M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Or, you know, not lose to an unranked team by 31. Either or, I suppose.

Talent's correct. If OSU had played Kent State instead of Oklahoma and lost by 79 points to Iowa, they'd still be in over Alabama. I don't think that margin mattered as much as the committee saw two lossess and said "pass".

Well, that and no program other than Alabama could launch into the playoffs with their biggest wins being 9-3 LSU (Troy) and 8-4 Mississippi State.

Everyone on the planet felt the SEC was significantly down this year and yet here they are, a two bid league.

[CGVT]

Who has been a Michigan first Bama next guy for as long as I can remember. He's not a bandwagoner

[whodean]

Hey, if you feel the need to resort to attempts at personal slander to get that pent up frustration out we'll just watch you debase yourself I guess.

Alabama is the clearly the better team, that's the only real point here. Yeah, maybe they'll get railed by Clemson but at least they still matter.

But hey, oLIEo can still play for the Ms. Congeniality prize!

[iam416]

The truth is a defense to slander, so I'm good.

[iam416]

Talent's correct. If OSU had played Kent State instead of Oklahoma and lost by 79 points to Iowa, they'd still be in over Alabama. I don't think that margin mattered as much as the committee saw two lossess and said "pass".

DSL is correct about The Talent being correct.

[WingsFan]

Everyone on the planet felt the SEC was significantly down this year and yet here they are, a two bid league.

Yep, why even schedule tough OOCG? Look at Washington last year.

[AlabamAlum]

You may be right that you would get in with Kent instead of OU. I personally think you need a good OoC game. The others can be tomato cans, but you need one, imo. Or should.

[whodean]

Yep, why even schedule tough OOCG?

Wisconsin almost made it work.

[hack]

Obviously talent is right. OSU got hosed, and teams have just been told not to bother playing a strong schedule. (As if they needed yet another data point, but still...)

OSU wasn't a fantastic team this year, I agree, but ``nobody excluded has a beef'' isn't a statement I can agree with. OSU's the champion of a conference that was a much stronger conference than the SEC, and it played every top team.

It's clear that any excuse to include the SEC at the expense of other conferences can and will be made in this process. It's a stupid process. When the outcome is a screwing of OSU it's still a stupid process, just with a silver lining.

[AlabamAlum]

And if I were on the committee, I would have an issue with the 31-point loss to an unrankee team. To me, that's big. If it had been some flukey 7-point loss I think it would have been different. Jmo.

Oh well, just like Talent, I would have not had any sour grapes had we been left out. Just as we have been saying: No team left out has a gripe. And that would have been true had the tables been turned.

[iam416]

You may be right that you would get in with Kent instead of OU. I personally think you need a good OoC game. The others can be tomato cans, but you need one, imo. Or should.

You balance all the great things that come with playing big games against the cost. As a fan in September I love them. If you ask me in December -- would you trade playing OU or Texas or USC for a CFP game, then the answer is obvious.

Washington made it work last year. Wisconsin almost made it work. If you're overarching goal is the CFP then I think the decision is easy.

I think if I were OSU in seasons where they have 5 conference road games I'd pussy up the OoC -- but by that I mean, easy P5 teams. Bring in Oregon State or Kansas State or BC or Syracuse or Ole Miss. In seasons where they had 5 home games, then I'd schedule one legit team.

[hack]

For me what's annoying about this is how the goalposts shift every year.

[iam416]

Joey Galloway of all people actually hit the obvious nail on the head. They figure out who they think are the best teams and backfill with whatever justifications fit.

It wasn't quite clear that's what they were doing. In 2014, it was, well, OSU had a conference championship so that's why they jumped TCU (who won by 50). In 2015, it was fairly obvious so there was much debate (Stanford vs Oklahoma?). In 2016, OSU had an uber strong resume, so it was all about how a super impressive resume carried the day. In 2017 it's all laid bare.

Retrospectively, it's clear that in 2014 they just felt OSU was better than TCU or Baylor. Turns out they were probably right, although TCU wailed the piss out of a "mighty" SEC team in their bowl. In 2016, they just felt that OSU was better than Penn State -- they felt like the loss at HV was a total fluke. They were quite possibly wrong. And in 2017 they just felt like Bama was better.

That's fine. I'm cool with that, I guess. But it's not any different, IMO, than using the AP poll to pick your top 4. It's a total subjective evaluation that you moor to objective criteria post hoc. So, you need to beauty contest the shit out of things.

[iam416]

One huge plus for M is that they CFP loves ND. And, ND is an easy out for a decent team. M could get a huge, huge plus win next season.

[Rocky Bleier]

Joey Galloway of all people actually hit the obvious nail on the head. They figure out who they think are the best teams and backfill with whatever justifications fit.

I think that's true. Like political spokesmen, they can argue for or against anything. In retrospect, they did give us a clue when they placed Alabama 5th and OSU 8th. No one is more bummed than Clemson fans who were probably hoping for the team they destroyed last year and not the team they beat in the championship game on a controversial final play.