The College Football Playoff Committee has announced its selection criteria. A drum roll, please:
The five criteria include:
1. Conference championships won
2. Strength of schedule
3. Head-to-head competition
4. Comparative outcomes of common opponents (without incenting margin of victory)
5. Other relevant factors such as key injuries that may have affected a team’s performance during the season or likely would affect its postseason performance.
My first thought is that they just put Notre Dame behind the eight-ball, as well as Herbie’s old Michigan-Ohio State rematch wet dream. It’s also probably not good news for 2011 Alabama.
My second thought is that they’re full of shit about ignoring margin of victory. They’re only human and as much as they may try to deny it, they’ll notice.
But it’s number five that really intrigues me. A team with a superstar player that makes its way through the season top rated, only to see the superstar get injured in, say, a conference championship game that it wins could be penalized for the injury? Is that the new “settling it on the field”? Yeah, that’s gonna go over swimmingly.
Oh, “the committee will meet four times during the college football season and release rankings every other week starting in mid-October, College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock said.” ESPN is already wetting its pants in anticipation over the new material for its pinheads to bloviate about.
I’m beginning to suspect there’s a plot to make the public dislike the new format more than the BCS, so they can shrug and have Hancock go out and reassure us all they’ll get it right with the next expansion.
Get The Picture 
It’s like watching a reductio unfold in real-life.
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I read the injury part as doing the exact opposite from what you described. In other words, if we lost to Tennessee because so many of our players were out, but they all returned and were performing 100% by the end of the season then that loss wouldn’t be held against us as much. It actually seems pretty fair that a loss like, oh, let’s say 2005 Florida for us, wouldn’t count as much because we win that game in every other circumstance except the freak occurrence.
I don’t like the sound of the counter-situation you described but let’s face it, if Cam Newton blew his knee out in the SECCG do you really think Auburn would have had a shot at winning against Oregon in the NCG?
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+1 re: Cam Newton hypothetical. However, I read #5 the same way the Senator reads it. BTW, that would be a good thing IMHO. Remember 1998 when a weak-ass Tennessee team that should have lost at least 2 games beat a good FSU team that was down to its third string QB? FSU had no business playing in that game. If any of the remaining top teams that year had played in place of FSU, UT would never have won the crystal trophy.
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I don’t think you should keep a team out because of injuries. The FSU example you sighted is the perfect example. Just because we think a team will lose because its QB is hurt doesn’t mean they should not be allowed to prove us wrong. FSU earned its way into that game and deserved to play for the Title.
If the committee keeps a team out because of a situation like that it will be worse than any selection mistakes the BCS model was perceived to have committed.
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They would have earned the right to try.
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Agree 100%. I wonder if this will lead to teams lying about injuries more than they already do? I can certainly see the incentive for it.
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Why? Where is it written that a team that got its record with players that cannot play now gets to still play the role of walkover team so that an otherwise inferior opponent wins the BCSNCG? How come K-State or Ohio State didn’t get to play in the BIG GAME that year when FSU’s offense couldn’t show up because of injury to its 2 best QBs? Or more importantly, why did the real “best team” get locked out? Tulane finished the regular season 11-0 (12-0 after winning its bowl game) but was artificially downgraded to #10 in the country so it wouldn’t be a threat to the BCS because it was a member of a non-BCS conference. The original “fly in the ointment.” How fair was that?
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In Tulane’s case it was fair. It is called strength of schedule or criteria #2.
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If the “plus 1/25 of its ranking in the BCS strength of schedule formula” comment below is correct, mayber there were other factors working against the Mighty Mighty Green Wave. No one could have predicted that anything could go wrong with Tommy Bowden and Rich Rodriguez at the helm
“Pigskin Charlie
Good story. Here’s what is interesting about the original BCS formula in ’98. Formula: The original BCS rating for a team was the number of losses, plus the average ranking in the AP and coaches’ polls, plus 1/25 of its ranking in the BCS strength of schedule formula, plus the modified average of three computer rankings. Low score was better.”
http://www.football.com/en-us/more-than-undefeated-how-tulane-changed-the-bcs/
http://www.bcsguru.com/1998_bcs_standings.htm
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I read it the same way 165. 2005 would be a perfect example, too.
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Good Lord have mercy. I can’t believe they actually say “comparative outcomes of common opponents.” That is the most illogical bullshit in college football you’ll ever see. It completely ignores matchups, home/away, and the surrounding schedule, all of which are vitally important in college football.
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Short of seeing the bone snap on live TV, I think it’s safe to say every team in that situation will have a team doctor assure everyone it’s just a minor boo-boo with no long term implications whatsoever. You would only have to cover it up a day at most in that situation.
Who is beating out 2011 Alabama for that 4th spot? USC? Oregon? Boise State? I think the current criteria would simply slot Alabama-LSU as a semi-final rematch, with Stanford-Okie St as the other semi.
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Saw this after I responded above with the same thought.
“I realize that everyone saw his bone protruding through his skin but I assure you that he’ll be back in 4 weeks for the semifinal game. We have in house doctors that we pay very well that will confirm this if you can ever get a hold of them. If not, just take my word for it. Thanks.” – Coach Doe at Big State University
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Why isn’t Pat Dye or Ari Fleischer on that August board?
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… not the month, but the term of reverence (august)!
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Except for those of us from the region, Pat Dye is unintelligble and Ari is 2busy w twitter?
http://www.mediaite.com/online/what-is-twitter-mocking-ari-fleischer-for-now/
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Whaddaya mean Pat Dye’s unintelligible? http://www.youtube/watch?v=s2pcUFxg8fY
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Try again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2pcUFxg8fY
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That’s what he said
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And the rich folks gets richer, meanwhile, the players… some playing a 15-game schedule, get a mighty fine educational opportunity….lift that barge, tote that ball…er, bale. Yassuh, boss, dat playoff…it be mighty fine.
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You likening college football to slavery is equally as ridiculous as Mark Emmert’s amateurism BS
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There are many different degrees of slavery.
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Perhaps, but college football still isn’t one of them.
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I could make a decent argument otherwise…but I’m tired and going home for the day. Have a good one.
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Everbody got a right to they opinion, except of course, them what don’t have the full benefit of they citizenship…them being of the working class.
Yassuh.
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?
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A Zen Guru was going somewhere with his disciples. They saw a man who was coming towards them with a cow. The cow had a rope tied around its neck and the man was holding the other end of the rope. The Guru asked his disciples, ”Who is the slave, the man or the cow?”. The disciples said, “The cow is the slave. It is tied with the rope. The man is the master since he is controlling the cow”. The Guru smiled and said, “ No! you are wrong. If the rope slips from the man’s hands and the cow starts running away you will find that the man will run after the cow. The man is also tied down with the cow, only his rope is invisible.”
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If your inference is that I (we) are the slaves, I certainly would tend to agree, there is more than one slave group in my mind. It came to me yesterday that the only groups involved in the playoffs, who are not profiting from the playoffs, are the players and the fans (us). Have you seen the amount of money the playoffs will generate?
Has anyone in charge offered to give the fans of the participating schools a discount on tickets so the majority of us might, indeed, actually go to a game without dipping en mass into our 401’s or digging up the pot in the back yard?
The teams with the easiest schedules and the fewest injuries (and the two are probably related, don’t ya think?) will be in the playoffs (Bama may be an exception).
The teams with conference championships could play 15 games…how does this benefit the players?
So yeah, if your tale above means what it seems to mean, it presents a good question….who is the slave? I am afraid we know who the master is.
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I suppose you see every major corporation as a slave master as well too, right?
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No, not really, because anyone who goes to work for a major corporation hopefully, knows what the deal is. They are willing to sacrifice some freedom for the money, and that’s fine.
I am mostly concerned with the consumer/employee (??) relationship to the major corporation that major college football has become, and yes, I think a major corporation under any guise that cares only about money and ignores damage to the product and the product’s consumers and employees (??) is evil as shit…if that’s what you are asking me.
So spare me the Occupy allusion.
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If a corporation was causing damageto its own product then the free market would force it to fix it or the corporation would go out of business. If college football and the powers that be end up destroying theproduct then they will begin losing money and they will have to change. It’s self correcting in the long run and the consumers eventually get what the large majority of them want.
As far as you likening the players to the corporation’s employees, it’s not like they aren’t willingly playing college football. There are many more avenues to success in life than just sports so it’s not like they are at 100% mercy to the powers that be in CFB.
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CFB’s main consumers are broadcast networks. The broadcast networks’ main consumers are viewers.
The overlap with the group known as “fans” is significant, but it’s not as determinative as we might like to think. In other words, damage to the product is a relative viewpoint. From the perspective of CFB and the broadcasters, if ratings are going up, then the product can’t be suffering any harm, because the product is a TV broadcast. The rest is ancillary.
So, when LSU has 15,000 empty seats for the Florida game, they blame the heat and accept it as a reasonable trade-off.
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True dat. For all the free beer and vagina one could possibly handle in 4 years alone.
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165…you obviously seen things a different way than I do.
I would like to point out a couple of things…that “free market” you mention….how does that work with college football? What is the free market going to replace college football with? I would posit that sports markets are not like….grocery markets.
“t’s not like they aren’t willingly playing college football” You are sure about that, are you, all these kids just love the game, right? And they don’t have to play if they don’t want to…but they can’t afford an education if they don’t play, so what do these kids do?
I’m done, dude, you are welcome to your opinion, narrow tho it may be.
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As far as affording an education goes, they could just maintain a good GPA and they’d get their tuition for free. When you think about it, this would actually require a lot less effort and time than playing a sport on scholarship would.
And your right that sports markets, especially at the college level, are a lot different than other markets. However, if college sports stops delivering a good product then the money-hungry folks at the top will change back to the way it was when they WERE making money. The fact that they will be making MORE money with the upcoming changes shows that they are actually giving the consumer what they want. If they weren’t then people wouldn’t be buying it up.
On a final note, insults aren’t necessary. Just because my opinion is different than yours doesn’t mean it’s “narrow.”
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I still like the Old BCS formula for determining the 4….but hey, they didn’t ask me.
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Go to a 64 team playoff (sure…throw in a play-in game or two as well) and the “August” committee will only have to meet once in….August.
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I pushed for Hal Mumme on the committee, but I guess they went with Ty Willingham instead. Where did they find him? under a bridge on Buford Hwy?
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Ty was found hanging around a ‘very nondescript office’ known as the ‘good karma’ building at 165 University Ave., Palo Alto, that housed Google, Logitech and PayPal during those companies’ infancies. Some guess that Condi turned Bagman Bill onto him. Ty and Condi were rumored to have lobbied for a sixth element, a Best Ball tournament, in which all members of each team play their own balls on each hole.
“He is currently a volunteer assistant coach for the Stanford women’s golf team, and reportedly is a specialist at helping the golfers with the psychology of the game.”
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/20568707/where-are-they-now-ty-willingham-stanford-womens-golf-assistant-coach
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So we can expect Stanford to be in the 4 because they are overrepresented on the committee.
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I don’t know so much about that (or anything else) but with a Hoover Institution neo-con policy analysis think tank lead operative* from Stanford
in place, the quo will be status – as Bluto has mentioned before – and that (just as it is at our place and Charlie Sheen’s) is #Winning.
Extra added benefit: we may get to attack something but only if it’s weaker and can’t fight back such as Division II units
* http://www.hoover.org/fellows/10078
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