The SEC Forum at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Uh, okay—just happened this week.  Thanks for making my point stronger Afro!  You seriously think that Wofford beating UNC on their floor doesn’t hurt UNC’s seeding and won’t help Wofford’s seeding in the tournament depending on how the rest of the season plays out.  If that loss by UNC is not made up by a long winning streak or winning their conference, that could be the difference between a number one seed (a very big deal) and a five or six seed, which does affect UNC’s chances of winning a national championship.  Unimpressive wins are one thing and bad losses are another.  Thus, the regular season means just as much if you look at it that way. That’s not only a humiliating loss for UNC, but it shows how any quality team is beatable on any given night especially with more parity across the country, which is why I agree that SOS should help determine seeding, but not keeping a team out entirely unless they don’t make the cut using all the criteria.
  
The committee is having to split hairs on only four teams in the entire country when there are too many differences in conferences, SOS and playing nine conference games versus eight, etc.  Plus, the way the selection process works now is insane to me.  “Here’s the way the fourth team was picked:  just ten committee members ranked the teams from 4-6. There were only ten committee members ranking the teams because three of the 13 committee members to my knowledge had to recuse themselves from voting — Ohio State and Clemson’s athletic directors because their two teams would be ranked inside the top six and former Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer because his son is on the Georgia coaching staff. This means there is the distinct possibility that the committee split, with five voting for Ohio State and five voting for Alabama in the fourth spot. If they split like this do you know how the tie is broken? THEY SIT IN THE ROOM AND ARGUE UNTIL SOMEONE CHANGES THEIR MIND.  It’s like being in a hung jury when everybody is ready to just go home and changes their vote to get out of there.  Seriously, this is the brilliant method we’ve selected to choose four playoff teams. One person could literally just change their mind and that’s how the playoff gets picked.  I trust the BCS more than that with computers as human beings have too much bias.

 Furthermore, if that isn’t crazy enough, here’s more — the ballots of the voters aren’t made public, which means the ten voters never have to allow their ballots to be seen publicly by college football fans across the country. So there is an incredible amount of corruption that could be in play here because we’re talking about tens of millions of dollars to the conference that makes the fourth playoff — either the SEC or the Big Ten.  You think benefit of the doubt doesn’t matter when it comes to Alabama? You think the Big Ten’s Playoff flops in 2015 and 2016 didn’t factor in the subconscious of those committee members?   One can make a valid argument for either Alabama or Ohio State, but that’s the point—either way is splitting hairs when an eight game playoff would negate that.  Additionally, I hate the argument that well, if eight, then why not twelve?  As Aristotle’s golden mean dictates, finding the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency works best.  The point is driven home to me when you look at arguments for both Ohio State and Alabama getting in or staying out: First, Vegas would likely favor Alabama by 5.5 over Ohio State on a neutral field. If the goal of the committee is to pick the best teams for the playoff — that’s literally their charged goal — shouldn’t the fact that Alabama would be nearly a touchdown favorite over Ohio State break any close tie?  Second, 11-1 Alabama has the same number of wins against teams with winning records as Ohio State, two more wins against teams going to bowl games, and its single loss will be demonstrably better than Ohio State’s two losses. Bama lost on the road to Auburn, a bitter conference rival, who is undoubtedly a top ten team. Ohio State lost to likely #2 seed Oklahoma at home by 15 and lost by 31 on the road to 7-5 Iowa.  Presently Ohio State has five wins against teams with winning records: Army, Penn State, Michigan State, Michigan and Wisconsin. Alabama also has five wins against teams with winning records right now: Fresno State, Colorado State, Mississippi State, LSU, and Texas A&M. (Florida State also finished 6-6, but what would the Seminole record have been without Deondre Francois’s injury? Since the committee considers quarterback injuries for Clemson, shouldn’t they also consider FSU with Francois? Remember, Alabama played FSU with Francois until late in the fourth quarter. FSU with Francois definitely finishes with a winning record, right? They lost games by 6, 4, and 3 this year with a true freshman quarterback. Plus, is it Alabama’s fault that a top five preseason FSU team ended up losing several tight games after their quarterback was injured? The Tide scheduled a challenging neutral site game, which the committee wants to encourage. So it’s not like Alabama dodged anyone on this schedule. In fact, they tried to challenge themselves, which is a clear directive from the committee).  Both teams also have three top wins against top 25 teams.  Thus, Alabama has the same number of wins against winning teams as Ohio State and fewer losses. Plus, their loss comes against a better team by fewer points.  Breaking down the numbers more fully, Alabama went 7-1 against bowl teams while Ohio State went go 5-2 against bowl teams. So Alabama played more bowl teams than Ohio State did and won more games against those bowl teams.  How about FBS teams in big five conferences with .500 or better records? Alabama went 5-1 against these opponents while Ohio State went 4-2.  Okay, how about records against FBS teams from big five conferences with winning records? Bama went 3-1, Ohio State went 4-2.  Finally, Ohio State lost by 15 to Oklahoma and 31 to 7-5 Iowa while Alabama lost by 12 at Auburn.  Put simply, Alabama’s record at the top is better and its record at the bottom isn’t as bad as Ohio State’s.  But Alabama didn’t even win its own division or its conference!  Maybe it’s a better conference; however, Alabama slid into the playoff by doing nothing. It was rewarded for losing to Auburn in a game that decided the SEC West title. And that’s simply not the way this process should work according to the committee that has said they favor conference champions all things being equal.  Was this committee really watching that 24-10 victory against LSU where Alabama actually got outgained 306-299 and thinking this is “unequivocally” one of the four best teams in the country? Were they really watching the Tide’s struggle in Starkville, Miss., and thinking this was the Alabama of old? Were they really watching them get pushed around in Auburn and thinking this is a team worth a second chance as a non-champion?   And, if you're going to mention that Alabama has more wins against bowl eligible teams and teams with winning records, you should also mention that Alabama's best win was against #17 LSU, while Ohio State now had two wins against top ten teams and Ohio State has wins against 3 teams ranked higher than LSU.  I see that we’re starting to veer in pretty significant ways from what the commissioners who created the playoff told us they wanted.” More playoff spots takes more bias out of the process because the margin of error is not so small.  Just my long-winded opinion and I know we aren’t going to agree as we’ve had this discussion before.

Right, so in 2017, with their high school schedule, they don't warrant a playoff spot.  Not in a 4-team, not in an 8-team, not in a box, not with a fox.  Not here or there, not anywhere.