My first thought is always going to be, who are you up against for the spot? Like, who gets thrown out if Texas gets the “if a cupcake” or more likely, “if TCU” situation? You don’t reward teams in a vacuum.
And if that No. 10 team really feels like you want to chuck them out, so be it. But that context will always be a big part of it.
Then there are two other thoughts:
-If Texas just went four pure cupcakes, it’s fair to say, it might become a thing and might be held against them. Team tied for fifth, played probably the worst non-con of any contender, that’d be a thing. So for clarity, we should say if they’d played a non-powerhouse P5.
-If anything, the good non-conference opponent thing has meant less than it ever has. In the olden days this board often pines for, losing that game would’ve very likely ended Texas’ title hopes 60 minutes into the season. The four-team era would’ve been more forgiving, but still, if you wanted to chase national title, playing Ohio State was a bad idea.
And yet, with that always being a risk, people did it perpetually. So is the difference that we’re just super playoff focused? That we have a committee that’s answerable in a way voters weren’t? It probably doesn’t totally matter, since they’ll all go to nine plus a power non-conference team, but there’s always going to be the challenge that in this sport, for fans and often team assessments, losing is most of the time treated as worse than winning.
