The loss to Texas does count but the rest of their schedule counts too. Their wins are better than Notre Dame's wins (Notre Dame also has 1 loss btw, may not be an embarrassing loss but they are both 1-loss teams). Last year, tOSU lost to Virginia Tech. In the old system, they would not have made the championship game. In the new system, they were still able to make the playoff and prove that they were by far and away the best football team in the country.
They changed it this year to eliminate that. If OU wins, they win the conference. If OSU wins and Baylor loses, OSU wins the title. If OSU wins and Baylor wins, Baylor wins the title. Except you're saying that for OU and ND, only the Texas game counts and their other 22 games are essentially irrelevant as long as you win them - doesn't matter how the team looks, how dominant they are, or the quality of opposition. If OU had beaten 8 top-25 teams and Notre Dame just played a bunch of Southeast Western Louisianas, would you would you still put ND over OU because they beat Texas?
It's more appropriate to say that with the CFB, losses don't matter as much as they used to. And while I don't agree with everything the committee decides, I'm good with this part. Under the old system, FSU last year would have been a unanimous #1 with simply being the undefeated reigning champs. But as someone who watches 10 games in full per week (junkie degen here), I could tell (and so could the average observer) that FSU was fraudulent last year. The committee still showed FSU some grace for having them at #3, but I'm sure many members knew that they didn't belong. The old system of simply ranking everyone with 0 losses and 1 losses in the same groups is non-nonsensical when there are 128 teams in D1 football.
Yes, I would. It's open-and-shut. The transitive property of course doesn't always work, but common opponents is a lot better way to go than the abstract analysis you all were doing. Notre Dame's only loss was to Clemson (not by much), and Clemson is #1. That imperfection is as small of an imperfection as you get. I shouldn't open this can of worms b/c it's not necessary, but Clemson also blew OU the f out in their bowl game last year - and Clemson is better this year. Texas has been blown out so many times this year that I can't count. Losing to them is unforgiveable. Has a National Champion ever lost to a team so bad? It cheapens the whole process. Thinking other than this only reveals a big Big 12 bias IMO. If you want the Big 12 to do better, the major players need to play a more challenging nonconference schedule. Each Big 12 contender gets its credibility only from beating other Big 12 contenders. No one really knows how good any of them are, b/c they don't play anybody outside the conference. Except OU against Tennessee, who didn't turn out any good after all - and it was a miracle comeback win. Baylor needs to quit its BS of booking Lamar, etc. Baylor sucks.
FSU wouldn't have been National Champion anyway. They would have lost their bowl game against whomever they were facing in their championship game. IMO, if you lose a game, you have no right to b*ch. If you want to be a champion, win every game.
OSU lost by 2 touchdowns last year at home to Va Tech (6-6, 5-6 if you don't count their FCS win). Maybe it does "cheapen" the process as you say, but I'd argue that having OSU prove their belonging by smacking down Bama and Oregon last year validated the committee's decision more than anything. I'm with you on Baylor's crappy non-conference. The point you're missing here, is that before the CFP, the old system would have had BAMA or Oregon playing FSU in the championship game. And the reality is that OSU won the title last year and proved their worth on the field. It seems that you didn't like it that way. That's fine. I'm okay with the final 4 chosen by the committee and how it played out last year.
Nobody is putting OU in the national championship game, question is whether or not they would have a shot at competing for it. And if they beat Okie St, they probably should because their wins would be better than Notre Dame. I'm not a Big-12 guy or a Longhorn guy but they really aren't that bad. They are young (lots of underclassmen) but very talented, IMO one of the most talented teams in the nation and will probably be a legit force in a couple of years. They are 4-6 playing one of the toughest schedules in the nation scheduling Notre Dame and Cal out of conference along with the brutal round robin of the Big 12. Got unlucky as hell against Cal (missed PAT stopped their comeback in a 1-point loss) Got unlucky as hell against Okie St (I thought they got robbed, officiating was absolutely atrocious). Them versus OU is a big rivalry game in a neutral site. I get that Notre Dame whopped em but circumstances are different.
Oh man, Texas is my team. I follow them by far the most. And they are not a respectable loss. No threat to pass AT ALL. Shut out blow out to IOWA STATE!!!! Blown out 30-0 in the FIRST QUARTER against a beat up TCU team that gave up 40 to just about every other Big 12 team around that time. Just about every other week they are hitting a new low. The fact that Oklahoma State and Cal almost lost to us speaks to their being overrated more than our quality in my mind. We might have some young talent sprinkled around, but the QB position is worth so much more than these other positions and we really have nothing there - which is becoming typical in Austin. Heard blew up one game when he hadn't been scouted. Since then, the safe bet is we are not getting 100 yards, which we didn't do against OU in fact.
Well, that's where I'm in the minority of football fans. I am in love with the idea of some random game in September or October being as important as any other game. In my mind, a 2 touchdown loss at home to Virginia Tech should have ended Ohio State's chances last year. I dread the inevitable move to a bigger and bigger playoff. To me, nobody is screwing a team out of their chance to win the National Championship. It's in their control- schedule tough teams and win out. The playoffs are only helpful to prevent leaving a team like the undefeated 2004 Auburn out of it. I'm never shedding a tear b/c a one loss team doesn't get their way. In 2005, if UT had lost to Baylor instead of beating them like 66-0, I would not have been crying that they deserved their shot.
I agree. I just was throwing them in there, cuz a one loss SEC team should be in the playoffs and Florida still has a chance at that. Surprised Clemson didn't beat South Carolina worse.
I think we know two things 1) OU is in 2) Winer of Iowa and Michigan St is in I think things worked out well for OU with regards to the perceived disadvantage of the lack of a big 12 championship game. Neither the Big 10, ACC or SEC will have any repeat matchups between the teams in their championship games. That means their top teams aren't getting 1 additional tough game compared to OU. They are just playing the 2nd best team in their conference which OU already did. The real difference is that they played 4 non conference games instead of OU's 3. The round robin schedule of the big 12 is really under appreciated. Iowa just happened to miss playing Michigan, Michigan St and Ohio St. What about the SEC? SEC West teams only play 2 out of 7 SEC East teams. It absolutely makes sense to have a championship game because it's very unlikely the two best teams will have played one another. That being said, if we WOULD have seen repeat matchups in most of the other big conferences then OU would have looked like they dodged a bullet but that isn't the case this year.
You're saying the Committee prefers repeat matchups? That seems pretty stupid. I don't like repeat matchups at all.
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that the credential advantage of a conference championship game compared to a conference that plays a round robin schedule rests on repeat matchups. If Alabama would have had to play Florida twice then that should give them extra consideration over Oklahoma. However, they didn't play Florida in the regular season. The conference championship game is just an opportunity for Alabama to play the 2nd best team in their conference which is something OU already did by virtue of their round robin schedule.
I think those valid points would be taken into consideration. So a 1 loss Iowa or SEC East team would not be nearly as impressive as their opposing divisions. They'd have to schedule great out of conference games, or be subject to the same criticisms facing a team like Baylor. Like it's arguable that Michigan St should still be in the final 4 (assuming they win next week) even if they played say an ASU instead of Oregon. They'd still have wins over otherwise undefeated teams in Iowa, Ohio St, and good teams in Michigan, PSU. Iowa would need to play an OU type team and win in order to be considered a final 4 team with 1 loss.
Is this something you've heard from some good source? It makes no sense to me. If Alabama had to play Georgia again in their conference championship, I don't see how that would help Alabama at all. Alabama already has credit for whipping Georgia. What more do they accomplish by doing it again? By playing Florida for the first time in the championship, that will give them credit for beating a whole new top team - not that Alabama needs it. I prefer the Big 12 round robin personally, and I don't understand the hate against it. I don't like repeat matchups - makes the first matchup mean less. Still salty from 2001 Texas-Colorado.
I think the hate comes from the litter of crap teams in the Big 12. I'm not saying that other conferences are great, but there are pluses and minuses to a round robin, and really, it's just a product of having 10 teams, not because it's some great system. A conference championship just means one tougher game, that's it. For a touch division, it's one tougher game for an already tough schedule. For a weaker division like the Big 10 West, a conference championship game is a necessity capper to the end of the season. I don't hate the Big 12. It's actually a great conference to watch and gamble on as I watch 60+ hours of college football weekly. That said, it was crap up and down other than OU and Baylor. TCU was a top 3 team last year in the country and got shafted from not having a conference championship and terrible officiating in Waco. But they are completely different this year with turning over everyone on D and then injuries during the season. Okie St was just a joke undefeated that was a product of their early soft schedule (thanks to the round robin + terrible out-of-conference play). If you scroll up, I called the last 2 losses as easy calls. Baylor is great, but lost their stud QBs and just refuse to play tough opponents out-of-conference. National team defensive rankings (ypg out of 128 D1 teams): 79 Kansas State 86 Texas 97 Oklahoma State 108 Iowa State 127 Texas Tech 128 Kansas There is nothing gained from being forced to play every single one of those teams in the eyes of people who get paid to make football decisions. Edit: So the advantage that divisions have structurally is that in theory, you play only half of your crap conference teams and half of your good teams, but then you get a tough game out-of-conference and another tough game in the conference championship. It also benefits these conferences that the committee is watching championship Saturday as a group and evaluating all the games together while having a pizza party.
I agree that the Big 12 does not seem to have the best team in the nation this year, but their performance in recent big bowl games prevents me from calling it a "litter of crap teams". OU beat Alabama a couple years ago. TCU stomped all over Ole Miss last year. It's better for the whole conference if teams like Baylor play a couple tough nonconference teams. It's really hard to evaluate a conference until they start playing other conferences.
