re: Why do people say OSU has shot over Bama?

quote:

---

Weird how this time of year people pick out 1 thing as what matters most. Every year has differences and last year osu has 1 loss with monster wins from highly ranked teams.

It was like Bama this year but add in 3 top 10 wins instead of beating Mercer

---

This is why we never should have ditched the BCS rankings. If everyone wanted a four team playoff the BCS rankings should have been used to determine the four teams.

quote:

---

OSU has better wins

In the past the committee has favored better wins over better losses.

However, the committee likes to pick their four teams and then form the criteria around the four teams they picked so who knows.

---

The more effective indicator is number of losses. Look at the final rankings each year. The teams are almost always grouped by losses; with at most one outlier per year (which hasn't ever affected whether a team makes the top 4 or not), the teams are very neatly ranked by losses.

I think Alabama is in over Ohio State regardless of whether or not Ohio State wins the Big Ten, and that the Big Ten title game is a win-and-in for Wisconsin and nothing more.

Right now I expect to see:
- The ACC Champion
- The SEC Champion
- Oklahoma and Wisconsin if both win
- Alabama if either Oklahoma or Wisconsin lose

The interesting part is if Oklahoma and Wisconsin lose. Do you take:

- Big Ten Champion Ohio State, at 11-2, who has four (!) wins over Power 5 teams that are 8-4 or better, but who has a terrible loss against Iowa and lost head-to-head against...
- Oklahoma, at 11-2, who has Ohio State and TCU as good wins but isn't a conference champion and just lost to...
- TCU, at 11-2, Big XII champion and a W over Oklahoma but not much else to their name;
- Wisconsin, at 11-1, with no real win to their name and no conference title
- Miami (FL) at 10-2, or Clemson at 11-2; both have a solid OOC win (Notre Dame and Auburn respectively), but lost their title game
- Georgia if they lose the SECCG, at 11-2, with a good win over Notre Dame but lost their title game

Based on the committee's track record, I think Wisconsin might still be in, even with a loss to another contender in OSU, simply because Wisconsin would still have 1 loss and you'd be putting all of the 1-loss teams in. But OSU does have a lot of good wins and would be adding Wisconsin to the skins in this scenario.

This scenario puts the committee in a tough spot, since they seem to like to go by win-loss, but they have a ton of head-to-head games that would be reasonable to use as tiebreakers.

The other interesting question is, what should matter?

I think the SEC's conference tiebreakers are pretty good, and I wonder if we could adapt them to the national scene.

LINK

You would have criteria like these...

1. Win-Loss record.
2. Head-to-head.
3. Conference titles. (the SEC's second tiebreaker is "division record," in this case we're looking at conferences instead of divisions, but it's the same principle)

It doesn't really work after this, since you start getting into unhelpful minutia about conference/division wins which don't help on a national scale. This is probably where you would start developing criteria about opponents' win-loss record and margin of victory.

I think I would do this:

1. Win-Loss record.
2. Head-to-head.
3. Conference champions get priority.
4. Higher opp win% gets priority.
5. Higher MOV gets priority.

I'm not sure what you'd do after that, but how likely are you to have a tie after those five?

quote:

---

OSU still has a shot to be a conference champion. Bama does not.

---

Sadly, finishing 3rd in it's conference has not stopped the Gumps in recent years.

The huge flaw in the conference champion argument is easily summed up with UCF. While they would be much more deserving of the chance than Alabama, there is no way they would get in.

By the same token, let's say that Auburn loses an overtime game to Georgia. All the mouth breathers would slobber "3 losses vs 1 loss" and justify that Alabama should get in, but all logic and reason says that we don't have to "speculate" who is better the two played on the field last week and Auburn showed it was the vastly superior team.



At this point, I'd say the only two guarantees to get in are the ACC champ and the SEC champ. The Big Ten champion should be in. That leaves one possible spot. Oklahoma is in for sure if they win. If they lose...well then it gets dicey....

But my .02 is that the iron bowl was a defacto playoff game and Alabama knew it. They lost. The Big 12, Big 10, SEC, ACC and PAC 12 championships are also defacto playoff games....why should a team that loses when everything is on the line be rewarded over one that wins?

I just hope OU/Wisky and Clemson win......they ALL get in with the SEC champ and get rid of the media darlings OSU and BAMA.

The media will fight to get the darlings in every year but never fight for the non-darlings.

HONESTLY......the media only really cares about Bama/Notre Dame/ Ohio St/Michigan/Texas/OU and USC.

quote:

---

2 loss Team that lost by 32 to Iowa should get in ovet a 1 loss sec team that lost to a monster Auburn team?

---

Monster Auburn team?

That lost to LSU? Two weeks after LSU lost to Troy.

quote:

---

OSU has better wins

---

LSU would beat every team that OSU beat. LSU would also beat OSU.

LSU would even beat Troy if it were played today. They wouldnt pound them like they would OSU, but they would beat them.

quote:

---

The one bad loss is not as bad as having no confernce championship and no big wins that OSU has

---

Losing to Iowa by like 10 is a bad loss.

Getting blown the frick out by Iowa is a disqualifying loss.

Ohio State hurt their chances by how they got in and performed last year.

THe committee isn't supposed to take last year into account, but they are only human.

Ohio State at 11-1 got in over a 2 loss conference champion that actually beat them head to head, and then proceeded to get humiliated in the playoff.

Now a 2 loss Ohio State wants to get in in the exact reverse situation? And the don't even have the head to head win argument.

Give it up guys, it's not happening. Assuming Ohio State beats Wisconsin Bama is going, where I promptly expect us to get drilled in the first round.