Running CFB playoff thread

I'm pretty sure they set it up in a way where they don't have to make decisions at the end. You see teams slotted in a way that guarantees they'll be out unless they run the table. The "gifts" in the rankings are Ole Miss and Bama (who should both win out, and are both unlikely to make the SEC championship game). SEC championship looks like it will be Texas-AM winner v. Georgia-Tenn. winner and losers of those games out.

 

They're a lot like Liberty last year. They're going to need some big things to break their way. They'll need to finish undefeated and have Boise State lose to grab that G5 spot. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Washington State is probably being treated like its an independent. I don't think the Pac-2 fits in the G5 bucket.

Liberty doesn't get that G5 bid to the NY6 bowl last year if the AAC champ doesn't have two losses.

 

Yes, Wazzu is functionally squivalent to an independent for these purposes.

The SEC tiebreakers are severely convoluted now, to the point a Vandy math professor might not be able to explain them. But the short version is if more than two teams are tied for second, head-to-head is not considered unless one team swept everyone else involved.

Based on those who allegedly understand this formula, Alabama actually has an inside track for second by winning out. And that’s actually considered a booby prize because whatever 2-loss team goes to Atlanta will be favored to pick up a third loss that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible and the Citrus Bowl exile that comes with it.

 

Can't discuss Army until it beats Notre Dame.

 

The funnier idea is people (generally from the SEC area mind you) thinking that 11-1 Indiana won't get in. Sure the conference with the most TV market power in the conference is going to have an 11-1 team left out. Not in a million $$ years.

The B1G actually got this overstuffed burrito of a conference right. They have four team of interest, each of them play at least one of the others while only one (Ohio State) plays two of them. Whereas the SEC decided to go all in on a street fight and the committee will have to explain why the baseline changed from two losses to three losses when either Tennessee or Georgia loses this weekend.

 

I do as well. I think they are extremely well coached, a focused senior-laden team. I give them a definite puncher's chance against Ohio State as long as Rust Belt Kiffin is coaching there.

 

Cignetti has put on a master class in getting the absolute most from the talent on hand. I always thought he was the most underrated branch of the Saban coaching tree.

If he had made the jump to a name brand conference even two years earlier with similar results, I absolutely could have seen him being anointed as the next pope of Tuscaloosa. But I’m not even sure he truly wanted to leave James Madison until NIL and free transfers combined to make it nearly impossible to sustain any kind of dynasty at the G5 level.

 

Is there really a point to having these ratings out every week other than TV ratings and #content?

 

Never was.

 

Yep. And just like Navy, the Black Knights won’t be able to stop the Irish offense unless they get a bunch of turnovers. And Army has to be perfect itself on offense to have a chance.

Having watched both teams, Indiana > Army by a long shot.

 

It's a television series, after all. That's part of why FSU was excluded last year. Everybody knew they weren't going to be able put up a competitive fight and that viewers would be gone by halftime. I'm very much in the minority in believing the committee got it right.

 

When the playoff was created and announced, I openly wondered how long it would take before we saw a scenario in which a team was in the top four in the next-to-last rankings; won its last game; and got bounced anyway. It happened immediately. I have a new question. How long before a team effectively gets punished for making it to a conference title game and losing? Consider a pair of teams from the same conference. Both finish the regular season with two overall losses and in the top 10 in the next-to-last rankings. One of them advances to the league title game under the auspices of the fourth tiebreaker. The other sits at home with nothing to gain -- but nothing more to lose -- before the committee dines on caviar, issues its final epistle and blesses the emission of white smoke from the roof. Lo and behold, the two-loss team in the league championship game becomes a three-loss team. And the following day, it is invited to the Servpro First Responders Bowl.
How long?