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The sad thing is that every year, us fans squabble over who would beat who, and this team would lose if they played. College football, at least the top division anyways, doesn't give the chance that these dream match ups could happen each year. A 4 team playoff will be better than what we have, but it will not be enough, imo. An 8 team playoff would be best.
Imagine for example:
In no particular order
Florida State
Alabama
Notre Dame
Oregon
Kansas State
Florida
Nebraska
Georgia
I predict that there will be a four team playoff and that there will be several years when it's an all-SEC final, and there's going to be a lot of squabbling and crying over that outcome. And then they'll say 'Well if we had an 8-team playoff, or a 16-team playoff....'
You know they have a trip to Tallahassee. UF struggled against ULL and the School of the Deaf (some FCS team) last week. Of all teams, Florida has the least chance to make that game of all the 1 loss teams.
You know they have a trip to Tallahassee. UF struggled against ULL and the School of the Deaf (some FCS team) last week. Of all teams, Florida has the least chance to make that game of all the 1 loss teams.
Okay, but they were good enough to beat Kansas State last year. That success obviously didn't carry over into 2012, but they were pretty solid in 2011, so they weren't over-hyped.
What someone did last year has very little...if not zero bearing on what happen this year. Three case studies: USCw, Arkansas, and Notre Dame. USC and Arkansas came in hyped and rated very highly, USC was preseason #1. Notre Dame on the other hand was expected to win 7-9 games at the most. Thus they were unranked at the start of the year.
Another interesting point from preseason rankings is that they are why Notre Dame could never jump KSU. Not the only reason but a large factor. KSU started off ranked higher than Notre Dame and stayed that way due to lockstep voting from the pollsters and coaches. Look at Oregon, preseason #5 so they stayed ahead of KSU and Notre Dame (in the polls) and they would have no matter what really. They had a huge built in advantage before a single down was played.
The SEC as a whole benefits from preseason overranking and overhype. Teams like Georgia and Alabama start off the season highly ranked, play cupcakes their first 6 weeks and build up even higher rankings while the rest of the conference does the same, just look at Mississippi State. So that way when Alabama plays them, and crushes them, they get credit for beating a "top 10" team. After a few more weeks MSU has been thoroughly exposed but the bounce that Alabama got already happened and it won't be taken away. SCAR is the same way, they played nobody, got a huge ranking, beat an overrated UGA team (with quite possibly the easiest schedule I have ever seen) and their bounce was so permanent that even two bad losses haven't removed them from the top 10.
The point is that preseason rankings are garbage and are based on nothing more than pollster bias usually and what a team did 7 or 8 months ago. Notre Dame lost their bowl game against FSU last year and so that factored into them starting unranked and possibly getting squeezed out of a national title. Ridiculous. Luckily things worked themselves out, as they normally do, but the principle remains the same.
I predict that there will be a four team playoff and that there will be several years when it's an all-SEC final, and there's going to be a lot of squabbling and crying over that outcome. And then they'll say 'Well if we had an 8-team playoff, or a 16-team playoff....'
I think 8 is a good number. It will include all relevant teams, or teams that have a legitimate claim to playing for the title. Think of how many 1 loss teams will be left in 2 weeks.
I predict that there will be a four team playoff and that there will be several years when it's an all-SEC final...
Maybe, but it will be more legitimate than last year where it was decided off the field. That will be far easier to accept than some clowns sitting behind their computer saying that the SEC (or any other conference) doesn't even have to play outside of their conference for the national title. In that scenario, there was no basis for direct comparison between the Big 12 and SEC on the field. With the 4-team playoff, that direct comparison will take place in the first round.
What someone did last year has very little...if not zero bearing on what happen this year. Three case studies: USCw, Arkansas, and Notre Dame. USC and Arkansas came in hyped and rated very highly, USC was preseason #1. Notre Dame on the other hand was expected to win 7-9 games at the most. Thus they were unranked at the start of the year.
Another interesting point from preseason rankings is that they are why Notre Dame could never jump KSU. Not the only reason but a large factor. KSU started off ranked higher than Notre Dame and stayed that way due to lockstep voting from the pollsters and coaches. Look at Oregon, preseason #5 so they stayed ahead of KSU and Notre Dame (in the polls) and they would have no matter what really. They had a huge built in advantage before a single down was played.
The SEC as a whole benefits from preseason overranking and overhype. Teams like Georgia and Alabama start off the season highly ranked, play cupcakes their first 6 weeks and build up even higher rankings while the rest of the conference does the same, just look at Mississippi State. So that way when Alabama plays them, and crushes them, they get credit for beating a "top 10" team. After a few more weeks MSU has been thoroughly exposed but the bounce that Alabama got already happened and it won't be taken away. SCAR is the same way, they played nobody, got a huge ranking, beat an overrated UGA team (with quite possibly the easiest schedule I have ever seen) and their bounce was so permanent that even two bad losses haven't removed them from the top 10.
The point is that preseason rankings are garbage and are based on nothing more than pollster bias usually and what a team did 7 or 8 months ago. Notre Dame lost their bowl game against FSU last year and so that factored into them starting unranked and possibly getting squeezed out of a national title. Ridiculous. Luckily things worked themselves out, as they normally do, but the principle remains the same.
I agree with ending pre-season rankings, but AP and USA Today are going to do their thing 'cause there's money in it.
I don't entirely disagree that SEC and perennial media faves like USC and OU get special treatment in those polls, but part of that is just rep points. If Notre Dame wins the title and can maintain that success, believe me, they'll get that same kind of treatment. The polls bias is prejudicial against teams that are trying to break into that tier of teams in so-called 'elite status', and there's no reason to suspect that ND won't be among those teams in the next year or so.
Maybe, but it will be more legitimate than last year where it was decided off the field. That will be far easier to accept than some clowns sitting behind their computer saying that the SEC (or any other conference) doesn't even have to play outside of their conference for the national title. In that scenario, there was no basis for direct comparison between the Big 12 and SEC on the field. With the 4-team playoff, that direct comparison will take place in the first round.
It might be a little easier to accept, but not much. Some team that comes on strong at the end in the Big is going to get left out and the Big fans are going to complain that the system's unfair. There's no disputing that the system has bias, but a lot of that bias comes from on the field results in past years. Once again, a team will get a shot at an SEC title contender. All they have to do is win the game and the SEC's aura of invincibility is taken down. But not until then. If teams don't like it, take care of business on the field.
Winning the ACC in football is hardly a big accomplishment.
I do like how all the ACC boosters disappeared after hyping up FSU and talking trash to the SEC, big 12, PAC, and big 10.
Now look who has disappeared...I haven't seen any of your trashy posts about the ACC since WVU lost it's last 5 games. It's hard to run your mouth about another conference when your team has a losing record huh?
It's sad that I used to like and respect WVU, but having to constantly read your crying about the ACC on here has completely turned me against it. Way to go! You're a great ambassador for your team.
I agree with ending pre-season rankings, but AP and USA Today are going to do their thing 'cause there's money in it.
I don't entirely disagree that SEC and perennial media faves like USC and OU get special treatment in those polls, but part of that is just rep points. If Notre Dame wins the title and can maintain that success, believe me, they'll get that same kind of treatment. The polls bias is prejudicial against teams that are trying to break into that tier of teams in so-called 'elite status', and there's no reason to suspect that ND won't be among those teams in the next year or so.
Well I anticipate Notre Dame rejoining the "elite" but us getting preferential preseason love wouldn't make it right. In 2006 we were preseason #2 and we didn't deserve that ranking but we did well enough through the year to get a BCS bowl bid we probably didn't deserve. If we would have started say...20 and had the same exact season we probably wouldn't have made it to a BCS bowl.
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