I think they're making an example out of Baylor, RE: their schedule. But from what I heard the committee has a lot of respect for the Big 12.
Good. It's what I've been saying for more than a year and I hoped the schedule would come to bite baylor in the ass when the committee comes in. I just hope they end up 5th and the fans demand the program schedule real teams. You have to go all the way to Wisconsin to find a team with a worse SOS and they play in a weaker conference (based on the number of big 10 teams in the polls)
It's a little strange that there's 2 match ups with College Football Playoff Poll Top 10 teams facing each other but College GameDay is going to the Big Ten.
I agree that Baylor's non-conference schedule is a joke, but you can't put all the stock in who you scheduled based on how good they are this season. You could have scheduled Michigan, Virginia Tech and Miami as out of conference games for this season years ago, and then you get to this season and it turns out to mean nothing. I don't like what the SEC is doing though, out of their 44 out of conference games, only 6 were played at an opponents stadium, I think it's time to schedule some true home and away series.
Baylor's schedule will be fine once they play K-State and Oklahoma. If they beat those two, they'll be in the top 4. Big12 is too strong this year for an 11-1 team to be left out, regardless of OOC schedule.
One of those Top 4 teams need to lose a game though. All of those teams control their destiny at this point.
That's true - I'm assuming that the SEC is going to work itself down to one team if there are 1-loss conference champs everywhere else. If not, then I don't think Baylor having scheduled a good OOC game would help them jump Oregon anyway.
I heard the committee ill reassess everything after conference title games and conference titles (Big 12/Big 10) play out... winning a conference or beating a conference champion will both be major merit badges. Supposedly it will carry 1/5th of the weight when they judge everyone. 1-loss SEC #2 beating the SEC#1 team probably gets them in from what I heard.
You said the exact same thing last year and Baylor's SOS still ended up being 48th. I get that the big 12 is better but they will still have the worst SOS out of any team in the top 10. Maybe top 15. Not really something we can argue about. A 10-2 West Virginia Team will beat out a 11-1 Baylor team. There is no doubt of that. West Virginia played Alabama and a 6-3 Maryland team. They obviously beat Baylor while baylor beat up on trash conferences. But Baylor didn't schedule Michigan, Virginia Tech and Miami. They scheduled SMU, Northwestern State, and Buffalo. I agree with you that programs that are in good conferences can have bad years but that simply isn't the case here. Baylor deserves to get left out of the top 10. That's the only way they will learn. The sad thing for Texas is that BYU was really good when we lost to them. They lost their QB and then lost the next 4 out of 5 games. That's football for you.
I'm not arguing what Baylor's SoS will be. I'm arguing whether it will affect their final ranking. Baylor is ranked so low because they haven't played 2 of the 3 relevant games on their schedule yet (TCU, OU, KState). Unfortunately for West Virginia, they have 3 losses, so 10-2 won't be possible.
Baylor just needs to take care off business. Beat OU in Norman and beat another top 10 team in K State. Win the Big 12. Let the rest take care of itself. I could see us at ending at #5, of course. The new system is a bandaid. It needs to go to 8. If Baylor is left out while winning the Big 12 will help make that a reality.
Nobody outside of Texas cares about Baylor and them being left out won't help change anything. I agree the new system is just a transition to an 8-team playoff. Just a matter of when sense will prevail.
Leaving off a 1-loss team from what is clearly the 2nd best conference in the country would be controversial, to say the least - whether it's TCU, K-State, or Baylor (all low-profile programs). SEC #1 obviously is in. FSU is in assuming no loss Oregon or Arizona State are in if they run the table - strong conference + OOC win over Michigan State or Notre Dame After that, you're looking at 4 options: 1-loss Big12 1-loss Big10 1-loss Notre Dame #2 team in the SEC I don't think there can be any rational argument for a Big10 winner over a Big12 winner. I think a 1-loss 2nd place SEC team is unlikely to exist given all the remaining games, but if one emerged, they would have a solid resume. Still, the committee says they value conference championships and it would be hard to pass one up from the 2nd best conference. Notre Dame is interesting - they have the reputation working for them, but they won't have a conference title and really would only have one ranked win (Arizona State). I think of those four, a Big12 champ gets priority, regardless of who it is.
I don't like the idea of an 8 team playoff, personally. I love the fact that college football requires near-perfection in the regular season if you want to have a shot at the championship. The more teams you add to a playoff, the less the regular season really matters. Of course, maybe an 8 team playoff gets enacted and I like it better, but right now, the idea of it doesn't sound preferable to me, personally. I think 4 is just fine, and honestly I was fine with the BCS system. We'll see, though.
I understand your point of view regarding 4 vs 8. There's definitely something special about CFB's regular season that you'd cheapen by allowing 8 teams in. I think 1 or 2 play-in games would be a good medium. You still give the teams with the very best resumes a significant advantage by allowing them to rest. If the lower seeded team is better they can prove it on the field by winning with less time to prepare. But... if allowing 8 teams in is the first step towards every major program scheduling tougher competition then I think I'm 100% for it. A handful of great matchups every single week - that's exciting for me as a fan.
100% agree, though, wouldn't keeping it at 4 teams make programs more inclined to schedule tougher competition to build a better resume? I feel like the less amount of teams you allow in, the more likely teams will do what it takes to build their resume as much as they can. More teams, to me, seems like it would allow teams to get away with scheduling scrubs and banking on getting in with as many wins as they can, rather than focusing on actually proving themselves as worthy with tougher competition.
Except one loss can eliminate you. If Michigan State played Southeast West Michigan Community College instead of Oregon, they'd be in the playoffs right now. Same with K-State having played Auburn. I think the way to get people to schedule well is to guarantee conference champions into the playoffs. There are 5 major conferences, so a 6 team playoff with 5 champs + 1 wild card would do it. Then the purpose of the non-conference slate becomes about preparing yourself for conference season, making money, and entertaining fans - all things that lend themselves to premiere matchups. You take out the fear of a non-conference loss because it becomes mostly irrelevant.
I don't like that idea because conferences aren't equal. Right now the SEC west has several great teams in it. Next year the SEC might have a bunch of UH's. Just put the best teams in there... allegiances to conferences isn't fair. What is a conference anyways? An arbitrary grouping of teams that decided to join up?
