re: T or F: If Stanford had not lost to Washington....

So if we get to take away a Stanford loss can we take way an Alabama loss?

Second if Alabama wins the SEC title they will have won in the conference that not only has won the past six national titles, the SEC has six teams in the BCS top ten. I am pretty sure Alabama winning at LSU was a much more hostile environment than winning at Notre Dame. Alabama wins they will beat another too five team on their schedule. Don't really care about top fifty, what is being done against top ten?

T or F:

If LSU had beat Alabama they would be playing for the natty this year?

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Moustache

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bama is better than all of them. that is the difference.

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So if we get to take away a Stanford loss can we take way an Alabama loss?

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And you missed the point.

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Second if Alabama wins the SEC title they will have won in the conference that not only has won the past six national titles, the SEC has six teams in the BCS top ten. I am pretty sure Alabama winning at LSU was a much more hostile environment than winning at Notre Dame. Alabama wins they will beat another too five team on their schedule. Don't really care about top fifty, what is being done against top ten?

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This was not a SEC isn't the best conference thread.

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. How exactly do you justify Ohio State going ahead of Florida under those circumstances?

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Easy.

Florida isn't better than UGA. We've settled that on the field.

We haven't settled OSU vs UGA or OSU vs Bama on the field. I'm all about settling it on the field and single elimination playoffs. not a fan of rematches or mulligans.

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T or F, hypothetical threads are fricking dumb

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So glad you took the time to read 3 pages worth and reply this dynamite contribution. Thank you.

But then by that logic, we already settled that Ohio State isn't better than Purdue. Short of going undefeated, if you argue that losing to someone = that someone is better than you, everyone is worse than someone else.

Or perhaps better put - we haven't settled OSU vs UF either, and won't have settled it in the hypothetical where OSU beats Bama/UGA.

This year actually highlights (in my mind) precisely why "if you didn't win your conference, you're not the best in your conference" doesn't work. Let's say Alabama defeats Georgia this weekend. Alabama and Florida both went 11-1 in the regular season. Alabama won its 13th game. But neither team played one another. Florida managed to beat A&M when Alabama did not, Alabama managed to beat Georgia when Florida did not. Florida has strong wins over Florida State and South Carolina, wins which Alabama cannot match on their resume. Florida pretty clearly has a better resume than Alabama, but because of the way the conferences and divisions are drawn, Florida's wins against A&M, South Carolina, and Florida State are all irrelevant, and their loss to Georgia is the only thing that matters, where Alabama's loss to TAMU and dodging any good unique opponents are both irrelevant, and their win over Georgia is the only thing that matters.

In this scenario, Alabama > Georgia > Florida > TAMU > Alabama ... but you're essentially just cutting out the second half of that to justify keeping Florida out. It doesn't make sense. It works for determining a conference champion, given the existence of divisions and the need for a conference championship game, but it doesn't make sense for determining the two best teams in the country.

EDIT: As for the original post, yes, Stanford should go in that case, no, they would not go. Polls would keep the SEC champ at #2 and you'd hear a litany of "SEC is the best conference thus its champ should go" and "Stanford already got their chance," even though the first statement doesn't follow and the second statement is bogus both by precedent and by the results of the first game.

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why? they would have a better loss than both Bama and UGA and they would have beaten more top 50 teams than either of them also.

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because they are Stanford. The only reason Alabama got in last year is because they are Alabama, and the Big 12 team was Oklahoma State. If the two teams had been Mississippi State and Oklahoma - the Sooners would have gotten in. It had nothing to do with performance. It's name only - don't kid yourself.

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No, but if you're not the best in your conference, why do you get a chance to be best in the nation? It makes no sense.

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It makes as much sense as allowing teams from crappy conferences (as the Big Ten was this year) to be the best. The simple fact is that Florida could very well be better than Ohio State, there's plenty of good reasons to think they would win more often than they would lose if the two met on the field, and in light of this, it's unjustifiable to make arguments from arbitrary divisions of teams (which conferences ultimately are, from the standpoint of on-field performance) to say Ohio State should go and Florida shouldn't.

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Florida loses to rival UGA knowing it's for the Eastern championship. they lost. No bitching allowed after that point.

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I agree with this; there's no reason if, say, UGA beats Bama, that Georgia should have to play Florida again for the title. That's been decided. But if Florida is better than Ohio State, as I posit (and as I believe isn't especially controversial), then why should OSU go over Florida to face Georgia?

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Bama beats LSU knowing that that game was for the west. Sure, they lost to A&M, but it didn't matter because they owned their side.

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I actually disagree with this. LSU and A&M both had to play Florida, who was NOT from the West, and those losses gave Alabama the edge. Alabama *didn't* own their side; that the top three West teams were 5-1 in their division attests to this fact. It was games in the East, not the West, which decided the SEC West race; that's bogus.

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I mean frick. let's just go to a little league style double elimination tournament if you wanna keep dishing out second chances.

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I don't. I don't want teams that don't deserve to be in the title hunt to be in the title hunt. Ohio State's resume is worse than Florida's and there's good reason to think that Florida would beat OSU in a hypothetical matchup. The problem isn't that you're excluding Florida, it's that you're excluding Florida and not Ohio State as well that I, at least, am having trouble following you.