OU hasn't played anyone yet - their best win is over a 4-4 Texas team. They also have a 5 pt win vs 1-7 Tulsa, 7 pts vs Nebraska, 3 pts vs West Virginia, 7 vs Texas, 6 vs K-State, and they were trailing Kansas in the 4th quarter. They don't deserve to be anywhere near the top right now - that will change if they beat Baylor, Okie State, and someone in a B12 title game. But right now, Oregon has shown potential to a be a better team by beating Ohio State on the road, despite the Stanford loss. It's stupid that they even release these rankings in early November given that they are totally irrelevant.
I get this is how it's done. I just hate the subjective nature of it. It's the only sport I remotely care about where what people think of you before you ever play a game seems to matter. Again, this is why I don't care a ton about the whole realignment thing, because I find it all pretty boring in the end anyway for the most part. Please just leave the NCAA hoops tournament alone.
Can we just go ahead and dispense with this notion that CFB is a merit based competition? I'm tired of pretending. Just go ahead and create your own damn league where Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Alabama jerk each other off every January and give the trophy to the team that brings in the most ad revenue. Let the rest of the teams compete in a fair and transparent playoff. ****ing stupid.
But isn't OU being down at #8 evidence that this is (to some degree) *not* true? They are a media favorite. The point of the committee is to ignore the subjective polls and try to look more at substance. A good comparison of getting rid of "what people think of you" is looking at computer rankings which take out that bias. Whether you use polls, computers, a committee, etc - college football will always be subjective because all the teams can't play each other. The only real exception I see is if you made a playoff that only consisted of conference winners and no wildcards (which I wouldn't be opposed to).
More evidence that there should be a 6-team or 8-team playoff. Cincinnati is drawing dead to make the playoff unless the Big 10 beats itself up and OU loses. And I think the committee is tired of Oklahoma. They haven't looked like world-beaters all year. I think Oregon being at #4 is a bit too generous.
Maybe you're right. I just don't get the impression, generally, that, like @DonnyMost said, this is a merit based competition. I get it why it has to have a subjective component. I just don't like it...and ultimately, it makes me far less interested in anything other than "did my schools win this week" and care less about the sport, in general.
Does anyone know why they're thinking about jumping straight to 12 teams instead of 8? 12 seems silly since you're creating 4 bye weeks for the top seeds.
Georgia Michigan St Cincinnati Alabama Oregon Ohio St Oklahoma Wake Forest ... everyone else: A&M, Michigan, ND, OkieSt, Baylor, Auburn, Houston, etc....
What I don't like is that Cincinnati's only chance is to go undefeated in back to back campaigns, but the committee can always fall back to only the current year counts, sorry. They are f'd either way. What is even sadder is they blame Houston for all of this because we ****ed up in 2016. It's a shame really because most people want to see how they do. The NCAA basketball tournament is fun because of the upsets, the NCAA football championship is completely missing the opportunity here to inhale that cash cow.
It's very funny that Oregon is ranked ahead of Ohio State because of their head-to-head win, but Michigan State is one spot below Michigan in spite of their head-to-head win.
That's just insane to me. Either the games matter or they don't. "We think Michigan is a more well rounded team!!" Great, did they win? They literally played each other like 10 days prior...who won? "Well the East German judge didn't think Michigan State was all that impressive despite their win."
I never thought I'd miss the BCS, but this committee really has me wishing I could be angry at a computer!
A little bizarre (Michigan over Michigan State), but I don't see too many problems. A 6-team or a 12-team playoff might be better than an 8-team playoff (byes involved).
Yes, these initial ranking are basically meaningless, not even sure why they release them this early.
Yes, but its less stupid than before the season, but the really stupid thing is that they mean anything at all. Football isn't supposed to be a popularity content---it is meant to be settled on the field. 'voting' on how that happens is just stupid, in general. If it weren't...you'd see other sports doing it. As for OU, totally agree, but will work itself out over the rest of the season. But I would see them getting crushed if playing in playoffs currently. Not only haven't they really played anyone, but as you mention...haven't who they have played very soundly. Almost always, when teams like that play 'real' competition, it doesn't go well for them. Somewhat in defense of the rankings, though...the other side of that is...who to put ahead of them? Everyone behind them has similar issues.
