 2-loss teams.  I guess you could claim that 2019 is on the very tip of the bell curve of this near-certainty, but in that case you're claiming an unlikelihood on top of an unlikelihood.

The Clemson-UGA part seems to come to the conclusion that ranking all teams is a sort of fool's errand (It's not really about the teams, Is that the margin of error here?). The point of rankings is to arbitrarily or systematically decide margins of error, and football is a low sample-size sport with different kinds of useful data that we can discuss.
This whole convo is most certainly a fool's errand, yet nevertheless fun.  And logic and validity is still a part of the convo, while acknowledging its arbitrariness.  

But if the Clemson-UGA thing is to a degree, unknowable (probably), it means the whole exercise is a frivolity (mostly), and that in turn means the charges of laziness don't hold much water because if something is pointless to begin with, working less hard on the pointless thing probably doesn't reflect much at all on the person doing it.
Anything worth doing's worth doing right.

Apologies for all the certainty I'm claiming here, but the shoe fits.  I think we mostly agree on things, lol.

I'd have LSU and OSU at 1a and 1b.  I think Alabama would likely beat any other teams out there, including Clemson, who I'd slot at 4, I think.  Georgia's offense is still a mystery to me, too many FGs for one thing.  I'd probably have Oregon/Utah at 5a and 5b.  

#7 Penn State
#8 UGA
#9 OU, maybe
#10 Florida
#11 Auburn