So when did the “eyeball test” become a thing?

Alabama is in because of past history and not for what they did this year. They’re schedule was weak and were unimpressive down the stretch.

2011

Nov 2011

The eyeball test was what it was called prior to the BCS era coming in. "Eyeball Test" was the exact phrase used that seemed to be most effective in describing what was wrong with only relying on the AP Poll to coronate a national champion.....it ushered in the BCS championship game.....which was a very sweet era for the SEC.

David Burge's (@iowahawkblog) marble game seems the most fair way to determine the 4 team playoff.

Every team starts with 100 marbles. you beat a team you get 20% of their marbles; you beat them on the road you get 25% of their marbles.

Surprisingly this simple concept yielded some decent results.

Eyeball test referred to what was wrong with relying only on the Computers.

The right four teams made it. If not Alabama, who’s the fourth team?

The AP poll always used it.

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I think I first heard the term back in the 2011 season when they were looking for reasons to put Bama in the BCS title game.

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same. Never heard it before 2011. Worth noting I heard Herbstreit and Blackledge both say it in the weeks prior to 9-6.

You would figure if it was a thing we would have heard it long before the BCS back during the days of split championships, even weaker scheduling, and pollsters allegiance to bowl tie-ins.

Back then we heard about margin of victory, winning (or losing) big games, and strength of schedule.

Me personally, since the BCS and now the playoff committe doesn't consider margin of victory, the "eye test" thing is just a direct replacement for margin of victory with a little bit of conference bias thrown in for good measure.

A close game (or loss) against a good opponent with some big blowouts, no matter the strength of opponent, combine to be the "eye test" to explain away things just like margin of victory was used so many times.

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Flame Salamander

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It's funny that Slive foresaw the benefit of a conf championship game and then 6 years later with the BCS it reaped huge benefits for the SEC. Essentially 20 years later, it seems it has gone the other way. All the things UF and Bama said about not wanting to play that first game in '92 have now seemingly come to fruition. The risk of a conf championship game, not counting injuries, is that it is difficult to play into the playoffs but easy to play out of it.

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I think I first heard the term back in the 2011 season when they were looking for reasons to put Bama in the BCS title game.

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this




for these people to act like they have zero bias is a joke.