FB Playoff selection watch

[OldPhiKap]

I agree about keeping the thread on point, but there really isn't much of a debate, unfortunately. Let's say Mississippi State wins out (13-0) and Duke goes 12-1, beating FSU in the ACC championship. I can still think of at least three one-loss teams NOT in the SEC that would be better positioned to make the playoffs than Duke. Because there are a LOT of them right now, and I can easily see three of them winning out as well. (I've discussed unbeaten Marshall in detail upthread, and am loath to repeat myself. I'm not forgetting them; I'm just assuming they succumb to the pressure of remaining perfect.)

So let's just look at the 1-loss teams in power conferences (besides Duke). Put them in alphabetical order, and they are seemingly indistinguishable:

Alabama (7-1)
Arizona (6-1)
Arizona State (6-1)
Auburn (6-1)
Baylor (6-1)
Georgia (6-1)
Kansas State (6-1)
Michigan State (7-1)
Mississippi (7-1)
Nebraska (7-1)
Notre Dame (6-1)
Ohio State (6-1)
Oregon (7-1)
TCU (6-1)
Utah (6-1)

Trying to sort the one-loss teams will likely be the toughest responsibility of the Playoff Committee every season (and maybe the topic that keeps this thread going). The easy answer is "Let's wait and see which of these teams survive after they consume each other," but by releasing their own Top 25 this week, they have to make some difficult decisions now.

Back to Duke: keep in mind that in the above hypothetical, FSU would also be a 1-loss team, and would have a much better strength of schedule. But if I had to guess right now, I would say that the Playoff Committee places FSU below similarly rated 1-loss teams that did win their conferences, and removes the ACC from the 4-team field entirely. An undefeated FSU really has no margin for error.

The last paragraph raises the killer for Duke. Assume FSU and Duke win out, and Duke beats FSU. Who thinks we would get picked over the Seminoles, who in that scenarios beat Clemson, ND, Miami, and Louisville? If you look at how low Coastal teams have been in the polls, I don't think that anyone who got to the ACC Championship with one loss would be in even beating FSU in the Championship.

[uh_no]

The last paragraph raises the killer for Duke. Assume FSU and Duke win out, and Duke beats FSU. Who thinks we would get picked over the Seminoles, who in that scenarios beat Clemson, ND, Miami, and Louisville? If you look at how low Coastal teams have been in the polls, I don't think that anyone who got to the ACC Championship with one loss would be in even beating FSU in the Championship.

I think they've been clear, though, that winning your conference is most important. if duke wins the ACC, and duke doesn't get in, then FSU isn't either. I believe they're viewing the conference championship game as an elimination game. I don't imagine ANY teams that lose their conference championships getting in

[OldPhiKap]

I think they've been clear, though, that winning your conference is most important. if duke wins the ACC, and duke doesn't get in, then FSU isn't either. I believe they're viewing the conference championship game as an elimination game. I don't imagine ANY teams that lose their conference championships getting in

Yup, exactly my point. Running the tables and beating FSU would be fantastic and land us in the Orange Bowl. FSU would still likely get a NYDay bowl but not the playoffs.

I do think an SEC West team could lose its conference championship game and still make the playoffs, depending.

[Wander]

I dunno. Just as an example, Ohio State is ahead of all three of those teams in Sagarin (OSU 16, ASU 21, UA 27, ECU 40) but behind all but ECU in Massey (ASU 13, UA 20, OSU 21, ECU 35). I never take any computer poll as "truth," but if they aren't pointing in some general direction, I think it's fair to say the picture is pretty muddled. So I think brevity is basically right that there is very little to differentiate that mass of teams at the current time, except that the one-loss SEC West teams are probably the class of the pack.

Sagarin uses margin of victory, which I believe the committee is not supposed to consider. A home loss to 4-4 Virginia Tech is worse than a home loss to 6-2 UCLA, 5-3 USC, or a road loss to 4-4 other-USC. Road wins at Oregon, USC, and Virginia Tech are all better than... whichever Big 10 newcomer trash or NCAA punishment dodging team you want to call Ohio State's best win. Pretty clear to me that OSU is easily behind UA and ASU right now... ECU is a little debatable, I guess, but the Virginia Tech results are a nice tiebreaker there.

[vick]

Sagarin uses margin of victory, which I believe the committee is not supposed to consider. A home loss to 4-4 Virginia Tech is worse than a home loss to 6-2 UCLA, 5-3 USC, or a road loss to 4-4 other-USC. Road wins at Oregon, USC, and Virginia Tech are all better than... whichever Big 10 newcomer trash or NCAA punishment dodging team you want to call Ohio State's best win. Pretty clear to me that OSU is easily behind UA and ASU right now... ECU is a little debatable, I guess, but the Virginia Tech results are a nice tiebreaker there.

I believe you are correct on both counts. In practice, though, I'll believe it when I see it. There's enough wiggle room in there (e.g. how games are sometimes decided by the "unexpected bounce of the ball") that I fully expect "the eye test" (i.e. a politically palatable way to say "margin of victory") to come into the picture. In the end, I doubt they will remain deliberately ignorant of useful information that empirically helps predict results.

[OldPhiKap]

In the end, I doubt they will remain deliberately ignorant of useful information that empirically helps predict results.

So, no UNc administrators are involved then? Because willful ignorance is their stock and trade, apparently.

(And agree with your post in whole)

[throatybeard]

I'm just glad Marshall is good again. I felt like hell for them when they moved up and got their butts kicked.

Hopefully, we will be having the same discussion about Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, in about 15 years, or sooner.

Mississippi State culture on social media is interesting right now. There is a lot of anxiety, on several bases.

1) There is a lot of justifiable mistrust of the national media, who continually confuse the two schools and assign MSU the civil rights record of Ole Miss. So MSU folk are scared that everyone is going to think we're the ones with the battle flags and the ugh mascots. Look those up. Don't wanna get this deleted for political content, so go look it up on your own.

2) There is a lot of justifiable mistrust of just about everyone, since people generally are too inconsiderate of other human beings to distinguish--in general--between "University of [name of state], and [name of state] State University. I learned that at a young age. I was in Georgia, and the AJC print TV guide told me Duke was playing UNC. I was like 10, and I thought, no way, y'all, we just played Carolina. Sure enough, it was NC State. I think this is part of the genius of Auburn's brand. Mid-20thC, they were actually called "Alabama Polytechnic University." Good for them that they got out from under that, and they went with the name of the town. This is exactly like if NC State were called "Raleigh University."

My adviser is like the #2 or #3 person in his whole field, and he's at NC State. Most people are incredibly mean. When Duke and Carolina people asked me what I was doing next after Ugrad, I told them, an MA in English at NC State (the Ag school we enjoy looking down upon). They corrected me, even though I knew where I was going. "Don't you mean Carolina?" No. I don't. Most of our culture may hate the humanities, but our land-grant school has an amazing English Dept. So did the next one I worked for. So does the one I work for now, because I broke down and didn't want to live in Starkville.

I had a colleague at Mississippi State University. He said something like this. "There are a lot of amazing faculty at this place, but we have two main problems. One is the word 'Mississippi' and the other is the word 'State.'

3) There is a very conscious "we haven't been here since 1998 or 1941, and not quite even then" vibe. MSU has never been #1 ranked before. Ain't been here before. It's kind of like Duke without the great old history. Which leads me to...

4) General land-grant school paranoia. I don't say this in a way that blames the victims. They've lived their whole lives in a world where the school that calls themselves the flagship looks down at them, for basically no reason. But at these land-grant schools, there is a reflexive defensiveness. If Ole Miss were #1, they'd be telling us how the glory of their program in the 1960s has been restored. Mississippi State fans, though they are worried about what is gonna go wrong next, what they do is spend two hours agonizing on social media about how if the team didn't cover against a [surprisingly good] Kentucky team, on the road, an idle FSU would trump MSU in the polls. They feel like something is going to go wrong any minute.

I have different evaluations of these various positions.

I'm not sure how this 4-team playoff happens. But I'm certain people's prejudices will surface. I'm not against two SEC teams in the four. But I'm pretty sure media preferences will work against the likes of Mississippi State. There's no percentage in that, unless Dak Prescott somehow is the Heisman frontrunner. Guess we gotta beat Bama, But there's a lot bigger percentage in being a "power" program with the same record as a non-power program.

If only such a system existed when Duke was doing this a long time ago. I'd love to be David Cutcliffe, as competent as he is, in like 1941. he'd kill.

[Bob Green]

Mississippi State culture on social media is interesting right now. There is a lot of anxiety, on several bases.

1) There is a lot of justifiable mistrust of the national media, who continually confuse the two schools and assign MSU the civil rights record of Ole Miss. So MSU folk are scared that everyone is going to think we're the ones with the battle flags and the ugh mascots. Look those up. Don't wanna get this deleted for political content, so go look it up on your own.

A thought provoking post; however, I'm having a hard time accepting a potential civil rights record, college football playoff selection nexus. Perhaps the good folks at Mississippi State are overthinking this one.

[BigWayne]

A thought provoking post; however, I'm having a hard time accepting a potential civil rights record, college football playoff selection nexus. Perhaps the good folks at Mississippi State are overthinking this one.

Being from the south and living in California now, I am repeatedly faced with talking to otherwise seemingly well informed people who are completely confused about news from the south. Many of these people can't even distinguish between different southern states. For them to get Ole Miss and Miss St. confused is not a stretch. The good thing for Miss St. this year is that Ole Miss is also having a noteworthy season so both of their names are in the mix. This should make people have to figure out which one is which.

[Olympic Fan]

Being from the south and living in California now, I am repeatedly faced with talking to otherwise seemingly well informed people who are completely confused about news from the south. Many of these people can't even distinguish between different southern states. For them to get Ole Miss and Miss St. confused is not a stretch. The good thing for Miss St. this year is that Ole Miss is also having a noteworthy season so both of their names are in the mix. This should make people have to figure out which one is which.

Not long ago, Cut was talking how recruiting at Duke was different from his past experience. One of the positive examples he used was name recognition -- because of basketball, he said that he could go anywhere in the country and the kids and their coaches would know about Duke. He contrasted that with his experience at Ole Miss -- where outside the South, people couldn't distinguish between Mississippi and Mississippi State.

As for the past racial sins of the various schools, I think that's meaningless. The SEC was the last power five conference to integrate and yet they have the best collection of black talent. Nobody's going back and saying Syracuse integrated in the mid-30s and Alabama didn't integrate until the late 1960s -- therefore we have to give Syracuse an edge in recruiting black kids or on selection. The NCAA and NCAAP are still boycotting South Carolina for flying the confederate battle flag over its capitol building and yet Spurrier still manages to land his share of black athletes.

As for the Mississippi schools, I know that Ole Miss is the place they wave the confederate battle flags and Miss State is the place they wave cowbells (What we need is MORE cowbell!!).

The one civil rights incident I know about involving Mississippi State came in 1963, when Babe McCarthy's SEC champion MSU basketball team snuck out of town to avoid a court order forbidding them from playing Chicago Loyola in the NCAA Tournament. At the time, it was against state law for a white Mississippi team (in any sport) to play against an integrated opponent. Loyola, which would go on to win the NCAA title (beating Duke's first Final Four team in the semifinals), started four blacks. Miss State lost the game, but earned a lot of respect for defy the state's racist laws.

PS Anybody notice that Conference USA hired a public relations firm to try and promote Marshall for the playoffs?:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...yoff/17792155/

We'll see where Marshall is rated Tuesday when the first poll comes out. I think they might be a bit higher than their No. 23 poll ranking, but I doubt they are in the top 15. I still think they have no chance for the final four playoff -- but I think they are the frontrunner (ahead of ECU and Colorado State) for the one major bowl slot reserved for a non-power five team.

[Wander]

Being from the south and living in California now, I am repeatedly faced with talking to otherwise seemingly well informed people who are completely confused about news from the south. Many of these people can't even distinguish between different southern states. For them to get Ole Miss and Miss St. confused is not a stretch. The good thing for Miss St. this year is that Ole Miss is also having a noteworthy season so both of their names are in the mix. This should make people have to figure out which one is which.

Yeah, but why is this a sign of anything nefarious? I'm at Arizona now, and at least half of my east coast friends have mistaken that for Arizona State in conversation at some point. Also, this happened. Note that these things are the opposite of throaty's supposed reason, as ASU is the school with "State" in its title and UA is generally ranked higher on all those lists (which may or may not be useful, but that's another conversation).

When two names are similar and have lots of words in common, people not from the area get them mixed up. It's not a sign of "land-grant school paranoia" or "people being incredibly mean" or whatever other stuff throaty is ranting about. It's just... people confusing things that have similar names.

[sagegrouse]

Yeah, but why is this a sign of anything nefarious? I'm at Arizona now, and at least half of my east coast friends have mistaken that for Arizona State in conversation at some point. Also, this happened. Note that these things are the opposite of throaty's supposed reason, as ASU is the school with "State" in its title and UA is generally ranked higher on all those lists (which may or may not be useful, but that's another conversation).

When two names are similar and have lots of words in common, people not from the area get them mixed up. It's not a sign of "land-grant school paranoia" or "people being incredibly mean" or whatever other stuff throaty is ranting about. It's just... people confusing things that have similar names

I think the state of Washington has it figured out: the two schools are "UDub" and "Wazoo."

[Duvall]

As for the past racial sins of the various schools, I think that's meaningless. The SEC was the last power five conference to integrate and yet they have the best collection of black talent. Nobody's going back and saying Syracuse integrated in the mid-30s and Alabama didn't integrate until the late 1960s -- therefore we have to give Syracuse an edge in recruiting black kids or on selection. The NCAA and NCAAP are still boycotting South Carolina for flying the confederate battle flag over its capitol building and yet Spurrier still manages to land his share of black athletes.

As for the Mississippi schools, I know that Ole Miss is the place they wave the confederate battle flags and Miss State is the place they wave cowbells (What we need is MORE cowbell!!).

The problem is that Ole Miss's past racist sins aren't even past. (They could start by getting rid of the nickname. Sorry, both nicknames.) I've never been a high school recruit, but it strikes me as unlikely that there aren't *some* recruits that aren't turned off by a school doing business as the Rebels where the fans wave the Confederate flag and the band plays Dixie or variants thereof.

[Wander]

I think the state of Washington has it figured out: the two schools are "UDub" and "Wazoo."

Plus, that awesome logo.

[subzero02]

The problem is that Ole Miss's past racist sins aren't even past. (They could start by getting rid of the nickname. Sorry, both nicknames.) I've never been a high school recruit, but it strikes me as unlikely that there aren't *some* recruits that aren't turned off by a school doing business as the Rebels where the fans wave the Confederate flag and the band plays Dixie or variants thereof.

Yeah, I know it keeps some recruits from considering them as an option. I know the school asked fans to stop bringing the confederate battle flags into games in the 90's because they knew it was crippling their recruiting efforts.

http://www.al.com/entertainment/inde...ellor_tal.html

[Wander]

My final prediction before the first rankings: top 4 in order will controversially be Mississippi State, Auburn, Florida State, and Ole Miss.

[Acymetric]

2) There is a lot of justifiable mistrust of just about everyone, since people generally are too inconsiderate of other human beings to distinguish--in general--between "University of [name of state], and [name of state] State University. I learned that at a young age. I was in Georgia, and the AJC print TV guide told me Duke was playing UNC. I was like 10, and I thought, no way, y'all, we just played Carolina. Sure enough, it was NC State. I think this is part of the genius of Auburn's brand. Mid-20thC, they were actually called "Alabama Polytechnic University." Good for them that they got out from under that, and they went with the name of the town. This is exactly like if NC State were called "Raleigh University."

Would a better example be if a school like UNC Charlotte were called Charlotte University?

[tommy]

My final prediction before the first rankings: top 4 in order will controversially be Mississippi State, Auburn, Florida State, and Ole Miss.

My guess is Mississippi State, FSU, Alabama, and Oregon.

Auburn #5. Which should be fine with them, as they obviously will get their shot vs. Alabama.

[throatybeard]

Would a better example be if a school like UNC Charlotte were called Charlotte University?

Nooott really. Not that I don't salute your try. The state of Mississippi doesn't really have an analogue to UNCC. A better analogue to UNCC is the school I work at in MO. It's a later, "urban" (read, suburban) 20thC take on the University.

People confusing MSU an OM is just as uninformed as people confusing State and Carolina. It just is.

[subzero02]

My guess is Mississippi State, FSU, Alabama, and Oregon.

Auburn #5. Which should be fine with them, as they obviously will get their shot vs. Alabama.

I agree with your top 4 both in terms of predicted rankings and also in terms of which teams are actually the best.