College football week 11 thread: Lion Eyes

Murky 'Game Control' becomes a tool for playoff committee

There is really something shady about the CFP when the committee does a show aired on ESPN to select teams for games to be aired on ESPN and uses murky analytics provided by ESPN to establish the pecking order. Watched the report on SC last night and they have probabilities of making the CFP by each team. You start throwing numbers around and attaching them to your arguments you can justify anything.
Murky 'Game Control' becomes a tool for playoff committee

Anyway my CFP: Ohio State or Michigan, Bama or Georgia, 1 loss Washington or Oregon, Florida State or Texas

 

If Bama beats Georgia, and Washington, Florida State and Texas all win out, I think (gulp!) the SEC has to be left out. Texas will have beaten the SEC champ head-to-head on the road.

 

I'd put Bama in over Florida State - FSU's "big win" was LSU, which isn't looking as good as it did at the time it happened. Though I do wonder how great the Big10 is this year - Ohio State beat ND by 7, the Buckeyes best win - and ND is probably at the LSU level. Michigan hasn't even played anyone in the top 30 of Sagarin ratings and its November.

 

Counterpoint: I generally take the last week and a half of the year off on an annual basis and quite enjoy seeing the crap bowl games on a random Tuesday afternoon. Something to make a silly $10 bet on and drink a couple of light beers to. With the advent of the playoff, even the old BCS bowls have lost their luster when they're not hosting a playoff game. That horse left the barn and is long gone now. But there is still fun to be had.

 

The "Game Control" story is from 2014.

 

I get that there are going to be 6-6 teams going against each other and they can be exciting bowl games. With 40 bowls, you're to have teams with .500 records.

I get that the Sun Bowl is a big deal for El Paso and is one of the longest running bowls.

What I don't get is that some teams and their fanbases seem satisfied with mediocrity and it's a selling point.

You have had teams start 5-0 and finish 6-6 and they seem thrilled to get a bowl bid. To me that's sets a bad precedent and a false negative that you accomplished something when you actually sucked half the season and finished 8th in your conference.

But hey, Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl swag for everyone.

Three games in people start talking bowl eligibility. It's a low bar for a lot of programs who should shoot higher.

The traditionalist in me longs for the days when going to a bowl game meant something. The realist in me knows that ship has long since sailed.

On the other hand, I kinda liked the idea the late Mike Leach had about a 64-team bracket.

It seems to work for every division except FBS.

 

No sense in really going down this road again since the 12-teamer is coming, but there's absolutely no need for more than 16 teams in an FBS playoff.

Just because I'm a nerd, that 16-teamer might look like this right now (and let's just give JMU its waiver for fun, also moved teams a spot or two up and down to avoid conference matchups). You're essentially adding three auto bids for the G5 leagues and one extra at-large for a P5.

#16 Toledo at #1 Ohio State
#9 Ole Miss at #8 Texas
#13 James Madison at #4 Florida State
#12 Louisville at #5 Washington
#14 Air Force at #3 Michigan
#11 Penn State at #6 Oregon
#15 Liberty at #2 Georgia
#10 Oregon State at #7 Alabama

That would be a really fun weekend.

 

And here is ESPN's statistical breakdown for this week, Game Control, SoS and the FPI are right up there with wth win-loss records. It has gotten worse.

NCAA College Football Playoff Picture Week 11 - ESPN.

 

And we are all better off for it.
I'll put these guys up against the Destroy guys from SNL every time.