Hawaii was a joke. Compare the resumes of the two teams and I think it is clear that they wouldn't even be close (assuming Utah finishes undefeated). Hawaii's non conference schedule: Northern Colorado, Charleston Southern, @UNLV, Washington (finished 4-9). The "big" conference win would be Boise State at home. Utah's non conference schedule: @Michigan (way down this year -- but at least a road win), Oregon State (in 1st place in the Pac 10 right now), Weber State, Utah State. Now, the Mountain West is a pretty stacked conference this year. TCU and BYU are both top 25 teams. TCU has a win over a decent Stanford team. BYU has wins over UCLA and and Washington, two bottom-tier Pac 10 teams. Air Force is 8-2 right now, no really marquee OOC wins. New Mexico, a lower tier MWC team beat Arizona, who is actually a decent Pac 10 team this year. UNLV has wins @Arizona State and over Iowa State. Wyoming has a win @Tennessee (who is terrible this year). I feel like the Mountain West is at least better than the Big East this year and you can argue that it's at least as good as the Pac 10 this year. Hell, maybe even the ACC. Utah's schedule this year is way more difficult that Hawaii's from last year. This is a moot point if they don't win out, but still...I think there is a solid argument to be made for Utah to be in the title game if they finish undefeated.
Actually they do... Richard Billingsley, who runs one of the six computer rankings used by the BCS, said via e-mail, "Overall in my system, beating a top-three team in mid-November is worth more than beating a top-three team in early October. Point values are greater because teams have accomplished more." http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/notebook?page=iform0812 As I've stated, the computer rankings will be a wash at best (for UT that is). So really the only shot we have in the "OU wins out" scenario is for the human voters to really take into account UT's win over OU on a neutral field and vote us in.
You make valid points, however sit down and think about it. The title game is supposed to be between the two best teams in the country. Do you really think (undefeated or not) that Utah is one of the top 2 teams? You've got Florida, Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Alabama, USC... and you're saying Utah is better than at least 5 of those teams? I agree that Hawaii was a joke, but just because Utah has a little tougher schedule does not make them worthy. If they played even ONE of the teams listed above, and came out victorious, then you may have an argument. But the teams you listed above just really aren't that good. Oregon St. won one good game, and gets to coast through the rest PAC 10. Michigan sucks. TCU has looked good, but lost badly to Oklahoma. Calling the Mountain West "stacked" is a bit much. It may be better than years past, but that's not saying much. Is Utah a good team? I think so. Should we give them a BCS bowl game? Sure, why not. But, I can guarantee that there would be a national uproar if the BCS put Utah in the championship game.
The problem, again, is typical, lazy journalism. Mandel makes it sound like the human polls have been stagnant for weeks, and that those will remain a constant while Oklahoma's computer component jumps. The problem is that the human momentum is all with Texas. Texas make enormous moves in every human poll this week. In the coaches poll, they moved from 7 to 5, gaining 49 points on Oklahoma. In the Harris poll, they moved from 6 to 4, gaining 90 points on Oklahoma. Now, I know what you're going to say. "When Oklahoma beats No. 2 Tech, they'll jump, because these movements are usually correlated with wins over good opponents." Except they're not! Oklahoma won by 38 on the road this weekend, and Texas beat freakin' Baylor, and Texas still made up a combined 139 points on Oklahoma in both polls. Do you really think Texas beating Baylor was the cause for that? Because it wasn't. It was simply a result of the emotion of the moment (the Texas loss) fading away, and voters re-arranging their ballots late in the season to better reflect the full body of work. It's what voters have done in the past five or so years and it's what they'll likely continue to do. I agree with Mandel's premise -- if the human polls stay the same, there's a good shot Oklahoma's computer rankings will vault them over Texas. The problem is, the human polls are very unlikely to stay the same. The momentum is clearly with Texas, and the more stories show that they're ahead in the BCS and remind voters of the head-to-head win, the more likely it is that this momentum will continue. I expect Texas to gain quite a few more points on Oklahoma in both polls on Sunday. Of course, you have to actually look at the points in the polls and pay attention to detail to notice trends like that. Most journalists don't, and that's how you get BS perceptions like this bizarre idea that Oklahoma will be ahead of Texas in the BCS if it wins out. Mandel and every journalist in America had Cal pegged for the Rose Bowl this time four years ago. But those few who actually understood numbers, understood persuasive arguments and understood momentum knew Texas would jump them for the spot. Here we go again.
You are holding out hope that the coaches are going to ultimately buy into the idea that Texas was just better all along and basically give Oklahoma no credit for beating a #2 team and another top 20 team in consecutive weeks though. I'm not arguing whether or not Oklahoma should be above Texas, but this is what happens Cat when teams make big wins late in the season.
Most coaches don't even fill out their own ballots until the final two weeks of the season. When push comes to shove, head to head makes the difference in voters' minds. Let's go back two years ago, when a majority of both coaches and Harris voters changed their minds on the final poll and voted Florida No. 2 instead of Michigan. Is there anyone in the world who thinks Florida's win over a slightly above average Arkansas team made the difference? I sure as hell hope not. The difference, and the argument columnist after columnist made, was that Michigan already had its head-to-head chance. Florida didn't. Upon the final poll, when voters reflected over the entire season, the head-to-head logic was persuasive. You want to talk about "this is what happens"? That's good. I challenge you to find one example in recent history where two teams with identical records and comparable schedules had the team that lost head-to-head ahead in the final BCS standings. Even going back historically, the last time I can think of it is 1993 -- and that happened when Notre Dame lost at home to an unranked team in late November. Not exactly the same scenario as a loss on the final play of the game on the road at No. 5. That is "what happens" -- when there isn't compelling head-to-head evidence to say otherwise. You seem to be confusing what I think with what I hope. Personally, I think there could be a case for Oklahoma to be ahead of Texas, if it wins its last two games impressively. I personally wouldn't be offended as a college football fan if it happened. It's not about what I hope. My conviction comes from watching the behaviors of voters over the past decade (the Internet era) and witnessing trends as well as how head-to-head evidence is valued. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I'm not arguing based on hope. I'm arguing based on close observation for years and years of how human voters operate.
We'll just have to see what happens. Not worth arguing over something that may not even come to pass.
I'm pulling for Tech to win and win big. Tech would be so much more fun to watch in a NC game. Imagine Tech vs Florida!!!!!
I said it before and I'll say it again - Texas' biggest sin, outside of losing to Texas Tech at Lubbock, was beating OU in early October instead of late November.
How many examples are there the other way? I can't even think of a time where you had two teams with identical records and similar schedules, regardless of who ended up ahead. There's just too much variation in non-conference schedules. But if you want a relatively close example, how about 2000? The polls ranked Miami #2, FSU #3, and Washington #4. Washington was ranked #4 despite a head-to-head win over Miami. Washington's only loss was to a 10-win Oregon team that was #10 in the BCS. Oregon State was also ranked #5 in the polls and #6 in the BCS, with their only loss being to Washington - so Washington had two wins over top 5 teams. Florida State's loss was to Miami, so the ranking should have been #2 Washington, #3 Miami, #4 FSU based on the head-to-head idea. But because Miami and FSU looked more impressive to close out the season, Washington was ranked below them (FSU then made it the championship game over Miami due to the computers, which counted for more back then).
Great point - I had completely forgotten about that. I was so upset to see FSU get in over both Miami and Washington. Talk about a team that didn't deserve to be there...sheesh!
And there is a weekly breakdown on burntorangenation.com showing just how r****dedly off his ratings are compared to the other computers. http://www.burntorangenation.com/2008/11/10/657595/bcs-breakdown-2008-v1-3 In fact, of the ratings often "thrown out," Billingsley is the one who WAY more often than others gets his ratings tossed. I posted the link for people to see. You can decide if it's biased or not based on the source. If nothing else, I find it interesting to see how the computer ratings relate from source to source. Sorta a fancy statistical analysis, but interesting nonetheless. FWIW, I'm starting to lose hope that Texas would have any chance in that three way tiebreaker. But hey, hopefully we'll win out, and get a chance to worry about it later. If we drop another late season game in the state of Kansas, or drop the Aggie game again, we're out of the conversation anyway.
http://www.bcsguru.com/ Here is an interesting breakdown of the resumes of the top 7 teams vying for the BCS championship game berths.
When I said comparable schedules, I should have clarified to include the two schools being either in the same or a comparable conference (in terms of perception) as well as having a similar name identity. It's the same reason why Tech is effectively done, if they lose a game. It's not that they'll deserve to be done. But to a great number of voters, they'll fall to the back of the pack, simply because they have Texas Tech on the front of their jerseys. Likewise, in 2000, Miami and Florida State were the power schools. That was the rivalry. It was the hotbed of college football. Washington is a good program, but particularly buried in the Pacific Northwest, they simply weren't comparable on a name-brand basis to Miami and FSU. Texas, however, is on the same playing field as Oklahoma, by every possible measuring stick. That's why I'm pretty sure this scenario is different.
Not to mention Washington was hurt because they played in a different conference than Miami and Florida (power schools considered to be in a pretty good conference). OU and UT play in the same conference, and have played almost the same schedule...with the difference being UT had another top team on their (Missouri). I just don't see coaches picking OU over UT at the end...if they have the same records and OU lost the HTH game. It's asinine.......
But you do see coaches picking Texas over Tech, despite losing the Head-to-Head game? I understand (and agree with) the argument that Tech doesn't have the name, so they get eliminated. But I don't agree that coaches will arbitrarily go back and forth on using logic, saying: 1. I'm going to illogically throw out Tech because of their name 2. Now that I'm down to OU and TX, I will go back to being logical and use Head-to-Head I think they will look at the round robin of wins and say none has the advantage, so who is the hottest now? And that would be OU because Texas and Tech lost more recently and OU closed strong.
But now you've asked for a ridiculously specific situation. You want an example of similar quality name teams in similar conferences that have similar schedules and records that played head-to-head, with the winner having loss to a 3rd similar team. You asked for examples where the winner of the head-to-head in that scenario was ranked behind the loser. Do you have any examples where the winner was ranked ahead of the loser? I doubt there's even an example of anything like this happening in recent memory, let alone worrying about who's ranked in front of the other.
Yes, for the bolded part above. Not to mention Tech barely beat UT, and they were at home. OU lost to UT on a neutral field.
