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post SCOTUS  'CFA' OU/UGA case,  Big Ten had tiered media deals.  they had a first tier deal w CBS along with Pac 10, and then one of the ESPN founders actually had created a media syndicate (and I recall most of those games were produced by Raycom), TBS had some Big ten games during this period too.  The schools could have their own deals too.  Iowa had the biggest local deal at the individual school level I recall.  I don't remember what the other schools east of WI did.  Pro sports dominated markets didn't care about college sports. Wisconsin was a bit of a joke, total college football vacuum in Milwaukee and we were were left watching their games on public television at 10pm tape delay.  the local independent UHF stations in Milwaukee and GB didn't care about UW.  I know IU had a deal where all of its basketball games were shown by (guessing a Raycom production).    Iowa's rights deal ran until the early 90s before the Conference started to move to more shared rights, and exclusive Conference driven deals as we saw with espn.

I think its probable that Texas will not be in the playoffs

If I were in charge of scheduling for Texas Id make sure no blue blood team was ever scheduled for the first game.  the reward just dosent add up

Id adapt the Alabama approach schedule 3 cubcakes at the beginnng of the season and a 4th cubcake towards the end of the season

anyway its a shame to have to do this but the current system requires it

That would be a good plan, IF that’s what Alabama actually did.  Can’t believe you’re making me defend those assholes. 

Yeah Alabama played Florida State. Presumably that game was scheduled well before FSU sucked.

How on earth did Alabama lose that game?

we have been questioning this type of scheduling for decades.

regardless what happens to Texas, some programs will schedule great opponents for the $$$, some will avoid losses.

I think its probable that Texas will not be in the playoffs

If I were in charge of scheduling for Texas Id make sure no blue blood team was ever scheduled for the first game.  the reward just dosent add up

Id adapt the Alabama approach schedule 3 cubcakes at the beginnng of the season and a 4th cubcake towards the end of the season

anyway its a shame to have to do this but the current system requires it

It sucks that Wisconsin is now considered a cupcake.

shoot, that's easy.

The Buckeyes will be looking for a game, and they won't mind, probably add another home game

the TV networks won't be happy

I would be curious if the distribution above is a sign of playing poorly, or just kind of a bland reality of going 6-2 with a semi-balanced schedule.

if you play three top end teams in the league, two .500 ones and three substandard to bad ones, that seems like a somewhat normal distribution and the most logical way to get to 6-2

I'm not saying they played poorly. The question is whether Oklahoma benefited from beating Michigan OOC. And IMHO that question can't be answered as "did they have a good season", which they invariably did... The question in modern college football HAS TO BE whether that benefits them in the CFP selection process. 

With five auto-bids, that means you have 7 at-large slots. 

• You have to assume the loser of the OSU/IU game is in.
• Oregon is in.
• A&M is in.

So that means you're now down to four remaining slots:

• If Texas Tech wins the CCG, they're in. But if Utah wins, TTU will be 11-2. The CFP committee SEEMS to not like punishing a team for losing their CCG. 
• You've got UGA/Bama. If Bama wins, UGA will be 11-2. Given the ranking coming into the game, you'd think UGA would still be in based purely on that and the committee not punishing a CG loss. If not, Bama is still sitting there at 10-3 and may have a claim.
• You have Ole Miss at 11-1.
• You have ND at 10-2.
• You have Oklahoma at 10-2. 
• You have Texas at 9-3. 
• Then there are 10-2 "outsiders" Miami and Vanderbilt.

As I said above, Oklahoma at 10-2 with their sole marquee win being Alabama, and 3 cupcakes OOC, and losing to the two other 6-2 conference teams? That's by no means "playing poorly", but that's the sort of resume that the CFP selection committee might punish for scheduling cupcakes OOC. There are a lot of teams in the above list that the committee might deem more deserving, including the Texas team that has 3 resume-building wins, including a multi-score beatdown of Oklahoma. 

But they didn't schedule just cupcakes; they played [and beat] Michigan. So they now have two strong resume wins, instead of just one. 


So I'm saying that playing [and beating] Michigan ultimately benefits OU. Had they not, I don't think they'd be sitting at #8 in the current polls. They might be closer to the area where Miami (#12) and Vanderbilt (#13) are sitting, 2-loss teams that have relatively weak resumes.