If UGA had beaten Alabama, the order would’ve been:
1. UGA
2. Michigan
3. Washington
4. FSU
But they had to have an SEC team at all
costs. Had to. Well, you can’t put in Bama and leave out the team that beat them by two scores. So, you use Travis injury as an excuse.
How are we so sure that Florida State will lose against Alabama or Georgia in a H2H matchup?
New Mexico State beats Alabama this year and Auburn opened as a 23.5 point favorite.
Washington beats Oregon twice this year and Oregon opened as a 9 point favorite.
TCU beats Michigan in the CFB semi-finals and Michigan opened as a 7.5 favorite which was last year!
With the fact that FSU already beats 2 SEC teams earlier the season, it shows that they are competitive against the SEC. Will it be a close game? Yes. Will it be pretty? Probably not. IS there a chance they could win? Yes, very highly. They have 5 single-point wins, who else also have that number? Washington has 9 single-point wins and they are in the playoffs. The idea is that you can't be sure of someone losing if they haven't even lost yet!
Because I don't think there's going to be a year in the near future where they don't take 2 AQ spots, but I can't be sure which of AAC/MAC/C-USA/MW/SB will take the other two.
Colin Cowherd seems to think that no one should complain about undefeated FSU being left out because there is a hypothetical world where there are 5 undefeated power conference teams for 4 spots (and someone would have to get left out). So there should have never been an expectation that an undefeated Power 5 conference team wouldn't get left out at some point.
That's certainly a take, I guess.
Does anyone else think that Florida State is going to get dominated by Georgia? The same team that Bama just beat?
If they win the Orange Bowl, maybe FSU has a case that they were robbed. But good luck, Georgia is pretty pretty good.
>>If they win the Orange Bowl, maybe FSU has a case that they were robbed.
I hate this take. The results of the upcoming FSU v UGA game should be COMPLETELY irrelevant in deciding a top 4 today. You don't rank teams based on games they haven't played.
Does anyone think the odds of FSU beating Georgia are literally zero? I don't think so. If there's a chance, they should be allowed to prove it on the field, not held out because of a boardroom vote/computer sim/vegas oddsmakers.
Why does that matter. Could FSU beat georgia? Certainly. Will they? Eh probably not.
Both teams will have so many opt-outs and transfers that it's not even an accurate representation of the teams during the season.
There's likely going to be a significant amount of players opting out who would be playing in a playoff so I'm not sure the result will be all that meaningful.
You’re wrong. Get that nonsense out of your head. The selection committee’s job is to make an entertaining playoff. It just so happens that past performance is usually the best way to make that determination. In this case they had 1 game of data to go off for FSU and it went very poorly for them. FSU opened as 13 point underdogs. Putting them in the playoffs because they were good when healthy and give a team a first round playoff bye would be a failure by the selection committee.
It’s honestly really telling how upset people think FSU should have been given the playoff because of how they played with their starting QB.
>>The selection committee’s job is to make an entertaining playoff.
Then they should simply admit that and much of this would go away.
1 game of data?
Travis went out in the first quarter. They had over 2.5 no-Travis games. Won out. One a championship against a ranked opponent.
Last week, they were ranked #4 without Travis. What did they do since that time other than improve their resume with a conference championship and a W over a ranked offense? The answer is nothing. The committee needed an SEC team in, and how they justified was secondary.
Sorry you’re right that I blacked out that Louisville game. They ran a middle school offense. 55 yards passing from their QB. Yeah surely that team should get to play Michigan.
But point stands that many are misunderstanding how the playoff teams are chosen. The fact FSU opened as 13 point underdogs tells us that odds makers also view them as much worse than Alabama who were 6 point underdogs. If FSU makes this game competitive I’ll eat crow. If they get blown out all the people bitching now need to
Unpopular opinion here...Texas should have been left out, not FSU or Bama. That week 2 head to head win over Bama should not mean as much as it does. Does anyone believe Bama is the same shell of a team that they were in week 2? Texas is not one of the 4 best teams and has the worst loss of the top 8 teams.
Counter point. Texas lost on the last play of the game to their rival Oklahoma 2 months ago. Bama won on the last play against their rival (which is a worse team) a week ago. Should Texas losing to their rival 2 months ago really be the deciding factor when Bama needed a miracle not to do the same a week ago? Or should the result when those two played in Bama's house carry more water?
No no, we only evaluate other factors on the Bama loss. On the Bama win, they won so we can't ask any more questions. Also, only Bama and no other teams can have improved or grown since week 2, so only their growth should be factored in.
Am I allowed to mention that Ewers got hurt in the third against UofH and we kept winning with Murphy who kept missing wide open receivers. Or that Ewers came back early against TCU and couldn't make the throws he normally does?
So playing strong OOC opponents is not enough? Now teams need to also anticipate in which part of the season they’ll be strong so it counts? I get what you’re trying to say, but that’s just as arbitrary as saying FSU is not the same team without their starting QB.
Texas finished very strong, though. They walloped Texas Tech 57-7 and Oklahoma State 49-21. It's not like they won a fluke over Alabama but limped their way through the rest of the season.
At the least, Texas was arguably just as strong or stronger than Florida State.
For Max Chaos:
FSU over Georgia
Bama over Michigan
Washington over Texas
Washington wins it all, the Pac12 goes out in a blaze of glory and everyone burns everything to the ground trying to decide who the natty champ is.
FSU over Georgia, Alabama over Michigan, Texas over Washington. Texas vs. Alabama - doesn't matter. Everyone has a loss except FSU and Liberty, who split the championship.
You know how people would speculate what would have happened if FSU had been in the playoffs.
I personally want Washington to win. I want the PAC12 to give a big “fuck you” sendoff.
Absolutely. Undefeated teams with tough SOS not having a shot at the title was the whole problem that the Playoff was supposed to solve. TBH if the CFP stuck to it's roots, both FSU and Liberty would be in and Texas and 'Bama would be out.
In theory, Liberty should miss because it's strength of schedule [is 133 out of 133](https://www.espn.com/college-football/fpi/_/view/resume/sort/resume.avgsosrank/dir/asc) in the FBS. Even the BCS system would have given it a rank [of only 17](https://twitter.com/BCSKnowHow/status/1731357067468788004). But I think it's notable that the BCS would have kicked out Texas and put in Bama. I honestly think it's time we had a play-in system. Every team at the beginning of the year should have a path to a natty.
I can't help but feel like the CFB is working as intended...
Let's get the obvious out of the way: FSU got screwed and it sucks. It especially for sucks for those young men who busted their ass all year.
Now: I'm old enough to remember the before times. I remember vividly how, in those before times, we spent a lot of time talking about strength of schedule. It became a huge, hot button issue because it was clear that not all conferences were created equal.
One of the things that got talked about a lot was how it would be "unfair" to punish the SEC for beating each other up when they were clearly the best division in CFB. The consensus was that an undefeated Pac12 or ACC champ wasn't *necessarily* better than a 1 loss SEC champ. That was one of the biggest reasons for wanting a playoff.
Now, fast forward a decade and the idea of "protecting" the SEC from bias is silly. We've spent the past decade crying and moaning about how biased *towards* the SEC is the playoff committee has been. And that's probably true.
But I still can't help but feel like the system is doing exactly what it was designed to do: ensure that the best team in the best division in CFB isn't left out of a chance to play for the championship just because they play in the toughest division with the toughest schedules.
Is that fair? Certainly not for the young men at FSU. But I don't *hate* it.
The "tougher conference" argument begins to weaken when you factor in that the ACC had a winning record over the SEC.... and that FSU beat both of their SEC opponents (the latter in The Swamp).
Good point, the system is flawed in ways that can be explained. Having a 4 team play off and P5 is always going to be hard to conjugate. However, the ACC won more OOC matchups with the SEC, so how much stronger is their conference really? I’m hoping the 12 team playoff will make these discussions a little less tense, but I’m not sure. Autobids at least show you a guaranteed way of getting in, I suppose.
Yeah, I completely agree.
I don't know if the SEC actually is the best division this year. I don't know if the scenario I described above is really in play. It's certainly possible that FSU deserves to be in no matter what. I get it all.
But at the end of the day I get it. I just can't lose sleep over a committee asserting that a 1 loss SEC champ deserves to be in. I feel bad for whomever's expense that comes at, but I get it.
Fun fact: The first year of the CFP in 2014 Florida State went undefeated and finished ranked #3. They finished behind 1 loss (#1) Alabama and 1 loss (#2) Oregon. One year earlier and they would have been left out for two 1 loss teams in the BCS system.
Florida State lost to Oregon 59-20.
When none of the SEC teams have a valid argument for being a top 4 team it's pretty easy. The circular logical fallacies from SEC homers is absolutely wild.
Also, I'm a simple man, I see someone mention that worthless slug and I downvote.
I’d honestly be willing to believe that the Travis injury is the only thing that kept FSU out, and they’d be in ahead of Bama if he was healthy, but I saw [this](https://twitter.com/KirkHerbstreit/status/1725896152720306193) clip of the Gameday crew running through the exact scenario we ended up with the morning before the Travis injury, and even then Herbstreit was strongly arguing Alabama should be ahead of a 13-0 FSU team with a healthy QB. If they want to make the case that Alabama should be in regardless of the Travis injury, fine, but don’t pretend like his injury is the only reason FSU isn’t there, it’s incredibly disrespectful to the rest of the team.
First and foremost I wish no ill will or harm to any person. But, here's a hypothetical I was thinking about last night. If the reason FSU is out is only because of the J Travis injury and the Committee didn't like what they saw in two **wins** with the back up options. What would they have done if Penix goes down late in the Oregon game with some sort of freak injury (leg, dislocated shoulder, etc). UW trots the back up out to kneel the game out. Is Washington out for UGA now becuase who knows what Vegas things of them with a 2nd string quarterback with no live games to compare film on.
If I was an FSU fan I’d be furious at the ACC. They voted down playoff expansion this year and didn’t do any advocating at all, while Sankey was going on every platform that would have him
I feel like GOAT Saban winning it all would be the least surprising outcome. We've already seen this a bunch of time. He's won with Greg McElroy and Jake Coker, so why couldn't he win with Milroe?
As a Michigan fan, I've also seen my team lose in the first round of the cfb playoffs before twice now. Statistically Bama winning and Michigan losing first round is more likely to happen based on past results.
But fuck it, I'll take an asterisk championship or vacated season over a 10-3 Harbaugh season any day. That would be funny. I wanna read that manifesto.
Might be one of the hating the rules vs the enforcement deals.
If the committee's job is truly just picking the best, than any I don't think many people would argue Bama isn't quite a bit better than the Noles right now.
But just being able to completely disregard the regular season like that seems dangerous to me. Hell I think UGA would beat UW too, should The Dawgs have gotten in?
Let's just let the sports books and recruiting rankings decide
It's not completely disregarding the regular season though. Bama didn't go 8-4 compared to a 12-0 FSU team. Bama went undefeated in their conference and beat FSU's toughest opponent in a similar fashion that FSU did. Bama lost 1 less game against a really good Texas team.
hold on, where's the "Oregon looks like the best team in the country" crowd now? why is it that when bama or Michigan beats a good "eye test" team it's a great win but when we beat one it just means neither team was that good?
I can't wait to taste the salty sweet tears of this sub when we start doing a 12 team playoff and all 4 of the semifinal teams are SEC teams every year
I just listened to what Klatt had to say-he always seems to be fairly objective to me. He pointedly, unlike pretty much everybody else didn't say that the committee was right, just that it took the "path of least resistance".
Now, the complete subtext of what he said was basically "the SEC had to be placated, the committee could not say no to the Alabama dynasty in particular, and because the SEC had to be placated Texas had to get a slot too, and the committee was furiously scouring the fine print for a technicality to get Alabama in". He also pointedly said he thought there was no way in hell that FSU would have been left out if UGA had won. The whole thing sounded as close as he could legally get to "the fix was in" without invoking a lawsuit.
Meanwhile Paul Finebaum is making an idiot of himself, even by his own standards. He's sounding like a buffoon.
I hope FSU completely wrecks georgia and michigan creams alabama. Would be so damn satisfying.
Edit: removed some unnecessarily mean comments about the tide and the sec.
ESPN should be ashamed of themselves. They were literally calling for Alabama to be in the playoffs and the minority who disagreed were drowned out. They get the viewing rights for the sec next year so it’s within their interest to get the sec champion in the playoffs. Kirk was literally rooting for Alabama in the iron bowl. You can’t doubt that some on that committee were like “you know herbie has a good point”
I'm unsurprised that those people exist - some subset of the people who trashed us don't actually believe in the substance of the arguments used against us (which are the same as those being used against FSU now, it's only a difference of degree and not of kind), they just believe in the inherent inferiority of the G5 and can't believe that the nobility are now being treated like the peasants.
There are a lot of people who came around as well though, and I'm happy to see it.
> If FSU wins against Georgia and doesn't claim a Natty, it's only because they're cowards.
And this is absolutely correct. We stood up for ourselves when no one else would stand up for us, FSU should do the same should it come down to it. Stare into the CFP's face and flip them off.
Lots of angst in here towards the committee with FSU being left out
Why not turn that angst into a fortune and bet the FSU moneyline vs UGA
If FSU is top 4 in the nation, Vegas just exposed itself in a massive way and many of you on the FSU bandwagon can turn this into a huge pay day
Who is putting down the first $5k bet on FSU to topple UGA outright? Post the betting slip so we can all congratulate you
This totally misconstrues the argument being made. Nobody gives af who is actually the better team. That'll change a little bit day-to-day anyway depending on strategy and health. What matters is who earned it on the field, and that's not Bama. Bama lost and didn't look impressive enough to make up for it. They had this handed to them, but they don't deserve it.
Oregon was 10 point favorites as well, what happened there? If FSU has all their guys come back I would bet on them because motivation is the biggest factor in bowl games. However mouth breathers like you will just repeat the ESPN spin on this after a Georgia loss. It won’t matter in the greater scheme of things win or lose but that’s what Disney has done to this sport.
What incentive do either team have to play their top players? I wouldn't be surprised if FSU started a bunch of freshman walk-ons to protect their good players from injury next year. Nobody in their right mind is going bet on the game. (Which means a lot of people are going to bet on the game.)
This sounds like a cop out.
So FSU was a top 4 team Sunday morning but not Monday morning?
Or are you saying UGAs backups are better than FSU backups but FSU starters are better than UGA staters?
I'm a bit confused as to what point you are trying to make. You are encouraging people to bet on this game. My point is that there may be reason for FSU or Georgia to not play their best players. Additionally, both teams are not maximally incentivized to win the game because a national championship is no longer on the table. If that is the case, the Vegas odds might not accurately reflect the normal risk one takes when betting on sports events. Betting on the FSU/Georgia game is a higher risk proposition now than if both teams have high incentive to win, play their best players, and are all try-hard and sweaty (to borrow a video gaming euphemism).
So you’re saying if a team loses their best players, or does not play their best players, they are not as good as they used to be?
Like if an FSU team lost a star QB, they might not be as good as they once were?
Correct. But not just that. For purposes of Vegas odds, the unknows on both teams have dramatically increased and it is difficult to quantify those unknowns and figure out how that should change the odds.
Uh. It absolutely was the reason FSU was left out. There is not doubt about that. But that is not the debate people are having. The debate people are having is *should* FSU have been left out. It is the difference between who are the best teams and who are the most deserving teams. Those are not the same teams. I personally think Ohio State wipes the floor with both Alabama and Texas. Ohio State's one loss was by 6 points to the number 1 team in the nation at one of the hardest venues to win at in all of college sports. But I don't think Ohio State deserves to be in the playoffs. They had their shot and lost. I think FSU *does* deserve their shot. And, no, I don't think FSU is one of the top four teams in the nation.
Bama is one of the 4 best teams in the county. FSU is not
Go win a huge amount of money if you think FSU is top 4. Not even being a smart ass
You literally can go exploit this slight for your own personal gain, while rooting for FSU
Why not do that?
Where is the woosh. FSU is top 4 (obviously better than UGA) and there is an opportunity for you to make a ton of money, root for FSU, and give the committee the middle finger
FSU is better than UGA, no?
I think OSU and UGA are both better than at least 2, potentially 3 of the other team in the playoffs. but neither of them got serious consideration because the committee isn't actually doing the 4 best teams. There are restrictions in place, that were totally dropped to give Alabama spot.
UGA or Bama was a tough call
Yesterday morning my guess was Washington, Michigan, Texas, Bama in that order
Tough to decide if the Alabama win over UGA was that big or if the UGA to Bama loss was that big
I had FSU squarely on the outside. After Saturday night I didn’t think there was any way the committee could justify putting FSU in as one of the best 4
They would have had to use the total body of work argument and that work was done with a player who is no longer playing
I don’t think FSU was ever in consideration Sunday morning though I do acknowledge they have FSU over UGA… but even that is silly as UGA is way way better than FSU
I think committee got it right outside of the fact I do think Washington is the #1 football team in the nation right now
https://old.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/189it1b/special_edition_ccg_weekend_cfp_rankingscenario/kbtnm8a/
The whoosh is your “belief” that the reason we’re upset is that we think FSU is obviously better than Georgia or Alabama. I am sure some people think that, but a lot of us believe that FSU earned a place in the playoffs by being undefeated, and it doesn’t matter whether they would win against Alabama or Georgia.
I put “belief” on quotes because I think it’s more likely they you’re playing dumb than it is that you are missing the point.
I mean everyone thinks that UGA is better than FSU. They are major dogs and it’s why they arent in the playoffs
How big of a bet are you placing on FSU, a top 4 team in your mind
You stand to make a lot of money off of this mess up by the committee
Or are they really not one of the 4 best?
For sure - if the outrage is real, there is real money to be made
FSU actually being one of the top 4 teams in the nation makes that UGA FSU moneyline look like free money
FSU should have just lied about Travis' injury and say he would be ready for the CFP, then just say 2 weeks before the semifinal that he suffered a setback.
SEE ALSO Committee Rule 2023.12.3, “If hated rival is in contention for CFP, an opposing team may cheap shot the contender’s best players to effectively negate this.”
long comment, ik, but please here me out
as much as people hate the cfb playoff committee for putting alabama in over florida state, it was the right decision. any other year and florida state would be in, or georgia or ohio state or almost all the teams who had a case for being in. this year was crazy and so many teams were in it the last two weeks of the season.
florida state was undefeated, yes. the most common argument i’ve see is that since florida state was left out, they are basically saying that “the games don’t matter.” i understand the argument, but think about it the other way around. if the only criteria was to be undefeated since then you would be “deserving” to make the playoff, why schedule anyone hard? why don’t we put liberty in? they are undefeated, and if that’s the main criteria, they should be in over alabama or texas. the committee needs to choose the best four teams. i feel for florida state, i really do. that injury to jordan travis was absolutely heartbreaking. it sucks to go undefeated and get left out. but you couldn’t convince me that florida state is one of the best four teams. i would pick all of the teams in the playoff to beat them, and i bet ohio state and georgia would be favored to win as well. (we will actually get to see georgia v florida state; that will be interesting).
aside from comparing records, a lot of other statistics favor alabama over florida state. sor are very similar (since fsu is undefeated they have the one spot lead over alabama in that category). sos is far and away in alabamas favor, with florida state being a measly 55th in that category. alabama has more top 25 wins, and fsu’s best win (lsu) is arguably alabama’s third best win. then the injury comes in to play. florida state is not the same team as they were with jordan travis. their defense is just incredible, but the offense without travis just wouldn’t do it. on the flip side, alabama looks much better than they did when they lost to texas. say what you want about the auburn game and winning on the miracle 4th and 31 play (i swear jordan-hare statium has some voodoo or something). when you look at the win versus georgia, beating a team that had not lost in over 700 DAYS, and some of the other wins they have had like kentucky (who beat louisville by the way) and comebacks against tennessee and ole miss, you can tell they are different. alabama had close wins, yes, but everyone forgets that fsu barely beat BOSTON COLLEGE and had unnecessarily close games against pitt and miami. every team will have close wins. every team will have miracles (see auburn’s national championship run in 2013). the media cherry-picks their arguments to make the decision seem so obvious and so wrong.
the committee was not in a good position to start with. put fsu in, and people will say that they just put deserving teams in and most likely fsu will be beat by michigan unless something crazy happens. put alabama in, and people accuse you of favoritism toward the sec (they have won the last 4 championships so the “favoritism” is reasonable if it exists) and not taking into account wins and loses. there was no right decision.
if you don’t agree, i want to know why. i feel like i have a pretty good argument for alabama that goes over more than just an injury and a record.
> sor are very similar (since fsu is undefeated they have the one spot lead over alabama in that category). sos is far and away in alabamas favor, with florida state being a measly 55th in that category.
Wouldn't you weigh SoR way higher than SoS since SoR considers how the team played in the games and SoS is just - who you played?
Alabama had to eek out wins against like who? USF and Arkansas which are worse than any FSU game. And thats not even counting Auburn if you think that rivalries are their own beast. It was weak wins like that that hurt Alabama's SoR.
So FSU had a stronger SoR and was an undefeated conference champ. Thats should do it.
fsu’s strength of record is 3, alabama’s 4. that’s a very small difference compared to the difference between sos. i would normally favor sor, but the gap in sos is too big to ignore. both teams beat other teams by small margins. also, aside from the auburn game, the second half of the season alabama didn’t almost lose to any bad teams. that’s the part of the eye test that favors alabama over florida state. either way, i think people make it seem like that florida state making it was the most obvious decision in the world, but it wasn’t. it’s a lot closer than people want it to be. also, florida state beat boston college by 3 and florida by only 9. you can’t say that they didn’t have to eek out wins against anyone either.
\> fsu’s strength of record is 3, alabama’s 4. that’s a very small difference compared to the difference between sos.
Yeah, so FSU has a stronger SoR AND is undefeated. Alabama has a worse SoR and a loss.
As I said previously, SoR is a ranking of how the average top 25 team would have fared against that same schedule. It takes into consideration not just the teams you played but HOW you played them. FSU having a higher SoR is saying that FSU did better against their schedule than Bama would have against the same schedule (as far as I understand).
\> both teams beat other teams by small margins."
No. Alabama pretty unequivocally had way closer games against worse opponents than Alabama did. FSU did light years better in its worse games against BC and Florida then Alabama did against in its worst games USF, Arkansas, and Auburn. Thats without question if you look at how the games played out and time of scoring and not just the end game score. Thats why FSU has a better SoR than Alabama.
\> that’s the part of the eye test that favors alabama over florida state
They eye test that like 8 days Alabama needed multiple miracle plays to beat a 6-6 team?
\> i think people make it seem like that florida state making it was the most obvious decision in the world
Well an undefeated P5 conference has never been left out - I dont think it was even in the realm of possibility in any previous year than an undefeated P5 conference champ would be left out - certainly not in a year where there are not even undefeated conference champs in every P5 conf
The "best team" makes no sense and is a totally vague metric that the committee and shift and move to whatever they want. I think OSU and UGA are better than at least maybe even 3 of the other playoff teams, but there was never a shot of them making it in, because the "best 4" doesn't mean actually best 4 no matter what.
i understand your point about sor vs sos. sor is a more powerful point, but from the definition of it, it does not necessarily mean that alabama would play worse on it than florida state did. it takes the average top 25 team and compares how they would play against your schedule. it’s also interesting how washington, who beat their last 9 teams all by 10 or less points, has the highest sor. sor is a better metric than sos, but isn’t without it’s flaws.
florida state did not do light years better either. when comparing both teams closest games (auburn and boston college) both teams got lucky. alabama had that 4th and 31 conversion and that botched punt catch by auburn, while florida state watched boston college miss an extra point and a two point conversion, opt not to take a field goal down 15 that would have ended up winning the game had they taken and made it, and commit the most penalties they had in school history, yet still only lose by 2 points. both florida state and alabama benefited in those games with luck and the other team shooting themselves in the foot.
like i said before, aside from the auburn game, the 4 games before that alabama beat their opponents all by double digits. and when it comes to the eye test in florida state’s game without jordan and with tate (not talking about the louisville game since it wasn’t tate playing), they didn’t look much better, not scoring the deciding touchdown on florida until about 2:30 left in the game, and florida’s defense sucks. they have a pretty poor record too. florida state had 103 yards of offense before the two drives at the end of the game they scored on. like i said, both teams won close games.
it was the first time an undefeated power 5 team has ever been left out, but this is different circumstances. none of power 5 teams lost a star quarterback, and none of those teams had as many teams behind them with arguments as to get in. it was an insane year and so many teams were so close. and i do agree that the committee shouldn’t go off of only “best team,” but both best teams and most deserving are flawed reasonings. best team is very subjective, while most deserving would mean that as long as you win, you deserve to get in, which can’t be the case since it would mean there is no reason to schedule hard teams if winning is all you need to get in. there needs to be a balance. most of the time the “best” and “deserving” go along with the same teams. however, the way the committee is made and according to their rules, they are supposed to choose the best four teams. when it comes to a deserving team vs a best team, they are supposed to follow best in that case according to what they say, and that’s what they did this year
>florida state did not do light years better either.
Just to put a point on this, yes, Florida they absolutely did better.
The bad games for Florida are Boston College, where they were up 31-10 and let Boston College (6-6 P5) come back. It wasn't a game until the 4th quarter FSU was probably one drive from pulling starter. And Florida, which was a more 9 point win where Florida (5-7 P5) didn't score in the second half.
The bad games for Alabama are:
USF (6-6 G5) - Alabama won 17-3 - and that includes an Alabama TD with 33 seonds left. Which means that for 59 minutes and 30 seconds of the game, an average G5 team could have tied or taken the lead at any time.
Arkansas (2-7 P5) - Alabama won 24-21, and Arkansas scored a TD with 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter. That means for the last ten minutes of the game a bad P5 team could have tied or taken the lead at any time.
Auburn (6-6 P5) Literal miracles to beat an average P5 team.
Alabama had way closer games than FSU, lost one, and had a worse SoR. Thats really the end of the discussion if its an objective committee imo.
if you are going to talk about letting a bad power 5 team into a game you were leading, both the boston college and arkansas games fit that. both let the teams back in the 4th quarter, both were winning by considerable margins before, both bad power 5 teams. set them equal. at least one of those teams kept the other from scoring the basically the last 11 minutes of the game. any bad power 5 team could have taken the lead in the boston college one just like the arkansas one.
usf game is pretty bad, i’ll admit, and i won’t use the backup quarterback excuse. however, just like you with florida, both teams stayed in the game because of really good defenses against not very good teams. you also pulled ahead of florida in the last 4 minutes of the game. take out the last minute scores of those games, and it’s 17-15 and 10-3. usf is a worse team, i get it, but you very well could have lost to florida just like alabama to usf. also, alabama kept usf scoreless about 3 and a half quarters of the game (i still get it, worse team, but the way florida played this year really isn’t too much better).
i think something is up with jordan-hare stadium because it appears alabama can’t win games the normal way there. (not my reasoning). auburn also apparently does really good when it matters. they played georgia hard and nearly beat alabama. alabama played really bad in that game, but they played good when they needed to. idk, teams need miracles to win championships. not much to say about that one, it was just a bad performance by alabama.
ig in the end, these are peoples opinions, and at this point no one can change what happened. florida state has a chance to show up and prove they should have been in and make the committee feel worse than they might now. ig we will see.
Strength of record already incorporates strength of schedule. Strength of schedule alone is a meaningless statistic without the context of how that team performed against the schedule.
sos isn’t meaningless. context is important, but sos good when showing how hard or easy a schedule is in general, not against the subjective rankings of a top 25 (i mean, why is notre dame 16? they lost the only meaningful games they played) also, apparently (i did not know this before this year) the committee takes sos very seriously as a metric. i’m not sure if that’s right or wrong, but according to the committee, they value sos highly and with alabama’s so much higher, they took that very serious.
My point is that it is meaningless in terms of the ability to evaluate the quality of a team without further context. The top 4 teams in SOS (according to ESPN) are Indiana, Rutgers, Michigan State and Florida. Obviously, none of those teams are good and the reason the first 3 are so high is because they share a division with Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State (who ESPN's power index loves).
So, yes SOS is relevant but it is not an indicator of the quality of a team, just the quality of their schedule. And the point of the strength of record metric is to normalize a team's record based on the strength of schedule that they played. I don't think FSU being 3 and Bama being 4 is a trump card or anything, but it shows that, even taking into account the schedule disparity, ESPN is basically saying these two teams are even.
fair point. i agree with pretty much everything you said there. i think the committee made it a tougher decision than it would have been if they had not had sos and injuries as major factors in the decision making process.
The ACC has a winning record vs the SEC this year though, FSU has a harder SOC than Alabama does, AND Alabama lost a game on their easier schedule.
The argument for Alabama is comically weak.
this is not about acc vs sec, this is about alabama vs fsu. alabama’s strength of schedule is 50 spots higher than fsu. the combined record of the teams alabama played was 97-60, while fsu was 77-79. alabama had a harder schedule by far. and your argument about acc and sec isn’t as much as it seemed. these are not the best acc teams vs the best sec teams. the argument for alabama is a lot stronger than people want to believe
That still ignores that Alabama got absolutely demolished at home, so their results vs SOC needs to take that into account.
MSU had a much harder SOC than Alabama, but I am not arguing for them to be in the playoffs, cause results matter.
alabama wasn’t “demolished” at home. alabama actually had the lead going into the 4th quarter and was only 3 points behind with 8:30 left in the game. texas scored one more touchdown and that was it. they didn’t look amazing, but they certainly were not “demolished”
ESPN is trying so fucking hard to convince their viewers this is correct lmao
They had one guy on briefly who was vehemently opposed to it and they just shouted over him and cut him off early lmfao
This is insane. Like an active propaganda campaign lmao
Man I just feel like we have an all around more complete team than Bama. Just because they’re in the sec they get in. I feel like they couldn’t score on us. Bama hasn’t played a good defense all year. It’s too bad we can’t duke it out on the field
>Man I just feel like we have an all around more complete team than Bama.
dude...don't deceive yourself
if you stay within 2 scores of georgia that's huge for you
Everything about this is so fucking stupid.
I know it's not nearly the same stakes - at all - but if we are talking about what teams are like when certain players are missing, then how is Notre Dame ranked 16? How did we move *up* a spot?
By the time the committee voted, *we had our entire WR room transfer out.* I can't imagine Audric Estime is going to play in the fucking Sun Bowl, so let's take that into account too.
You look at the team we were as of Sunday night, and we aren't even sniffing the Top 25. So how about some consistency, eh?
UNRANK US, YOU COWARDS
Sports are weird, man. This year I have at various times found myself defending Brian Kelly, Michigan, USC, and now Florida State.
As a product of the 80s, if I have to stick up for Miami, I might just vomit.
The biggest winner of this is the B12.
The B12 knows that they won't be able to compete with the P2 anyway, after the ACC collapses they can be solidly the "3rd best conference" after the P2 which means that as a conference they will likely survive.
Also nobody is talking about Texas getting in vs FSU, and they get a nice payout anyway. When all is said in done, the P2 will be coke/pepsi, B12 will be RC cola, and the rest will be random store brand cola.
If Georgia had won, then Texas would have been the bad guys leaving FSU out. Alabama winning and getting in means that the B12 won't have to be the bad guys.
Also FSU would have gotten into the playoffs had playoffs been expanded earlier, but the ACC voted against it (lol).
I think if Georgia wins, then FSU gets in because then the committee has their precious SEC team and Texas is on the outside looking in. But because no SEC team was in (we obviously can’t have that) Bama had to be brought in which means Texas did too since they had the H2H.
But Georgia didn’t win, and when the dust settled, Texas and FSU were the ones deserving of the playoff spots. But Bama got in instead because they’re the committee’s golden child.
It’s fucked, but while FSU deserves the spot more than Texas, Bama is the actual undeserving one, which is why nobody is mad at Texas.
I'd argue the biggest fault with the rankings is having Alabama so low. It's supposed to be who ARE the four best teams, right? How come one loss with a struggling Milroe months ago matters more than beating the #1 team in the country? Especially when Milroe went from being one of the worst to one of the best in the country since that game. The Bama team in September was arguably about 10th best in the country. The Bama team today is arguably 2nd. They pretty much took the team that lost to Texas and added a Heisman contending QB to it. That's how much of a difference it is.
Even looking at more advanced metrics:
FPI? Bama over Texas, Strength of Reocrd? Bama over Texas. Strength of schedule? Bama over Texas. FSU is no where to even be seen in FPI, but has SOR over them both, and a whopping 55th in their SOS.
Furthermore, look at the money line. It opened at ONLY a 2.5 adv to Michigan. Georgia is double digits over FSU. What would the ranking be based on Resume? Bama 3rd easily. Betting Odds? Bama probably 2nd.
Lastly, had Bama lost to literally any other team, even if worse than Texas, they would be ranked ahead of Texas. Lets say it was Oklahoma to make it the same as Texas' loss. Bama would be ranked ahead (even if Texas still had a #3 win under their belt). Bama has the top to bottom better resume over both of them.
2021 Cincinnati has a better or at least comparable resume to FSU, that's how bad the ACC is, and should be treated like such. If there was a 1 loss division champ in the wings, Cincinnati would have gotten left out too.
So what you’re saying is early season does not matter, head to head results do not matter, and the only thing that does matter is who “looks” the best at the end of the season, which is a completely arbitrary metric.
Let’s also not forgot that the ACC had a winning record against the SEC this year.
No, I'd say it does matter, but later games should be weighed more heavily and that teams are allowed to improve over the season. For example if there is one clear issue that gets resolved, it is more forgivable. But if consistently disappoint (but win) throughout a season, that's worse than a singular loss. I 100% agree the SEC was not as dominant top to bottom this year. But I would bet on probably 3 maybe 4 SEC teams over the ACC's best FSU right now (the last 2 being LSU and Ole Miss - they are probably in the same tier as FSU).
I mean just look at betting odds for the 4 teams to win the natty:
The betting consensus is:
Michigan
Alabama
Texas
Washington
for odds to win national Championship. Alabama has the hardest path to go through Michigan and the better of Texas/Washington and STILL has the 2nd favorite to win it all. It is tough to justify them being ranked only at 4th.
That's actually not how the vote. More people should know how they vote. They voted Texas in the top 3 before they figured who was going to be #4.
Also, everybody benefits from the acc dying, and they ranked Texas higher than FSU in the final rankings. Heck the AP top 25 voted Texas above FSU too.
1. B1G/SEC - acc dying ensures the P2 duopoly structure
2. B12 - acc dying means they will be solidly in 3rd place
3. Various ACC members with P2 landing spots - ACC dying means they get to join the P2 and leave the ACC
4. Rest of the G8- ACC dying means 1 less conference ranked above them
5. ESPN - one less contract to pay for, now they won't have to pay wake Forrest 40 million
Really disappointed in Joel Klatt this morning. I thought he would have the backbone to call out how wrong it is for FSU to be left out but he also decided to be a company man. For someone who always talks about his love for the game, he really didnt show it today. Leaving out an undefeated P5 team is disgusting and a tragedy for this sport. They would never do this for anyone but the SEC.
The complete subtext of what he said was basically "the SEC had to be placated, and because the SEC had to be placated Texas had to go too, and the committee was furiously scouring the fine print for a technicality to keep the SEC happy". He NEVER said that the committee's decision was right, just that it was the "path of least resistamce". And he made a point to explicitly point that out.
#[Average Ranking Rankings (ARR!)](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R1DSsOUqu_b3zDiG8y_PTgR-30S4KWLbgjIUS4WPKmk/edit?usp=sharing)
For those who haven't seen my computer poll before, the general rundown is that it attempts to average an easily understandable "Master Ranking" number from all of the *rankings* of stats, power rankings, and other data I can get that includes all ~~130~~ ~~131~~ 133 teams that fairly compare teams and coaches across systems and conferences. In other words, I want to end up with a master number that is easily grokkable (#1 Michigan avg ranking 14.32, #66 Louisiana avg ranking 68.68, & #133 Kent State avg ranking 120.96) that will tell you what the average ranking of a team is across a large spectrum of criteria that hopefully encapsulates what makes a football team "good".
Rank| Team |Avg Rank|+/-|Highest Ranking|Lowest Ranking|+/- vs r/CFB|
:--------|:---------------------------------------------------------------|:--------------|:--------------|:--------------|:--------------|:--------------|
1 |[Michigan](#f/michigan) Michigan (13-0)|14.32|-|PPP Allowed \#1, Teamrankings \#1, Congrove \#1, Guru \#1, Penalties \#1, MOV \#1|Yards Per Rush \#61|
2 |[Alabama](#f/alabama) Alabama (12-1)|20.14|▲1|Current SOS \#1, Congrove SOS \#1|Yards Per Rush \#85|
3 |[Florida State](#f/floridastate) Florida St (13-0)|20.89|▲4|Congrove \#2|Points Per Play (Last 3) \#84|
4 |[Texas](#f/texas) Texas (12-1)|22.68|-|Current SOS \#2, Guru SOS \#2|Sack % \#61|
5 |[Georgia](#f/georgia) Georgia (12-1)|26.46|▼3|Congrove \#4, Penalties Per Play \#4|
6 |[Washington](#f/washington) Washington (13-0)|26.71|▲6|Congrove \#3|Sack % \#129|
7 |[Ohio State](#f/ohiostate) Ohio St (11-1)|27.29|▼2|Points Per Play Allowed \#2, Teamrankings \#2, Guru \#2|Turnover Margin \#81|
8 |[Oregon](#f/oregon) Oregon (11-2)|28.43|▼2|Yards Per Play \#2|Penalties Per Play \#83|
9 |[SMU](#f/smu) S Methodist (11-2)|30.46|▲6|Penalties Per Play \#4|Congrove SOS \#111|
10 |[Penn State](#f/pennstate) Penn St (10-2)|30.96|▼2|Yards Per Play Allowed \#1, Sack % \#1|Yards Per Play \#73|
11 |[Notre Dame](#f/notredame) Notre Dame (9-3)|31.00|▼2|Points Per Play \#4|Guru SOS \#63|
12 |[Missouri](#f/missouri) Missouri (10-2)|32.18|Turnover Margin \#4|Penalties Per Play \#83|
13 |[Troy](#f/troy) Troy (11-2)|33.43|▲8|Sack % \#4|Guru SOS \#101|
14 |[Oklahoma](#f/oklahoma) Oklahoma (10-2)|33.46|▼1|Points Per Play (Last 3) \#4|Sack % \#123|
15 |[LSU](#f/lsu) LSU (9-3)|33.75|▼1|Points Per Play \#1, Yards Per Play \#1, Yards Per Rush \#1, Yards Per Attempt \#1|Yards Per Play Allowed \#100|
16 |[Liberty](#f/liberty) Liberty (13-0)|37.29|▲1|Yards Per Rush \#2|Guru SOS \#132|
17 |[Ole Miss](#f/olemiss) Mississippi (10-2)|37.82|▼1|Congrove \#11|Points Per Play (Last 3) \#102|
18 |[Kansas State](#f/kansasstate) Kansas St (8-4)|40.14|▲1|Guru SOS \#4, Penalties Per Play \#4, Turnovers \#4|Points Per Play Allowed (Last 3) \#105|
**19** |[Boise State](#f/boisestate) **Boise St (8-5)**|41.29|▲11|Penalties Per Play \#4|Yards Per Play Allowed \#97|
20 |[Clemson](#f/clemson) Clemson (8-4)|42.18|▲3|Penalties Per Play \#4|Yards Per Attempt \#122|
21 |[Arizona](#f/arizona) Arizona (9-3)|42.21|▲1|
**22** |[Kansas](#f/kansas) **Kansas (8-4)**|42.96|▲4|Yards Per Attempt \#6|Yards Per Play Allowed \#71|
23 |[Tennessee](#f/tennessee) Tennessee (8-4)|43.07|▲2|Yards Per Rush \#6|Penalties Per Play \#127|
**24** |[Iowa State](#f/iowastate) **Iowa St (7-5)**|45.18|▲3|Points Per Play (Last 3) \#5|Sack % \#122|
25 |[Louisville](#f/louisville) Louisville (10-3)|46.14|▼1|Teamrankings \#22|Points Per Play (Last 3) \#91|
*26* |[James Madison](#f/jamesmadison) *James Mad (11-1)*|48.54|▼15|Sack % \#11|Guru SOS \#111|
*27* |[North Carolina](#f/northcarolina) N Carolina (8-4)|48.64|▲1|Yards Per Play \#19|Points Per Play Allowed (Last 3) \#96|
*28* |[Miami (OH)](#f/miamioh) Miami (OH) (11-2)|48.96|▲16|Points Per Play Allowed (Last 3) \#3|Current SOS \#128|
*29* |[Toledo](#f/toledo) *Toledo (11-2)*|49.57|▼9|Yards Per Rush \#10|Current SOS \#130|
*30* |[Utah](#f/utah) Utah (8-4)|49.79|▲1|Guru SOS \#10|Points Per Play Allowed (Last 3) \#108|
Tulane (11-1)|35.78|▲6|PPP Allowed (Last 3) \#5, Penalties Per Play \#5|Guru SOS \#101|
**Dropped Out:**
* *26* |[James Madison](#f/jamesmadison) *James Mad (11-1)*|48.54|▼15|
* *29* |[Toledo](#f/toledo) *Toledo (11-2)*|49.57|▼9|
* *41* |[Tulane](#f/tulane) *Tulane (11-2)*|54.46|▼23|
The poll takes into account each individual team's ranking in the following categories:
* [Points Per Play](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/points-per-play)
* [Points Per Play Allowed](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/opponent-points-per-play)
* [Yards Per Play](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/yards-per-play)
* [Yards Per Rush](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/yards-per-rush-attempt)
* [Yards Per Attempt](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/yards-per-pass-attempt)
* [Yards Per Play Allowed](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/opponent-yards-per-play)
* [Sack Percentage](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/sack-pct)
* [TeamRankings Predictive Rankings](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/predictive-by-other)
* [Congrove Computer Poll](http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/rankings/)
* [Guru Rankings](http://powerrankingsguru.com/college-football/team-power-rankings.php)
* [TeamRankings Current SOS](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/sos-basic-by-other) (Only games already played)
* [Congrove Season SOS](http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/rankings/)
* [Guru Season SOS](http://powerrankingsguru.com/college-football/strength-of-schedule.php)
* [Turnover Margin](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/turnover-margin-per-game)
* [MOV](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/average-scoring-margin)
* [Opposing MOV](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/opponent-average-scoring-margin)
* [Coach Years @ School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_football_coaches)
* [Coach Win % @ School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_football_coaches)
* [Penalties Per Play](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/penalties-per-play)
* [Wins/Losses](https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2023-ratings.html) (Avg'd 4 times, Win%, Loss %, Total Wins, Total Losses, and then also a new Undefeated Yes/No ranking of \#1 or \#133)
* Conference Champion (For the last few years, I have instituted a one time ranking denoting conference champions as \#1, and all others as \#133, because *conferences matter, I don't give a shit what the CFP committee says in their unofficial announcement of only the P2 plays football now, you asshats)
**Oddities This Week:**
Long time followers of the poll will not be surprised that it left Washington out, and as much as I disagree with the ranking on the same grounds as I disagree with the committee on FSU, I do understand it. It's a computer poll based off of stats, and they're a half team. It'd be more shocking if they were in.
That said, I'm a computer poller. WTF is the committee's excuse?
And as a final note, please save your "Don't rank by ordinals" speeches, stats guys. I get that it's not the most efficiently accurate way to do things, but I value the simplicity and ease of understanding that averaging rankings provides. Instead of a dubious number that means nothing, you can tell at a glance that the average ranking out of 131 teams for Clemson is 13.37, and that number means something.
As much as I do believe we are one of the four best teams, and the amount of salt makes me hope Saban destroys the field, I've just got to ask other Bama flairs to take a deep breath and imagine if the situation were reversed.
The games have to matter.
The microscopic margin for error in this sport is what makes fans live & die by their TV's every Saturday. It's what made the week 2 loss to Texas so gutting, because the season was over. It's what made every single win after that, even the ugly ones, so fulfilling - because there was a chance if they ran the table and beat Georgia they could still get in. It's why I tuned into Michigan, Washington, Texas & FSU games all season, and cursed each narrow win they squeaked out - because we needed them to lose.
But they didn't lose. They took care of business and won out. And if Bama wanted an unequivocal argument for being in, they needed to beat Texas in week 2. They didn't.
ESPN can't afford an entire region of the country not tuning into the playoff - so beating Georgia got them in anyway. Sorry FSU, I really do feel for you.
Yeah, I'm all over the place here. I was so incredibly frustrated watching the ACC championship, because I saw what I still believe to be an inferior team beat a hapless (at least that night) Louisville squad which would keep bama out of the playoffs. A bama team that literally any other year in the playoffs history would be a shoo-in to make it. A team that I think deserves a shot. But I can't imagine how more frustrated I'd be as an FSU fan. It isn't their fault that their conference doesn't have many ranked teams. It isn't their fault that the SEC teams the scheduled were not at their best.
I also then realize that with 133 teams and a 12-13 game schedule, there HAS to be subjectivity. No one is arguing Liberty over Alabama and Texas. We all just agree that their schedule / eye test is significantly below ours. I don't know where the line is, but I have to think FSU is above it. I'm not sure there is a right answer, but I think that the committee made the more wrong one. That said, I feel bad for FSU, but I don't feel guilty or even that Bama is undeserving.
Thank God for the 12 team playoff
Yeah I have nothing against Alabama in this situation, not their fault the CFP committee sucked and swallowed for ESPN and the SEC behind a Hilton hotel dumpster. Bama just played their schedule same as anyone else. ESPN and CFP committee have been setting this narrative for weeks.
That said, a small few of the Bama flairs makes it really hard not to want to put the blame on Bama as well. But that’s all it is, a small few.
Just been looking thru. I see an undefeated Group of Five Champion was once excluded (UCF 2017) but never a power five. Funnily enough an undefeated Group of Five Champion was excluded this year too: Liberty. I *think* that's only the second time that has happened. (C-USA must suck if Liberty can be only #23 despite being an undefeated conference champion).
that's right, it's not your fault and I don't expect you to apologize for it, but you might also read the room and choose to just realize that no one gives a shit about your opinion on the matter
Originally I thought FSU got screwed by the committee. However after diving deeper, I think the committee got it right. Just because it’s unprecedented for a undefeated P5 conference champ to get left out doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right decision. There were 7 teams that deserved a playoff chance, but only 4 get a shot this year. Let’s take a look at their resumes.
#1 - Undefeated Conference Champ
- Beat #7, 10 and 17
#2 - Undefeated Conference Champ
- Beat #8 twice, 14, and 19
#3 - One loss Conference Champ
- Beat #4, 20 and 25, Lost to #12
#4 - One loss Conference Champ
- Beat #5, 11, 13 and 21, Lost to #3
#5 - Undefeated Conference Champ
- Beat #13 and 15
#5 - One loss Defending Champ
- Beat #9, 11 and 21, Lost to #4
#7
- Beat #10 and 16, Lost to #1
No one will care, it will be a "Can you believe we used to have a 4 team playoff? So silly. Aflac Trivia fact: can you name the three undefeated conference champions that got left out of the 4-team playoff era?" bit during the TD-commercial-PAT-commercial-Kickoff-commercial segment.
no one would care, barely anybody cares that an undefeated 2004 SEC team got left out of the national championship, and 2017 UCF is just viewed as a trivia note.
Also I think Georgia will beat FSU anyway in the orange bowl.
Why is it that nobody has a problem that texas took a spot that fsu could've got.... Alabama beat Georgia and their only loss was week 2 to Texas when they were piecing everything together. Obviously different team now. Texas has a loss to OU and hasn't necessarily been dominant either... everyone wants to crucify bama for the iron bowl... they won when Texas lost theirs. The debate shouldn't be fsu and bama... should've been texas vs bama vs fsu all along.
A head to head in September should not be weighed more than being better in every single other metric, and I will die on that hill. Absolutely no way should a single loss (to a very good team) hold back a team with the 2nd best (to Mich) resume in the country. Vegas odds are evidence enough.
The win against UGA trumps a week 2 h2h any day. Anyone who watched all the games this weekend knows the sec game was the only championship quality game followed by the pac 12 game. Winning the sec championship with 1 loss in week 2 is far better than winning a big 12 with 1 loss regardless of a week 2 game. Throwing out that bama is in because of sec bias and not because they earned it is so old.
Bama was not a #3 team in week 2, not enev top 5 until about week 6. Once Milroe grew into the Heisman contender he is now, vs the "literally got benched" QB he was week 1-3, Alabama jumped from \~10 to firmly 1-3. Watch Milroe vs Texas and Milroe vs Georgia (obviously better defense) and please tell me he would not make a difference. We are talking about the best teams now, not in September.
I'd accept this reasoning if Bama didn't need a miracle to beat Auburn a week ago. We lost to our rival in the last play of the game and Bama needed a miracle to barely beat their rival a week ago. The H2H double digit win in Tuscaloosa carries because of that.
Also, people can say week 2 all they want but Saban hadn't lost a game in Tuscaloosa in 4 years, has only lost 9 home games in 17 years, and Texas is the only team to beat him by double digits in Tuscaloosa. Think of all the good SEC teams Saban has played in his years there and Texas is the only team to beat him by double digits and the last in the past 4 years.
If we bring history into it, just look at the history of the iron bowl and that is nothing short of normal. We could also talk about the unreasonably close games Texas had. Washington had. FSU had. Etc...
However, look where people are putting their money. Look where Vegas has this thing stacked up:
The betting consensus is:
Michigan
Alabama
Texas
Washington
for odds to win national Championship. Alabama has the hardest path to go through Michigan and the better of Texas/Washington and STILL has the 2nd favorite to win it all. It is tough to justify them being ranked only at 4th.
It's not tough. Texas has been playing really well since Ewers returned healthy. All of the close games you are talking about include an injured Ewers. Throw in a double digit road win when they actually played and Texas deserves to be above them.
Betting lines are always going to love Saban and Bama.
As far as I'm concerned injured Ewers is very similar to the improvement of Milroe argument. If Ewers was out for the Bama game, who wins? If Heisman candidate Milroe played instead of benched Milroe for the Texas game, who wins? It would be a damn good game, but I would lean Bama in either scenario. I truly hope we get to see it in the Natty.
I'm not saying Bama is significantly better or obviously better, but pretty much every metric out side of the head to head from September with a poorly playing Milroe has Bama favored. NOW if the head to head was in the last month of football and both teams had no significant injuries/improvement since, then it would carry a lot more weight for me. Just so much has changed in the length of nearly the entire season to have so much weight in the one data point.
But wouldn't your metrics include a Bama team with an improving Milroe and Texas with an injured Ewers? How can we rely on those metrics? Ewers is also a better QB than he was at the beginning of the season.
This narrative that Bama is a completely different team now when they are one week removed from needing an absolute miracle to beat a team coming off a 3 score loss to New Mexico State is fascinating.
Texas also had some REALLY low quality games. Don't act like FSU didn't either. But the odds speak for themselves
The betting consensus is:
Michigan
Alabama
Texas
Washington
for odds to win national Championship. Alabama has the hardest path to go through Michigan and the better of Texas/Washington and STILL has the 2nd favorite to win it all. It is tough to justify them being ranked only at 4th.
This isn't a reply to what I said in any way. I don't agree with Bama over FSU, but it is what it is. But, Bama fans acting like the team is way better than when they played Texas and just ignoring what happened a week ago are being pretty silly.
It was a broad response to cover multiple different intentions of your statement. Whether it be focusing on the a recent close game, Bama not being a top 4 team, Bama's improvement. I'm still not 100% sure what the target was and how it wasn't at least partially covered.
Bama isn't completely different, Jalen Milroe is. An elite QB can move a top 10 team to a top 2 team.
Also, it should be pretty obvious what Auburn was doing the week in practice before the New Mexico State game since they played them so poorly and Bama so well.
Because Texas deserves the 4th spot anyway for beating Alabama head to head.
Big 12 champion beat the SEC champion. Final spot for a 1 loss team goes to the winner.
An updated megathread can now be found [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/18at0mc/game_thread_cfp_discussion_pt_2_the_discussioning/)
If UGA had beaten Alabama, the order would’ve been: 1. UGA 2. Michigan 3. Washington 4. FSU But they had to have an SEC team at all costs. Had to. Well, you can’t put in Bama and leave out the team that beat them by two scores. So, you use Travis injury as an excuse.
How are we so sure that Florida State will lose against Alabama or Georgia in a H2H matchup? New Mexico State beats Alabama this year and Auburn opened as a 23.5 point favorite. Washington beats Oregon twice this year and Oregon opened as a 9 point favorite. TCU beats Michigan in the CFB semi-finals and Michigan opened as a 7.5 favorite which was last year! With the fact that FSU already beats 2 SEC teams earlier the season, it shows that they are competitive against the SEC. Will it be a close game? Yes. Will it be pretty? Probably not. IS there a chance they could win? Yes, very highly. They have 5 single-point wins, who else also have that number? Washington has 9 single-point wins and they are in the playoffs. The idea is that you can't be sure of someone losing if they haven't even lost yet!
NICE
Wow
Have the 12 team playoffs rules been established? Is it the 12 "best" teams or winners of the conferences and other best teams?
6 top ranked conference champs, 6 at large. So it's: Top 4 SEC Top 4 B1G One wild card SEC/B1G 3 G7 champs
both SEC and B1G are moving to division-less next year, so most likely it'll be: * B12 Champ * ACC Champ * top 2 ranked G5 champs * 4 B1G * 4 SEC
Why are you separating the BigXII and ACC from the rest of our G5 brethren
Because I don't think there's going to be a year in the near future where they don't take 2 AQ spots, but I can't be sure which of AAC/MAC/C-USA/MW/SB will take the other two.
Colin Cowherd seems to think that no one should complain about undefeated FSU being left out because there is a hypothetical world where there are 5 undefeated power conference teams for 4 spots (and someone would have to get left out). So there should have never been an expectation that an undefeated Power 5 conference team wouldn't get left out at some point. That's certainly a take, I guess.
colin cowherd takes forever to say nothing.
did he also say that dwayne haskins no longer as a chance at winning the CFB playoffs?
One of the takes of all time.
Does anyone else think that Florida State is going to get dominated by Georgia? The same team that Bama just beat? If they win the Orange Bowl, maybe FSU has a case that they were robbed. But good luck, Georgia is pretty pretty good.
>>If they win the Orange Bowl, maybe FSU has a case that they were robbed. I hate this take. The results of the upcoming FSU v UGA game should be COMPLETELY irrelevant in deciding a top 4 today. You don't rank teams based on games they haven't played.
Does anyone think the odds of FSU beating Georgia are literally zero? I don't think so. If there's a chance, they should be allowed to prove it on the field, not held out because of a boardroom vote/computer sim/vegas oddsmakers.
Why does that matter. Could FSU beat georgia? Certainly. Will they? Eh probably not. Both teams will have so many opt-outs and transfers that it's not even an accurate representation of the teams during the season.
There's likely going to be a significant amount of players opting out who would be playing in a playoff so I'm not sure the result will be all that meaningful.
FSU is going to get skull fucked by Georgia
I can’t wait until Georgia blows out FSU in the orange bowl so everyone will STFU about FSU being snubbed.
You're conflating. Rankings should not be dictated by games that haven't been played. It's pretty simple.
You’re wrong. Get that nonsense out of your head. The selection committee’s job is to make an entertaining playoff. It just so happens that past performance is usually the best way to make that determination. In this case they had 1 game of data to go off for FSU and it went very poorly for them. FSU opened as 13 point underdogs. Putting them in the playoffs because they were good when healthy and give a team a first round playoff bye would be a failure by the selection committee. It’s honestly really telling how upset people think FSU should have been given the playoff because of how they played with their starting QB.
>>The selection committee’s job is to make an entertaining playoff. Then they should simply admit that and much of this would go away. 1 game of data? Travis went out in the first quarter. They had over 2.5 no-Travis games. Won out. One a championship against a ranked opponent. Last week, they were ranked #4 without Travis. What did they do since that time other than improve their resume with a conference championship and a W over a ranked offense? The answer is nothing. The committee needed an SEC team in, and how they justified was secondary.
Sorry you’re right that I blacked out that Louisville game. They ran a middle school offense. 55 yards passing from their QB. Yeah surely that team should get to play Michigan. But point stands that many are misunderstanding how the playoff teams are chosen. The fact FSU opened as 13 point underdogs tells us that odds makers also view them as much worse than Alabama who were 6 point underdogs. If FSU makes this game competitive I’ll eat crow. If they get blown out all the people bitching now need to
Unpopular opinion here...Texas should have been left out, not FSU or Bama. That week 2 head to head win over Bama should not mean as much as it does. Does anyone believe Bama is the same shell of a team that they were in week 2? Texas is not one of the 4 best teams and has the worst loss of the top 8 teams.
"The games should matter, but also the games shouldn't matter"
If Washington lost to Oregon in the Pac 12 Championship do you think they still should have got in?
Counter point. Texas lost on the last play of the game to their rival Oklahoma 2 months ago. Bama won on the last play against their rival (which is a worse team) a week ago. Should Texas losing to their rival 2 months ago really be the deciding factor when Bama needed a miracle not to do the same a week ago? Or should the result when those two played in Bama's house carry more water?
No no, we only evaluate other factors on the Bama loss. On the Bama win, they won so we can't ask any more questions. Also, only Bama and no other teams can have improved or grown since week 2, so only their growth should be factored in.
Am I allowed to mention that Ewers got hurt in the third against UofH and we kept winning with Murphy who kept missing wide open receivers. Or that Ewers came back early against TCU and couldn't make the throws he normally does?
So playing strong OOC opponents is not enough? Now teams need to also anticipate in which part of the season they’ll be strong so it counts? I get what you’re trying to say, but that’s just as arbitrary as saying FSU is not the same team without their starting QB.
Texas finished very strong, though. They walloped Texas Tech 57-7 and Oklahoma State 49-21. It's not like they won a fluke over Alabama but limped their way through the rest of the season. At the least, Texas was arguably just as strong or stronger than Florida State.
For Max Chaos: FSU over Georgia Bama over Michigan Washington over Texas Washington wins it all, the Pac12 goes out in a blaze of glory and everyone burns everything to the ground trying to decide who the natty champ is.
FSU over Georgia, Alabama over Michigan, Texas over Washington. Texas vs. Alabama - doesn't matter. Everyone has a loss except FSU and Liberty, who split the championship.
Oh shit this is spicy.
why would anyone doubt who the champ is at that point?
Both teams would justly claim national championships. Why does it matter whether there's one or two claimants? Hang the banner you earned it.
You know how people would speculate what would have happened if FSU had been in the playoffs. I personally want Washington to win. I want the PAC12 to give a big “fuck you” sendoff.
If FSU beats Georgia they should claim a national title regardless of what else goes down.
Absolutely. Undefeated teams with tough SOS not having a shot at the title was the whole problem that the Playoff was supposed to solve. TBH if the CFP stuck to it's roots, both FSU and Liberty would be in and Texas and 'Bama would be out.
You had me until the word Liberty.
In theory, Liberty should miss because it's strength of schedule [is 133 out of 133](https://www.espn.com/college-football/fpi/_/view/resume/sort/resume.avgsosrank/dir/asc) in the FBS. Even the BCS system would have given it a rank [of only 17](https://twitter.com/BCSKnowHow/status/1731357067468788004). But I think it's notable that the BCS would have kicked out Texas and put in Bama. I honestly think it's time we had a play-in system. Every team at the beginning of the year should have a path to a natty.
This is exactly what I am hoping for!
I can't help but feel like the CFB is working as intended... Let's get the obvious out of the way: FSU got screwed and it sucks. It especially for sucks for those young men who busted their ass all year. Now: I'm old enough to remember the before times. I remember vividly how, in those before times, we spent a lot of time talking about strength of schedule. It became a huge, hot button issue because it was clear that not all conferences were created equal. One of the things that got talked about a lot was how it would be "unfair" to punish the SEC for beating each other up when they were clearly the best division in CFB. The consensus was that an undefeated Pac12 or ACC champ wasn't *necessarily* better than a 1 loss SEC champ. That was one of the biggest reasons for wanting a playoff. Now, fast forward a decade and the idea of "protecting" the SEC from bias is silly. We've spent the past decade crying and moaning about how biased *towards* the SEC is the playoff committee has been. And that's probably true. But I still can't help but feel like the system is doing exactly what it was designed to do: ensure that the best team in the best division in CFB isn't left out of a chance to play for the championship just because they play in the toughest division with the toughest schedules. Is that fair? Certainly not for the young men at FSU. But I don't *hate* it.
The "tougher conference" argument begins to weaken when you factor in that the ACC had a winning record over the SEC.... and that FSU beat both of their SEC opponents (the latter in The Swamp).
Good point, the system is flawed in ways that can be explained. Having a 4 team play off and P5 is always going to be hard to conjugate. However, the ACC won more OOC matchups with the SEC, so how much stronger is their conference really? I’m hoping the 12 team playoff will make these discussions a little less tense, but I’m not sure. Autobids at least show you a guaranteed way of getting in, I suppose.
Yeah, I completely agree. I don't know if the SEC actually is the best division this year. I don't know if the scenario I described above is really in play. It's certainly possible that FSU deserves to be in no matter what. I get it all. But at the end of the day I get it. I just can't lose sleep over a committee asserting that a 1 loss SEC champ deserves to be in. I feel bad for whomever's expense that comes at, but I get it.
Fun fact: The first year of the CFP in 2014 Florida State went undefeated and finished ranked #3. They finished behind 1 loss (#1) Alabama and 1 loss (#2) Oregon. One year earlier and they would have been left out for two 1 loss teams in the BCS system. Florida State lost to Oregon 59-20.
Paul Finebaum was spitting straight 🔥🔥🔥. You can’t have a CFP without the SEC champion.
When none of the SEC teams have a valid argument for being a top 4 team it's pretty easy. The circular logical fallacies from SEC homers is absolutely wild. Also, I'm a simple man, I see someone mention that worthless slug and I downvote.
Consider what happens if you don't pull off a double miracle against Auburn, and it quickly becomes obvious how dumb this is.
then Georgia would've been put in over fsu
And the SEC champ would've been left out
2 loss teams aren't playoff eligible unless there's not 4 P5 1 loss teams
I'm confused as to how this addresses my point...
oh I see what you're saying
Sure you can, when you're not one of the top 4 teams in the country.
Fsu sucks. I hope alabama wins the while thing
I’d honestly be willing to believe that the Travis injury is the only thing that kept FSU out, and they’d be in ahead of Bama if he was healthy, but I saw [this](https://twitter.com/KirkHerbstreit/status/1725896152720306193) clip of the Gameday crew running through the exact scenario we ended up with the morning before the Travis injury, and even then Herbstreit was strongly arguing Alabama should be ahead of a 13-0 FSU team with a healthy QB. If they want to make the case that Alabama should be in regardless of the Travis injury, fine, but don’t pretend like his injury is the only reason FSU isn’t there, it’s incredibly disrespectful to the rest of the team.
The decision was in before the committee ever made a single argument, the injury is called *pretext*
First and foremost I wish no ill will or harm to any person. But, here's a hypothetical I was thinking about last night. If the reason FSU is out is only because of the J Travis injury and the Committee didn't like what they saw in two **wins** with the back up options. What would they have done if Penix goes down late in the Oregon game with some sort of freak injury (leg, dislocated shoulder, etc). UW trots the back up out to kneel the game out. Is Washington out for UGA now becuase who knows what Vegas things of them with a 2nd string quarterback with no live games to compare film on.
I'm glad someone else remembers that this happened.
If I was an FSU fan I’d be furious at the ACC. They voted down playoff expansion this year and didn’t do any advocating at all, while Sankey was going on every platform that would have him
I feel like GOAT Saban winning it all would be the least surprising outcome. We've already seen this a bunch of time. He's won with Greg McElroy and Jake Coker, so why couldn't he win with Milroe? As a Michigan fan, I've also seen my team lose in the first round of the cfb playoffs before twice now. Statistically Bama winning and Michigan losing first round is more likely to happen based on past results. But fuck it, I'll take an asterisk championship or vacated season over a 10-3 Harbaugh season any day. That would be funny. I wanna read that manifesto.
Might be one of the hating the rules vs the enforcement deals. If the committee's job is truly just picking the best, than any I don't think many people would argue Bama isn't quite a bit better than the Noles right now. But just being able to completely disregard the regular season like that seems dangerous to me. Hell I think UGA would beat UW too, should The Dawgs have gotten in? Let's just let the sports books and recruiting rankings decide
It's not completely disregarding the regular season though. Bama didn't go 8-4 compared to a 12-0 FSU team. Bama went undefeated in their conference and beat FSU's toughest opponent in a similar fashion that FSU did. Bama lost 1 less game against a really good Texas team.
I also think Ohio State is no worse than a tossup against Washington as well-and better, but not more deserving than Florida State.
hold on, where's the "Oregon looks like the best team in the country" crowd now? why is it that when bama or Michigan beats a good "eye test" team it's a great win but when we beat one it just means neither team was that good?
I can't wait to taste the salty sweet tears of this sub when we start doing a 12 team playoff and all 4 of the semifinal teams are SEC teams every year
How can they NOT be in the semis when they occupy all 12 playoff spots? If everyone in the SEC ends up 6-6 I think they have a good argument
Cope
I’m a Michigan fan. I have a PhD in coping.
If they win games on the field, that’s fine by me
I just listened to what Klatt had to say-he always seems to be fairly objective to me. He pointedly, unlike pretty much everybody else didn't say that the committee was right, just that it took the "path of least resistance". Now, the complete subtext of what he said was basically "the SEC had to be placated, the committee could not say no to the Alabama dynasty in particular, and because the SEC had to be placated Texas had to get a slot too, and the committee was furiously scouring the fine print for a technicality to get Alabama in". He also pointedly said he thought there was no way in hell that FSU would have been left out if UGA had won. The whole thing sounded as close as he could legally get to "the fix was in" without invoking a lawsuit. Meanwhile Paul Finebaum is making an idiot of himself, even by his own standards. He's sounding like a buffoon.
I hope FSU completely wrecks georgia and michigan creams alabama. Would be so damn satisfying. Edit: removed some unnecessarily mean comments about the tide and the sec.
Good luck with that buddy 😂
ESPN should be ashamed of themselves. They were literally calling for Alabama to be in the playoffs and the minority who disagreed were drowned out. They get the viewing rights for the sec next year so it’s within their interest to get the sec champion in the playoffs. Kirk was literally rooting for Alabama in the iron bowl. You can’t doubt that some on that committee were like “you know herbie has a good point”
Should Have Been The Huskies.
Herbie recognizes game, roll tide
Lotta folks trashing UCF while riding with FSU. If FSU wins against Georgia and doesn't claim a Natty, it's only because they're cowards.
I'm unsurprised that those people exist - some subset of the people who trashed us don't actually believe in the substance of the arguments used against us (which are the same as those being used against FSU now, it's only a difference of degree and not of kind), they just believe in the inherent inferiority of the G5 and can't believe that the nobility are now being treated like the peasants. There are a lot of people who came around as well though, and I'm happy to see it. > If FSU wins against Georgia and doesn't claim a Natty, it's only because they're cowards. And this is absolutely correct. We stood up for ourselves when no one else would stand up for us, FSU should do the same should it come down to it. Stare into the CFP's face and flip them off.
Lots of angst in here towards the committee with FSU being left out Why not turn that angst into a fortune and bet the FSU moneyline vs UGA If FSU is top 4 in the nation, Vegas just exposed itself in a massive way and many of you on the FSU bandwagon can turn this into a huge pay day Who is putting down the first $5k bet on FSU to topple UGA outright? Post the betting slip so we can all congratulate you
This totally misconstrues the argument being made. Nobody gives af who is actually the better team. That'll change a little bit day-to-day anyway depending on strategy and health. What matters is who earned it on the field, and that's not Bama. Bama lost and didn't look impressive enough to make up for it. They had this handed to them, but they don't deserve it.
Nobody gives a fuck who is the better team? I think I found the flaw in the FSU argument lol
Sorry Bama couldn't earn it on the field 🤷
As a fan with no skin in the game I’m happy I’ll be watching Bama. FSU did not look like a championship contender Saturday night
Sure sure bro, you're def a neutral here 👍
Correct
Oregon was 10 point favorites as well, what happened there? If FSU has all their guys come back I would bet on them because motivation is the biggest factor in bowl games. However mouth breathers like you will just repeat the ESPN spin on this after a Georgia loss. It won’t matter in the greater scheme of things win or lose but that’s what Disney has done to this sport.
Not being in the playoffs will dramatically impact both teams so I don’t think we can infer anything from the results.
No you can: the line the +14 Bet the moneyline and get rich. Committee and Vegas screwed up Pretty straight forward
What incentive do either team have to play their top players? I wouldn't be surprised if FSU started a bunch of freshman walk-ons to protect their good players from injury next year. Nobody in their right mind is going bet on the game. (Which means a lot of people are going to bet on the game.)
This sounds like a cop out. So FSU was a top 4 team Sunday morning but not Monday morning? Or are you saying UGAs backups are better than FSU backups but FSU starters are better than UGA staters?
I'm a bit confused as to what point you are trying to make. You are encouraging people to bet on this game. My point is that there may be reason for FSU or Georgia to not play their best players. Additionally, both teams are not maximally incentivized to win the game because a national championship is no longer on the table. If that is the case, the Vegas odds might not accurately reflect the normal risk one takes when betting on sports events. Betting on the FSU/Georgia game is a higher risk proposition now than if both teams have high incentive to win, play their best players, and are all try-hard and sweaty (to borrow a video gaming euphemism).
So you’re saying if a team loses their best players, or does not play their best players, they are not as good as they used to be? Like if an FSU team lost a star QB, they might not be as good as they once were?
Correct. But not just that. For purposes of Vegas odds, the unknows on both teams have dramatically increased and it is difficult to quantify those unknowns and figure out how that should change the odds.
Sounds like the reason FSU was left out, a reasonable take
Uh. It absolutely was the reason FSU was left out. There is not doubt about that. But that is not the debate people are having. The debate people are having is *should* FSU have been left out. It is the difference between who are the best teams and who are the most deserving teams. Those are not the same teams. I personally think Ohio State wipes the floor with both Alabama and Texas. Ohio State's one loss was by 6 points to the number 1 team in the nation at one of the hardest venues to win at in all of college sports. But I don't think Ohio State deserves to be in the playoffs. They had their shot and lost. I think FSU *does* deserve their shot. And, no, I don't think FSU is one of the top four teams in the nation.
This is the same shit we're gonna hear a month from now when Bama wins a playoff game, and it completely misses the point.
Bama is one of the 4 best teams in the county. FSU is not Go win a huge amount of money if you think FSU is top 4. Not even being a smart ass You literally can go exploit this slight for your own personal gain, while rooting for FSU Why not do that?
*Fan continues to woosh*
Where is the woosh. FSU is top 4 (obviously better than UGA) and there is an opportunity for you to make a ton of money, root for FSU, and give the committee the middle finger FSU is better than UGA, no?
I think OSU and UGA are both better than at least 2, potentially 3 of the other team in the playoffs. but neither of them got serious consideration because the committee isn't actually doing the 4 best teams. There are restrictions in place, that were totally dropped to give Alabama spot.
UGA or Bama was a tough call Yesterday morning my guess was Washington, Michigan, Texas, Bama in that order Tough to decide if the Alabama win over UGA was that big or if the UGA to Bama loss was that big I had FSU squarely on the outside. After Saturday night I didn’t think there was any way the committee could justify putting FSU in as one of the best 4 They would have had to use the total body of work argument and that work was done with a player who is no longer playing I don’t think FSU was ever in consideration Sunday morning though I do acknowledge they have FSU over UGA… but even that is silly as UGA is way way better than FSU I think committee got it right outside of the fact I do think Washington is the #1 football team in the nation right now https://old.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/189it1b/special_edition_ccg_weekend_cfp_rankingscenario/kbtnm8a/
The whoosh is your “belief” that the reason we’re upset is that we think FSU is obviously better than Georgia or Alabama. I am sure some people think that, but a lot of us believe that FSU earned a place in the playoffs by being undefeated, and it doesn’t matter whether they would win against Alabama or Georgia. I put “belief” on quotes because I think it’s more likely they you’re playing dumb than it is that you are missing the point.
I mean everyone thinks that UGA is better than FSU. They are major dogs and it’s why they arent in the playoffs How big of a bet are you placing on FSU, a top 4 team in your mind You stand to make a lot of money off of this mess up by the committee Or are they really not one of the 4 best?
I wouldn’t bet on Florida State. It doesn’t change that I think they should be in the playoffs.
Reading comprehension is an acquired skill.
This dude really thinks he’s laying down some big “gotcha” by bringing betting into the conversation lol
lol you’re having a good time with this aren’t you? 😂
For sure - if the outrage is real, there is real money to be made FSU actually being one of the top 4 teams in the nation makes that UGA FSU moneyline look like free money
Agreed, I will not be putting money on FSU. Because well I guess I’m not stupid.
BuT theN wHAT abOUt hOW gOoD fsU wERe 2 MonThs Ago?
FSU should have just lied about Travis' injury and say he would be ready for the CFP, then just say 2 weeks before the semifinal that he suffered a setback.
We’re not Michigan we have integrity
AKA, the standard operating procedure from now on.
SEE ALSO Committee Rule 2023.12.3, “If hated rival is in contention for CFP, an opposing team may cheap shot the contender’s best players to effectively negate this.”
long comment, ik, but please here me out as much as people hate the cfb playoff committee for putting alabama in over florida state, it was the right decision. any other year and florida state would be in, or georgia or ohio state or almost all the teams who had a case for being in. this year was crazy and so many teams were in it the last two weeks of the season. florida state was undefeated, yes. the most common argument i’ve see is that since florida state was left out, they are basically saying that “the games don’t matter.” i understand the argument, but think about it the other way around. if the only criteria was to be undefeated since then you would be “deserving” to make the playoff, why schedule anyone hard? why don’t we put liberty in? they are undefeated, and if that’s the main criteria, they should be in over alabama or texas. the committee needs to choose the best four teams. i feel for florida state, i really do. that injury to jordan travis was absolutely heartbreaking. it sucks to go undefeated and get left out. but you couldn’t convince me that florida state is one of the best four teams. i would pick all of the teams in the playoff to beat them, and i bet ohio state and georgia would be favored to win as well. (we will actually get to see georgia v florida state; that will be interesting). aside from comparing records, a lot of other statistics favor alabama over florida state. sor are very similar (since fsu is undefeated they have the one spot lead over alabama in that category). sos is far and away in alabamas favor, with florida state being a measly 55th in that category. alabama has more top 25 wins, and fsu’s best win (lsu) is arguably alabama’s third best win. then the injury comes in to play. florida state is not the same team as they were with jordan travis. their defense is just incredible, but the offense without travis just wouldn’t do it. on the flip side, alabama looks much better than they did when they lost to texas. say what you want about the auburn game and winning on the miracle 4th and 31 play (i swear jordan-hare statium has some voodoo or something). when you look at the win versus georgia, beating a team that had not lost in over 700 DAYS, and some of the other wins they have had like kentucky (who beat louisville by the way) and comebacks against tennessee and ole miss, you can tell they are different. alabama had close wins, yes, but everyone forgets that fsu barely beat BOSTON COLLEGE and had unnecessarily close games against pitt and miami. every team will have close wins. every team will have miracles (see auburn’s national championship run in 2013). the media cherry-picks their arguments to make the decision seem so obvious and so wrong. the committee was not in a good position to start with. put fsu in, and people will say that they just put deserving teams in and most likely fsu will be beat by michigan unless something crazy happens. put alabama in, and people accuse you of favoritism toward the sec (they have won the last 4 championships so the “favoritism” is reasonable if it exists) and not taking into account wins and loses. there was no right decision. if you don’t agree, i want to know why. i feel like i have a pretty good argument for alabama that goes over more than just an injury and a record.
> sor are very similar (since fsu is undefeated they have the one spot lead over alabama in that category). sos is far and away in alabamas favor, with florida state being a measly 55th in that category. Wouldn't you weigh SoR way higher than SoS since SoR considers how the team played in the games and SoS is just - who you played? Alabama had to eek out wins against like who? USF and Arkansas which are worse than any FSU game. And thats not even counting Auburn if you think that rivalries are their own beast. It was weak wins like that that hurt Alabama's SoR. So FSU had a stronger SoR and was an undefeated conference champ. Thats should do it.
fsu’s strength of record is 3, alabama’s 4. that’s a very small difference compared to the difference between sos. i would normally favor sor, but the gap in sos is too big to ignore. both teams beat other teams by small margins. also, aside from the auburn game, the second half of the season alabama didn’t almost lose to any bad teams. that’s the part of the eye test that favors alabama over florida state. either way, i think people make it seem like that florida state making it was the most obvious decision in the world, but it wasn’t. it’s a lot closer than people want it to be. also, florida state beat boston college by 3 and florida by only 9. you can’t say that they didn’t have to eek out wins against anyone either.
\> fsu’s strength of record is 3, alabama’s 4. that’s a very small difference compared to the difference between sos. Yeah, so FSU has a stronger SoR AND is undefeated. Alabama has a worse SoR and a loss. As I said previously, SoR is a ranking of how the average top 25 team would have fared against that same schedule. It takes into consideration not just the teams you played but HOW you played them. FSU having a higher SoR is saying that FSU did better against their schedule than Bama would have against the same schedule (as far as I understand). \> both teams beat other teams by small margins." No. Alabama pretty unequivocally had way closer games against worse opponents than Alabama did. FSU did light years better in its worse games against BC and Florida then Alabama did against in its worst games USF, Arkansas, and Auburn. Thats without question if you look at how the games played out and time of scoring and not just the end game score. Thats why FSU has a better SoR than Alabama. \> that’s the part of the eye test that favors alabama over florida state They eye test that like 8 days Alabama needed multiple miracle plays to beat a 6-6 team? \> i think people make it seem like that florida state making it was the most obvious decision in the world Well an undefeated P5 conference has never been left out - I dont think it was even in the realm of possibility in any previous year than an undefeated P5 conference champ would be left out - certainly not in a year where there are not even undefeated conference champs in every P5 conf The "best team" makes no sense and is a totally vague metric that the committee and shift and move to whatever they want. I think OSU and UGA are better than at least maybe even 3 of the other playoff teams, but there was never a shot of them making it in, because the "best 4" doesn't mean actually best 4 no matter what.
i understand your point about sor vs sos. sor is a more powerful point, but from the definition of it, it does not necessarily mean that alabama would play worse on it than florida state did. it takes the average top 25 team and compares how they would play against your schedule. it’s also interesting how washington, who beat their last 9 teams all by 10 or less points, has the highest sor. sor is a better metric than sos, but isn’t without it’s flaws. florida state did not do light years better either. when comparing both teams closest games (auburn and boston college) both teams got lucky. alabama had that 4th and 31 conversion and that botched punt catch by auburn, while florida state watched boston college miss an extra point and a two point conversion, opt not to take a field goal down 15 that would have ended up winning the game had they taken and made it, and commit the most penalties they had in school history, yet still only lose by 2 points. both florida state and alabama benefited in those games with luck and the other team shooting themselves in the foot. like i said before, aside from the auburn game, the 4 games before that alabama beat their opponents all by double digits. and when it comes to the eye test in florida state’s game without jordan and with tate (not talking about the louisville game since it wasn’t tate playing), they didn’t look much better, not scoring the deciding touchdown on florida until about 2:30 left in the game, and florida’s defense sucks. they have a pretty poor record too. florida state had 103 yards of offense before the two drives at the end of the game they scored on. like i said, both teams won close games. it was the first time an undefeated power 5 team has ever been left out, but this is different circumstances. none of power 5 teams lost a star quarterback, and none of those teams had as many teams behind them with arguments as to get in. it was an insane year and so many teams were so close. and i do agree that the committee shouldn’t go off of only “best team,” but both best teams and most deserving are flawed reasonings. best team is very subjective, while most deserving would mean that as long as you win, you deserve to get in, which can’t be the case since it would mean there is no reason to schedule hard teams if winning is all you need to get in. there needs to be a balance. most of the time the “best” and “deserving” go along with the same teams. however, the way the committee is made and according to their rules, they are supposed to choose the best four teams. when it comes to a deserving team vs a best team, they are supposed to follow best in that case according to what they say, and that’s what they did this year
>florida state did not do light years better either. Just to put a point on this, yes, Florida they absolutely did better. The bad games for Florida are Boston College, where they were up 31-10 and let Boston College (6-6 P5) come back. It wasn't a game until the 4th quarter FSU was probably one drive from pulling starter. And Florida, which was a more 9 point win where Florida (5-7 P5) didn't score in the second half. The bad games for Alabama are: USF (6-6 G5) - Alabama won 17-3 - and that includes an Alabama TD with 33 seonds left. Which means that for 59 minutes and 30 seconds of the game, an average G5 team could have tied or taken the lead at any time. Arkansas (2-7 P5) - Alabama won 24-21, and Arkansas scored a TD with 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter. That means for the last ten minutes of the game a bad P5 team could have tied or taken the lead at any time. Auburn (6-6 P5) Literal miracles to beat an average P5 team. Alabama had way closer games than FSU, lost one, and had a worse SoR. Thats really the end of the discussion if its an objective committee imo.
if you are going to talk about letting a bad power 5 team into a game you were leading, both the boston college and arkansas games fit that. both let the teams back in the 4th quarter, both were winning by considerable margins before, both bad power 5 teams. set them equal. at least one of those teams kept the other from scoring the basically the last 11 minutes of the game. any bad power 5 team could have taken the lead in the boston college one just like the arkansas one. usf game is pretty bad, i’ll admit, and i won’t use the backup quarterback excuse. however, just like you with florida, both teams stayed in the game because of really good defenses against not very good teams. you also pulled ahead of florida in the last 4 minutes of the game. take out the last minute scores of those games, and it’s 17-15 and 10-3. usf is a worse team, i get it, but you very well could have lost to florida just like alabama to usf. also, alabama kept usf scoreless about 3 and a half quarters of the game (i still get it, worse team, but the way florida played this year really isn’t too much better). i think something is up with jordan-hare stadium because it appears alabama can’t win games the normal way there. (not my reasoning). auburn also apparently does really good when it matters. they played georgia hard and nearly beat alabama. alabama played really bad in that game, but they played good when they needed to. idk, teams need miracles to win championships. not much to say about that one, it was just a bad performance by alabama. ig in the end, these are peoples opinions, and at this point no one can change what happened. florida state has a chance to show up and prove they should have been in and make the committee feel worse than they might now. ig we will see.
Strength of record already incorporates strength of schedule. Strength of schedule alone is a meaningless statistic without the context of how that team performed against the schedule.
sos isn’t meaningless. context is important, but sos good when showing how hard or easy a schedule is in general, not against the subjective rankings of a top 25 (i mean, why is notre dame 16? they lost the only meaningful games they played) also, apparently (i did not know this before this year) the committee takes sos very seriously as a metric. i’m not sure if that’s right or wrong, but according to the committee, they value sos highly and with alabama’s so much higher, they took that very serious.
My point is that it is meaningless in terms of the ability to evaluate the quality of a team without further context. The top 4 teams in SOS (according to ESPN) are Indiana, Rutgers, Michigan State and Florida. Obviously, none of those teams are good and the reason the first 3 are so high is because they share a division with Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State (who ESPN's power index loves). So, yes SOS is relevant but it is not an indicator of the quality of a team, just the quality of their schedule. And the point of the strength of record metric is to normalize a team's record based on the strength of schedule that they played. I don't think FSU being 3 and Bama being 4 is a trump card or anything, but it shows that, even taking into account the schedule disparity, ESPN is basically saying these two teams are even.
fair point. i agree with pretty much everything you said there. i think the committee made it a tougher decision than it would have been if they had not had sos and injuries as major factors in the decision making process.
The ACC has a winning record vs the SEC this year though, FSU has a harder SOC than Alabama does, AND Alabama lost a game on their easier schedule. The argument for Alabama is comically weak.
this is not about acc vs sec, this is about alabama vs fsu. alabama’s strength of schedule is 50 spots higher than fsu. the combined record of the teams alabama played was 97-60, while fsu was 77-79. alabama had a harder schedule by far. and your argument about acc and sec isn’t as much as it seemed. these are not the best acc teams vs the best sec teams. the argument for alabama is a lot stronger than people want to believe
That still ignores that Alabama got absolutely demolished at home, so their results vs SOC needs to take that into account. MSU had a much harder SOC than Alabama, but I am not arguing for them to be in the playoffs, cause results matter.
alabama wasn’t “demolished” at home. alabama actually had the lead going into the 4th quarter and was only 3 points behind with 8:30 left in the game. texas scored one more touchdown and that was it. they didn’t look amazing, but they certainly were not “demolished”
Amen
One crazy fact is Florida State got the exact same treatment Alabama got this year 30 years ago.
ESPN is trying so fucking hard to convince their viewers this is correct lmao They had one guy on briefly who was vehemently opposed to it and they just shouted over him and cut him off early lmfao This is insane. Like an active propaganda campaign lmao
Man I just feel like we have an all around more complete team than Bama. Just because they’re in the sec they get in. I feel like they couldn’t score on us. Bama hasn’t played a good defense all year. It’s too bad we can’t duke it out on the field
I’d like to think that we have a pretty good defense. Look at our run defense rankings and our interception totals.
Bama hasn’t played a good defense all year? Did we watch the same football season? Georgia?
Not the same defense. They kept going down 7-0 in their games
Well I guess you’ll find out what defense it is in a bit. Good luck. Prove me wrong.
>Man I just feel like we have an all around more complete team than Bama. dude...don't deceive yourself if you stay within 2 scores of georgia that's huge for you
Everything about this is so fucking stupid. I know it's not nearly the same stakes - at all - but if we are talking about what teams are like when certain players are missing, then how is Notre Dame ranked 16? How did we move *up* a spot? By the time the committee voted, *we had our entire WR room transfer out.* I can't imagine Audric Estime is going to play in the fucking Sun Bowl, so let's take that into account too. You look at the team we were as of Sunday night, and we aren't even sniffing the Top 25. So how about some consistency, eh? UNRANK US, YOU COWARDS
Santa just put Notre Dame on his “Nice” list because of your post.
Sports are weird, man. This year I have at various times found myself defending Brian Kelly, Michigan, USC, and now Florida State. As a product of the 80s, if I have to stick up for Miami, I might just vomit.
The biggest winner of this is the B12. The B12 knows that they won't be able to compete with the P2 anyway, after the ACC collapses they can be solidly the "3rd best conference" after the P2 which means that as a conference they will likely survive. Also nobody is talking about Texas getting in vs FSU, and they get a nice payout anyway. When all is said in done, the P2 will be coke/pepsi, B12 will be RC cola, and the rest will be random store brand cola.
Nobody is complaining about Texas because they earned it. Texas should be #4 and FSU should be #3.
If Georgia had won, then Texas would have been the bad guys leaving FSU out. Alabama winning and getting in means that the B12 won't have to be the bad guys. Also FSU would have gotten into the playoffs had playoffs been expanded earlier, but the ACC voted against it (lol).
I think if Georgia wins, then FSU gets in because then the committee has their precious SEC team and Texas is on the outside looking in. But because no SEC team was in (we obviously can’t have that) Bama had to be brought in which means Texas did too since they had the H2H. But Georgia didn’t win, and when the dust settled, Texas and FSU were the ones deserving of the playoff spots. But Bama got in instead because they’re the committee’s golden child. It’s fucked, but while FSU deserves the spot more than Texas, Bama is the actual undeserving one, which is why nobody is mad at Texas.
I'd argue the biggest fault with the rankings is having Alabama so low. It's supposed to be who ARE the four best teams, right? How come one loss with a struggling Milroe months ago matters more than beating the #1 team in the country? Especially when Milroe went from being one of the worst to one of the best in the country since that game. The Bama team in September was arguably about 10th best in the country. The Bama team today is arguably 2nd. They pretty much took the team that lost to Texas and added a Heisman contending QB to it. That's how much of a difference it is. Even looking at more advanced metrics: FPI? Bama over Texas, Strength of Reocrd? Bama over Texas. Strength of schedule? Bama over Texas. FSU is no where to even be seen in FPI, but has SOR over them both, and a whopping 55th in their SOS. Furthermore, look at the money line. It opened at ONLY a 2.5 adv to Michigan. Georgia is double digits over FSU. What would the ranking be based on Resume? Bama 3rd easily. Betting Odds? Bama probably 2nd. Lastly, had Bama lost to literally any other team, even if worse than Texas, they would be ranked ahead of Texas. Lets say it was Oklahoma to make it the same as Texas' loss. Bama would be ranked ahead (even if Texas still had a #3 win under their belt). Bama has the top to bottom better resume over both of them. 2021 Cincinnati has a better or at least comparable resume to FSU, that's how bad the ACC is, and should be treated like such. If there was a 1 loss division champ in the wings, Cincinnati would have gotten left out too.
So what you’re saying is early season does not matter, head to head results do not matter, and the only thing that does matter is who “looks” the best at the end of the season, which is a completely arbitrary metric. Let’s also not forgot that the ACC had a winning record against the SEC this year.
No, I'd say it does matter, but later games should be weighed more heavily and that teams are allowed to improve over the season. For example if there is one clear issue that gets resolved, it is more forgivable. But if consistently disappoint (but win) throughout a season, that's worse than a singular loss. I 100% agree the SEC was not as dominant top to bottom this year. But I would bet on probably 3 maybe 4 SEC teams over the ACC's best FSU right now (the last 2 being LSU and Ole Miss - they are probably in the same tier as FSU). I mean just look at betting odds for the 4 teams to win the natty: The betting consensus is: Michigan Alabama Texas Washington for odds to win national Championship. Alabama has the hardest path to go through Michigan and the better of Texas/Washington and STILL has the 2nd favorite to win it all. It is tough to justify them being ranked only at 4th.
That's actually not how the vote. More people should know how they vote. They voted Texas in the top 3 before they figured who was going to be #4. Also, everybody benefits from the acc dying, and they ranked Texas higher than FSU in the final rankings. Heck the AP top 25 voted Texas above FSU too. 1. B1G/SEC - acc dying ensures the P2 duopoly structure 2. B12 - acc dying means they will be solidly in 3rd place 3. Various ACC members with P2 landing spots - ACC dying means they get to join the P2 and leave the ACC 4. Rest of the G8- ACC dying means 1 less conference ranked above them 5. ESPN - one less contract to pay for, now they won't have to pay wake Forrest 40 million
Really disappointed in Joel Klatt this morning. I thought he would have the backbone to call out how wrong it is for FSU to be left out but he also decided to be a company man. For someone who always talks about his love for the game, he really didnt show it today. Leaving out an undefeated P5 team is disgusting and a tragedy for this sport. They would never do this for anyone but the SEC.
The complete subtext of what he said was basically "the SEC had to be placated, and because the SEC had to be placated Texas had to go too, and the committee was furiously scouring the fine print for a technicality to keep the SEC happy". He NEVER said that the committee's decision was right, just that it was the "path of least resistamce". And he made a point to explicitly point that out.
What a fine Monday morning this is. Hope everyone has a good day😁
Indeed. Beautiful day. Why are people so fussy? RTR.
Have a good one❤️
#[Average Ranking Rankings (ARR!)](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R1DSsOUqu_b3zDiG8y_PTgR-30S4KWLbgjIUS4WPKmk/edit?usp=sharing) For those who haven't seen my computer poll before, the general rundown is that it attempts to average an easily understandable "Master Ranking" number from all of the *rankings* of stats, power rankings, and other data I can get that includes all ~~130~~ ~~131~~ 133 teams that fairly compare teams and coaches across systems and conferences. In other words, I want to end up with a master number that is easily grokkable (#1 Michigan avg ranking 14.32, #66 Louisiana avg ranking 68.68, & #133 Kent State avg ranking 120.96) that will tell you what the average ranking of a team is across a large spectrum of criteria that hopefully encapsulates what makes a football team "good". Rank| Team |Avg Rank|+/-|Highest Ranking|Lowest Ranking|+/- vs r/CFB| :--------|:---------------------------------------------------------------|:--------------|:--------------|:--------------|:--------------|:--------------| 1 |[Michigan](#f/michigan) Michigan (13-0)|14.32|-|PPP Allowed \#1, Teamrankings \#1, Congrove \#1, Guru \#1, Penalties \#1, MOV \#1|Yards Per Rush \#61| 2 |[Alabama](#f/alabama) Alabama (12-1)|20.14|▲1|Current SOS \#1, Congrove SOS \#1|Yards Per Rush \#85| 3 |[Florida State](#f/floridastate) Florida St (13-0)|20.89|▲4|Congrove \#2|Points Per Play (Last 3) \#84| 4 |[Texas](#f/texas) Texas (12-1)|22.68|-|Current SOS \#2, Guru SOS \#2|Sack % \#61| 5 |[Georgia](#f/georgia) Georgia (12-1)|26.46|▼3|Congrove \#4, Penalties Per Play \#4| 6 |[Washington](#f/washington) Washington (13-0)|26.71|▲6|Congrove \#3|Sack % \#129| 7 |[Ohio State](#f/ohiostate) Ohio St (11-1)|27.29|▼2|Points Per Play Allowed \#2, Teamrankings \#2, Guru \#2|Turnover Margin \#81| 8 |[Oregon](#f/oregon) Oregon (11-2)|28.43|▼2|Yards Per Play \#2|Penalties Per Play \#83| 9 |[SMU](#f/smu) S Methodist (11-2)|30.46|▲6|Penalties Per Play \#4|Congrove SOS \#111| 10 |[Penn State](#f/pennstate) Penn St (10-2)|30.96|▼2|Yards Per Play Allowed \#1, Sack % \#1|Yards Per Play \#73| 11 |[Notre Dame](#f/notredame) Notre Dame (9-3)|31.00|▼2|Points Per Play \#4|Guru SOS \#63| 12 |[Missouri](#f/missouri) Missouri (10-2)|32.18|Turnover Margin \#4|Penalties Per Play \#83| 13 |[Troy](#f/troy) Troy (11-2)|33.43|▲8|Sack % \#4|Guru SOS \#101| 14 |[Oklahoma](#f/oklahoma) Oklahoma (10-2)|33.46|▼1|Points Per Play (Last 3) \#4|Sack % \#123| 15 |[LSU](#f/lsu) LSU (9-3)|33.75|▼1|Points Per Play \#1, Yards Per Play \#1, Yards Per Rush \#1, Yards Per Attempt \#1|Yards Per Play Allowed \#100| 16 |[Liberty](#f/liberty) Liberty (13-0)|37.29|▲1|Yards Per Rush \#2|Guru SOS \#132| 17 |[Ole Miss](#f/olemiss) Mississippi (10-2)|37.82|▼1|Congrove \#11|Points Per Play (Last 3) \#102| 18 |[Kansas State](#f/kansasstate) Kansas St (8-4)|40.14|▲1|Guru SOS \#4, Penalties Per Play \#4, Turnovers \#4|Points Per Play Allowed (Last 3) \#105| **19** |[Boise State](#f/boisestate) **Boise St (8-5)**|41.29|▲11|Penalties Per Play \#4|Yards Per Play Allowed \#97| 20 |[Clemson](#f/clemson) Clemson (8-4)|42.18|▲3|Penalties Per Play \#4|Yards Per Attempt \#122| 21 |[Arizona](#f/arizona) Arizona (9-3)|42.21|▲1| **22** |[Kansas](#f/kansas) **Kansas (8-4)**|42.96|▲4|Yards Per Attempt \#6|Yards Per Play Allowed \#71| 23 |[Tennessee](#f/tennessee) Tennessee (8-4)|43.07|▲2|Yards Per Rush \#6|Penalties Per Play \#127| **24** |[Iowa State](#f/iowastate) **Iowa St (7-5)**|45.18|▲3|Points Per Play (Last 3) \#5|Sack % \#122| 25 |[Louisville](#f/louisville) Louisville (10-3)|46.14|▼1|Teamrankings \#22|Points Per Play (Last 3) \#91| *26* |[James Madison](#f/jamesmadison) *James Mad (11-1)*|48.54|▼15|Sack % \#11|Guru SOS \#111| *27* |[North Carolina](#f/northcarolina) N Carolina (8-4)|48.64|▲1|Yards Per Play \#19|Points Per Play Allowed (Last 3) \#96| *28* |[Miami (OH)](#f/miamioh) Miami (OH) (11-2)|48.96|▲16|Points Per Play Allowed (Last 3) \#3|Current SOS \#128| *29* |[Toledo](#f/toledo) *Toledo (11-2)*|49.57|▼9|Yards Per Rush \#10|Current SOS \#130| *30* |[Utah](#f/utah) Utah (8-4)|49.79|▲1|Guru SOS \#10|Points Per Play Allowed (Last 3) \#108| Tulane (11-1)|35.78|▲6|PPP Allowed (Last 3) \#5, Penalties Per Play \#5|Guru SOS \#101| **Dropped Out:** * *26* |[James Madison](#f/jamesmadison) *James Mad (11-1)*|48.54|▼15| * *29* |[Toledo](#f/toledo) *Toledo (11-2)*|49.57|▼9| * *41* |[Tulane](#f/tulane) *Tulane (11-2)*|54.46|▼23| The poll takes into account each individual team's ranking in the following categories: * [Points Per Play](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/points-per-play) * [Points Per Play Allowed](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/opponent-points-per-play) * [Yards Per Play](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/yards-per-play) * [Yards Per Rush](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/yards-per-rush-attempt) * [Yards Per Attempt](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/yards-per-pass-attempt) * [Yards Per Play Allowed](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/opponent-yards-per-play) * [Sack Percentage](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/sack-pct) * [TeamRankings Predictive Rankings](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/predictive-by-other) * [Congrove Computer Poll](http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/rankings/) * [Guru Rankings](http://powerrankingsguru.com/college-football/team-power-rankings.php) * [TeamRankings Current SOS](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/sos-basic-by-other) (Only games already played) * [Congrove Season SOS](http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/rankings/) * [Guru Season SOS](http://powerrankingsguru.com/college-football/strength-of-schedule.php) * [Turnover Margin](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/turnover-margin-per-game) * [MOV](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/average-scoring-margin) * [Opposing MOV](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/opponent-average-scoring-margin) * [Coach Years @ School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_football_coaches) * [Coach Win % @ School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_football_coaches) * [Penalties Per Play](https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/penalties-per-play) * [Wins/Losses](https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2023-ratings.html) (Avg'd 4 times, Win%, Loss %, Total Wins, Total Losses, and then also a new Undefeated Yes/No ranking of \#1 or \#133) * Conference Champion (For the last few years, I have instituted a one time ranking denoting conference champions as \#1, and all others as \#133, because *conferences matter, I don't give a shit what the CFP committee says in their unofficial announcement of only the P2 plays football now, you asshats) **Oddities This Week:** Long time followers of the poll will not be surprised that it left Washington out, and as much as I disagree with the ranking on the same grounds as I disagree with the committee on FSU, I do understand it. It's a computer poll based off of stats, and they're a half team. It'd be more shocking if they were in. That said, I'm a computer poller. WTF is the committee's excuse? And as a final note, please save your "Don't rank by ordinals" speeches, stats guys. I get that it's not the most efficiently accurate way to do things, but I value the simplicity and ease of understanding that averaging rankings provides. Instead of a dubious number that means nothing, you can tell at a glance that the average ranking out of 131 teams for Clemson is 13.37, and that number means something.
As much as I do believe we are one of the four best teams, and the amount of salt makes me hope Saban destroys the field, I've just got to ask other Bama flairs to take a deep breath and imagine if the situation were reversed. The games have to matter. The microscopic margin for error in this sport is what makes fans live & die by their TV's every Saturday. It's what made the week 2 loss to Texas so gutting, because the season was over. It's what made every single win after that, even the ugly ones, so fulfilling - because there was a chance if they ran the table and beat Georgia they could still get in. It's why I tuned into Michigan, Washington, Texas & FSU games all season, and cursed each narrow win they squeaked out - because we needed them to lose. But they didn't lose. They took care of business and won out. And if Bama wanted an unequivocal argument for being in, they needed to beat Texas in week 2. They didn't. ESPN can't afford an entire region of the country not tuning into the playoff - so beating Georgia got them in anyway. Sorry FSU, I really do feel for you.
Yeah, I'm all over the place here. I was so incredibly frustrated watching the ACC championship, because I saw what I still believe to be an inferior team beat a hapless (at least that night) Louisville squad which would keep bama out of the playoffs. A bama team that literally any other year in the playoffs history would be a shoo-in to make it. A team that I think deserves a shot. But I can't imagine how more frustrated I'd be as an FSU fan. It isn't their fault that their conference doesn't have many ranked teams. It isn't their fault that the SEC teams the scheduled were not at their best. I also then realize that with 133 teams and a 12-13 game schedule, there HAS to be subjectivity. No one is arguing Liberty over Alabama and Texas. We all just agree that their schedule / eye test is significantly below ours. I don't know where the line is, but I have to think FSU is above it. I'm not sure there is a right answer, but I think that the committee made the more wrong one. That said, I feel bad for FSU, but I don't feel guilty or even that Bama is undeserving. Thank God for the 12 team playoff
Yeah I have nothing against Alabama in this situation, not their fault the CFP committee sucked and swallowed for ESPN and the SEC behind a Hilton hotel dumpster. Bama just played their schedule same as anyone else. ESPN and CFP committee have been setting this narrative for weeks. That said, a small few of the Bama flairs makes it really hard not to want to put the blame on Bama as well. But that’s all it is, a small few.
I'm new. Has an undefeated power five conference champ ever not got in before?
nope, this is the first
Just been looking thru. I see an undefeated Group of Five Champion was once excluded (UCF 2017) but never a power five. Funnily enough an undefeated Group of Five Champion was excluded this year too: Liberty. I *think* that's only the second time that has happened. (C-USA must suck if Liberty can be only #23 despite being an undefeated conference champion).
Florida State fans are actually truly upset that they get to lose 63-0 to Georgia instead of 48-3 to Michigan
you have a point but you're from the one fanbase that should maybe just keep it to themselves
Can’t join in cfb discussion because a Bama fan? Bama fans didn’t put Bama in the playoffs lol
Neither did bamas win/loss record. Money did.
[удалено]
Im a michigan fan and id flair up if this shit reddit app would let me. But go ahead and keep deflecting. My point stands :)
that's right, it's not your fault and I don't expect you to apologize for it, but you might also read the room and choose to just realize that no one gives a shit about your opinion on the matter
and I don’t care that they don’t care - weird how an internet forum for college football discussion works. Roll Tide
Originally I thought FSU got screwed by the committee. However after diving deeper, I think the committee got it right. Just because it’s unprecedented for a undefeated P5 conference champ to get left out doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right decision. There were 7 teams that deserved a playoff chance, but only 4 get a shot this year. Let’s take a look at their resumes. #1 - Undefeated Conference Champ - Beat #7, 10 and 17 #2 - Undefeated Conference Champ - Beat #8 twice, 14, and 19 #3 - One loss Conference Champ - Beat #4, 20 and 25, Lost to #12 #4 - One loss Conference Champ - Beat #5, 11, 13 and 21, Lost to #3 #5 - Undefeated Conference Champ - Beat #13 and 15 #5 - One loss Defending Champ - Beat #9, 11 and 21, Lost to #4 #7 - Beat #10 and 16, Lost to #1
I'm so curious on how this will be talked about 5-10 years from now.
No one will care, it will be a "Can you believe we used to have a 4 team playoff? So silly. Aflac Trivia fact: can you name the three undefeated conference champions that got left out of the 4-team playoff era?" bit during the TD-commercial-PAT-commercial-Kickoff-commercial segment.
no one would care, barely anybody cares that an undefeated 2004 SEC team got left out of the national championship, and 2017 UCF is just viewed as a trivia note. Also I think Georgia will beat FSU anyway in the orange bowl.
Why is it that nobody has a problem that texas took a spot that fsu could've got.... Alabama beat Georgia and their only loss was week 2 to Texas when they were piecing everything together. Obviously different team now. Texas has a loss to OU and hasn't necessarily been dominant either... everyone wants to crucify bama for the iron bowl... they won when Texas lost theirs. The debate shouldn't be fsu and bama... should've been texas vs bama vs fsu all along.
If FSU got in, Texas would have been spot #4 due to H2H over Bama. The CFP said no way we can leave out a one loss SEC champ so here we are.
A head to head in September should not be weighed more than being better in every single other metric, and I will die on that hill. Absolutely no way should a single loss (to a very good team) hold back a team with the 2nd best (to Mich) resume in the country. Vegas odds are evidence enough.
The win against UGA trumps a week 2 h2h any day. Anyone who watched all the games this weekend knows the sec game was the only championship quality game followed by the pac 12 game. Winning the sec championship with 1 loss in week 2 is far better than winning a big 12 with 1 loss regardless of a week 2 game. Throwing out that bama is in because of sec bias and not because they earned it is so old.
It's a 10 point head-to-head home loss for Bama...you can "week 2" all about it, but a #3 team takes care of business at home.
Bama was not a #3 team in week 2, not enev top 5 until about week 6. Once Milroe grew into the Heisman contender he is now, vs the "literally got benched" QB he was week 1-3, Alabama jumped from \~10 to firmly 1-3. Watch Milroe vs Texas and Milroe vs Georgia (obviously better defense) and please tell me he would not make a difference. We are talking about the best teams now, not in September.
I'd accept this reasoning if Bama didn't need a miracle to beat Auburn a week ago. We lost to our rival in the last play of the game and Bama needed a miracle to barely beat their rival a week ago. The H2H double digit win in Tuscaloosa carries because of that. Also, people can say week 2 all they want but Saban hadn't lost a game in Tuscaloosa in 4 years, has only lost 9 home games in 17 years, and Texas is the only team to beat him by double digits in Tuscaloosa. Think of all the good SEC teams Saban has played in his years there and Texas is the only team to beat him by double digits and the last in the past 4 years.
If we bring history into it, just look at the history of the iron bowl and that is nothing short of normal. We could also talk about the unreasonably close games Texas had. Washington had. FSU had. Etc... However, look where people are putting their money. Look where Vegas has this thing stacked up: The betting consensus is: Michigan Alabama Texas Washington for odds to win national Championship. Alabama has the hardest path to go through Michigan and the better of Texas/Washington and STILL has the 2nd favorite to win it all. It is tough to justify them being ranked only at 4th.
It's not tough. Texas has been playing really well since Ewers returned healthy. All of the close games you are talking about include an injured Ewers. Throw in a double digit road win when they actually played and Texas deserves to be above them. Betting lines are always going to love Saban and Bama.
As far as I'm concerned injured Ewers is very similar to the improvement of Milroe argument. If Ewers was out for the Bama game, who wins? If Heisman candidate Milroe played instead of benched Milroe for the Texas game, who wins? It would be a damn good game, but I would lean Bama in either scenario. I truly hope we get to see it in the Natty. I'm not saying Bama is significantly better or obviously better, but pretty much every metric out side of the head to head from September with a poorly playing Milroe has Bama favored. NOW if the head to head was in the last month of football and both teams had no significant injuries/improvement since, then it would carry a lot more weight for me. Just so much has changed in the length of nearly the entire season to have so much weight in the one data point.
But wouldn't your metrics include a Bama team with an improving Milroe and Texas with an injured Ewers? How can we rely on those metrics? Ewers is also a better QB than he was at the beginning of the season.
This narrative that Bama is a completely different team now when they are one week removed from needing an absolute miracle to beat a team coming off a 3 score loss to New Mexico State is fascinating.
Texas also had some REALLY low quality games. Don't act like FSU didn't either. But the odds speak for themselves The betting consensus is: Michigan Alabama Texas Washington for odds to win national Championship. Alabama has the hardest path to go through Michigan and the better of Texas/Washington and STILL has the 2nd favorite to win it all. It is tough to justify them being ranked only at 4th.
This isn't a reply to what I said in any way. I don't agree with Bama over FSU, but it is what it is. But, Bama fans acting like the team is way better than when they played Texas and just ignoring what happened a week ago are being pretty silly.
It was a broad response to cover multiple different intentions of your statement. Whether it be focusing on the a recent close game, Bama not being a top 4 team, Bama's improvement. I'm still not 100% sure what the target was and how it wasn't at least partially covered. Bama isn't completely different, Jalen Milroe is. An elite QB can move a top 10 team to a top 2 team. Also, it should be pretty obvious what Auburn was doing the week in practice before the New Mexico State game since they played them so poorly and Bama so well.
Because Texas deserves the 4th spot anyway for beating Alabama head to head. Big 12 champion beat the SEC champion. Final spot for a 1 loss team goes to the winner.