Yeah, this is fun to think about…
The Stephen King scenario is this: undefeated Mississippi (1) and undefeated Mississippi State (2) play an epic Egg Bowl on Nov. 29, with the winner advancing to meet 11-1 Georgia (3) in the SEC championship game Dec. 6. Georgia wins that in another classic, and the SEC is sitting there with three one-loss teams that all would at least theoretically be ranked in every top four heading into Selection Sunday.
… but if you’ve got playoff fever, there’s a way to cure that bad boy. More brackets, of course.
Get The Picture 
Mwahahahahaha!
That would be hilarious. Wonder if the committee would have the stones to make that call and put 3 SEC teams in the mix. Nah, of course not.
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We would probably get hosed in that situation. The Herbstreit Doctrine would be quickly set aside by let’s compare the quality of the losses and the full body of work.
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Hasty note to the KBA…”Ladies, Ladies, please that is not US talking bout that, it is somebody else…we would never count unhatched chickens before Florida.”
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The one thing we all know as Dawg fans – they’ll figure out a way to screw us in that scenario. The committee will say the SEC West champion really deserves the bid because they beat the Egg Bowl loser, Alabama, Auburn, and LSU. The black helicopter side of me says there’s no way the Birmingham suits allow a Georgia victory to happen in a close game in the Dome in that scenario. If this could be the set-up, I would imagine Penn Wagers’ crew will all of the sudden be rated as the best SEC officiating crew and get the assignment to make sure the West champion wins.
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It could be either Penn Wagers’crew or that bunch from the Arkansas game.
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My black suit guess is that they’d never let a team from Mississippi make it to the playoff.
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Yeah – I think that unless the team is Alabama (possibly FL back in the day) – the SEC does not have a vested in screwing us over say an Ole Miss or Miss St. or maybe even Auburn.
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Imagine if the champions of the Big10, Big12, and Pac all had 2 losses.
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Better yet, how about a 2 loss Georgia wins the SECCG. Let them explain how the SEC champion gets left out of playoff and a team that did not qualify for the SEC championship gets in.
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That’s easy. Their called Alabama.
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What if UGA loses to Auburn and then beats one of the Miss schools (who are undefeated) for the SEC title and Auburn is sitting there at 11-1? I am sure they would be ranked higher than UGA if they win out….
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it would have to be uga playing mississippi state in the SECCG then cause if ole miss is there, that means they beat auburn to get there.
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Well, if we’re going to have playoffs I always liked the idea of 4 big conferences of 12 or 14 teams and all the champs go.
However, things being what they are, if an otherwise undefeated Miss State loses a close one to Ole Miss, and a 2-loss Georgia team beats Ole Miss in a close one in the SECCG, I still think Miss State has an argument. They would have beaten Auburn, LSU, and Alabama. We would have lost to Auburn (or worse) and South Carolina.
There is simply no comparing the West and East this year, as far as I can tell, and just because one particular SEC game is labeled the “championship” does not mean it features the best two teams in the conference, and searching for the best 4 teams is supposedly the role of Thee Committee.
(Under that scenario, maybe there is an argument for all three teams, perhaps, but we know that’s not going to happen.)
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IIRC, the committee announced early on that they would be putting extra emphasis on teams winning their respective conferences. I would imagine that a 2-loss SEC champ would trump a 1-loss non-champ from any conference, even the SEC.
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Danny Kanell’s head would explode. Boy am I tired of hearing that guy whine about the SEC. (And I say this even after seeing that he put UGA in his “top 4” today.)
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Dude, its all just shtick from him to drum up interest. Ever hear him on SVP and Russillo as a fill-in host? (often for SVP) He often laughs about chiding SEC fans, who totally eat up his gimmick regarding the SEC. The next day he laughs even harder regarding the twitter spike in followers he gets anytime he says anything remotely negative regarding the SEC.
I think his now infamous quote often repeated on the show is, “I believe 100% in most of things that I say.”
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It may be a way for him to drum up interest, but that doesn’t mean it’s insincere. And as a former Seminole, it’s not hard to imagine why he’d have a genuine bug up his ass about the Southeastern Conference. I can think of a few reasons.
If he ever paints it as mere schtick, I’d bet it’s because he knows it’s demonstrably absurd, and wants an “out” for whenever someone actually takes the time to demonstrate the absurdity to him (“Hey man, I’m just messin’ around …”).
Either way, he’s quickly becoming one of the least tolerable voices in sports broadcasting. His appearance on Mike & Mike the other day (to discuss the end of the FSU-ND game) was a tour de force of homerism and hypocrisy.
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Totally agree … Kanell has found a meme for this year and he is playing it well. Good for him …
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Ellis is on to it. That scenario is the nightmare they want to dodge.
If the winner of the eggbowl gets beaten by UGA, then both SECCG participants could be considered, but not the one not playing in the SECCG. Same number of wins and losses won’t be the qualifying basis alone. We would have to go to 8 teams before a third team might be qualified under the same conditions.
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Excellent point. It’s still mind-boggling to me that schools out of Mississippi that aren’t Southern Miss (before Ellis Johnson’s winless season) are highly ranked.
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Oh, I could EASILY see how the following scenario playes out:
Ole Miss goes undefeated. Bama does not lose again. Ole Miss represents the SEC West and a two loss Georgia wins the east. Georgia upsets the Johnny Rebs. The committee chooses Alabama and maybe Ole Miss.
Remember, in 2011 it was already ordained that even if LSU lost to UGA, they were going to the BCS title game. We were going to get an Alabama-LSU BCS title game regardless whether or not Georgia won the SEC title. There is no way that a 1 loss Alabama gets left out, even if the SEC Champ doesn’t go to the playoff.
And it will be even worse next year. What will the committee think of ULM, Charleston Southern and Georgia Southern all in one season?
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The committee has already said that they would be picking the best teams at the end of the season, not necessarily the teams with the best records (because Marshall?). If UGA didn’t go under the conditions stated then the “conference champion” thingy will omit Big 10, Pac12 and maybe Big12 champs with same win records. They can’t have it both ways.
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I much prefer the scenario where UGA plays Auburn 3 times in 6 weeks to really drive home how important the regular season is.
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+1
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We lose in the DSOR, win in the SECCG, and meet in the playoff bracket. Then we can point to how just a 4 team playoff has already greatly devalued the regular season and use it as a club to bludgeon the expand the playoff crowd.
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I heard Brando today taunting the “regular season will be meaningless” crowd because of all the heightened conversation about teams all over the country vying for those four spots. It has been the most energized regular season I can recall nationally, and we are just half way through. Great conversations on all the talk shows and print media.
When they get it to eight teams, and the conference championship is highlighted again because that is a guaranteed ticket, plus we lessen the impact of subjectivity, things are going to be outstanding. 98% of the CFB will be ecstatic with the result. Of course there will always be doubters/haters, but we are gaining significant momentum to getting this thing right. Decent leadership could have spared us this unnecessary delay and another change but too late for that now. Folks are waking up to what could be. A total train wreck at this season’s end might speed things along, and that would be worth one season of major chaos, imo. It does look like a tangled mess with the 4 team cap, get your popcorn ready.
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Mac, the reason there’s going to be a train wreck is because the committee isn’t going to choose the four best teams. And that will be what leads to the pressure of expanding the field to eight, which will guarantee that some team or teams will be in the postseason every year that don’t deserve to play for a national title.
Settling it on the field, my ass.
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Senator, would you rather have a team that didn’t “deserve” a national championship (’12 Notre Dame or on the flip side, the 6 NFL wild card teams that won the Superbowl) play for one, or a “deserving” team (’07 Dawgs, ’04 Auburn, etc.) not have a chance to play at all?
Serious question.
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If I had to choose, the latter.
But I honestly think that’s a false choice with a properly run four-team playoff.
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Agreed. The problem will be in the selection process. Personally, I think they should have just left the BCS selection system in place and taken the top 4 teams. The pundits are already talking about “best” versus “most deserving” being the criterion. WTH does that mean? The whole object IMHO was/is to keep the SEC from getting all the playoff $$. When that happened at the 2011 season BCSNCG with Bama and LSU getting both ends of the take for the SEC the other conferences went apoplectic. That was caused all the “4 team playoff” and “selection committee” talk in the first place. It’s all about the dollars folks.
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Fair enough.
I’d prefer a more inclusive approach that removes all doubts (same me the slippery slopes and devaluing the regular season responses) . A sudden death playoff is the epitome of “settling it on the field,” which is why every other sport in the land uses it to determine a champion. Creme rises to the top, etc. etc. Plus as a fan, it would be a whole lot more fun to watch than the archaic bowl system.
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Creme rises to the top in the long run. In the short run, you get Cinderella stories from wild cards. And it is convenient to proclaim your support for one system and immediately writing, “save me the valid criticisms of my preference.”
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I’ll never forget Selection Sunday, 2008, when Georgia won the SEC Tournament to punch our ticket to the big dance.
The pundits were talking about how unfair it was that Georgia took a spot that should have belonged to a team with a winning record, not to a flukey team that got hot.
They were right in that it was a fluke.
But if it can’t be fair with sixty four teams…will it ever be fair? No. There’s no such thing as fair.
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ESPNU actually had a discussion about how the playoff will not include the “best” four teams, but the four teams most “deserving” of being in the playoff. And they acknowledged that it was sold to the public, and press, as presenting the “best” teams, but it’s already shifted its mission halfway through the first season.
But don’t worry. The same people that have lead us here can be trusted to lead us someplace better. Why, you ask? Because I said so. QED
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That’s quite a leap Senator, unless you mean no one can agree on the “best 4” which could be true for any system, not just this committee. Judging them poorly in advance is pretty unlike you. But I agree the process is more likely to be unacceptable because you simply cannot just narrow it down to four teams, but that will get better with Power 5 conference champs being included + a couple of wildcards. Bitching will be diminished for sure when that happens but the key point is how amplified the regular season is now. Just going to get better the remainder of the year with all the matchups. But the train wreck is the inevitable log jam of one and two loss teams with strong credentials; this is where the conference champs being included could help enormously. Just be patient Senator, this will be worth waiting for.
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Mac, it’s a botched job with the main purpose of funneling more money to the power conferences. Which, when you think about it, is entirely consistent with the history of playoffs in American professional sports.
But it ain’t no way to settle it on the field.
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Senator, please defend “….which will guarantee that some team or teams will be in the postseason every year that don’t deserve to play for a national title.”
In a two-team selection, would you think that ND “deserves” to play against Bama 2 seasons ago? “Deserves” is so subjective that you can never omit it from a selection process no matter how many teams are involved.
I submit that reasoning can be found for all teams winding up in the natl fb “playoff”. Eight teams can be stipulated right now as “deserving” by most fans. Further, the scenario being played out now refutes the logic of having an undeserving team in the 8-team Playoff.
And 8 teams comprise a “sticky slope” moreso than 4 teams that now represent your “slippery slope”.
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I can’t help but put this right back to the Senator: and your solution is a playoff field composed entirely of conference champions? Let’s say a three loss UGA team (with losses to kentucky and auburn) squeaks by an undefeated West team in the SECC – your ‘solution’ is that UGA goes to the playoffs and none of the west teams (at least 4 of which will almost certainly have better resumes than UGA) make the field?
I’ll take the 8-team bracket over that horrible system any day of the week.
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I say we make it a 164 team playoff. That way we let everyone in and we settle it on the field.
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In a perfect world, we’d have four 16-team conferences and the first round of the playoffs would be the conference championship games.
In the absence of that, there’s no reason a 4-team playoff has to be a train wreck. Unless the people running it don’t know how to steer.
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What exactly is the non-trainwreck version of the scenario suggested in this post? If 3 (or even 4!) teams are in the same conference at the end of the year not by both subjective rankings AND objective resumes, how the heck do you build a playoff field that doesn’t cause the apocalypse? Heck, what if a TWO loss UGA team wins the SECC and you’ve got FOUR one-loss teams in the West? Is it just a middle finger to one of the west teams and the entire rest of the country?
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Ack, kind of butchered a sentence up there. I meant to say what if 3 or 4 of the best teams are in the same conference by both rankings and resume.
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I figured that’s what you meant.
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You pick the four best teams and let the chips fall where they may.
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Ah, simple! Wait, what is best? The actual best (e.g. who would be favored by vegas lines), or the most deserving? What is most deserving?
I agree with the impulse, but I don’t think there is a definition of ‘best’ that could be devised that would satisfy even 50% of college football partisans. The best you can do is find a balance in playoff size that makes everyone unhappy, but no one enraged. I think that means making sure you include every team that could claim with a straight face to be in the top 2. I don’t think 4 gets you that, I think 8 does. 16 is way, way overboard.
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That is the sweet spot for sure, two and four just doesn’t cut it. Definitely don’t need 16, nor will the timetable allow it. Not like basketball, this is a finite period that 8 is the max that will work…..and it is enough to include the worthy teams to all but the loonies.
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Both you and Rick have stated it as eloquently as subjective reasoning can state the premise of an 8-team Playoff.
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It’s impossible to have 4 one loss teams in the SEC West.
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Good point, actually. In round robin they play each other in (4 choose 2) = 6 games, which means 6 losses to go among four teams. The maximum possible 1-loss teams is 3, since (3 choose 2) = 3 games, one loss each.
Still, could 6 one-loss teams in the conference if the schedules were perfectly formulated.
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This discussion happens every year in mid-late October, and it never comes to pass. That’s why God invented November.
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Some of us knew it. I have no problem with 4. I prefer the old pre 97 days, but I have no issue with 4. But playoff addicts are just that…addicts. We have yet to play the 4 and already they desire 8. And if you think that is the end of it you are smoking the good stuff. It never ends. We have folks who want to have every NCAA basketball team make the Tournament. I guess that is because the regular season in CBB is so dramatic and so eventful…even though not a soul is watching according to the ratings.
Eight won’t be enough. Sixtenn will be the only answer for them..until it is clear that 7-5 Wake Forest deserves a shot too. I like 4. I could grit my teeth and live with 8 if I had to. But I know for some, that would be entirely insufficient. We are a country that loves playoffs….might as well be like the NBA and NHL where anyone with a pulse gets invited.
Can we try the 4 first and see how it goes? Sheeesh.
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Rubbish, at least be serious in your reply. I have never seen even one proposal for 16 on this site, nor anyone propose a system that would put 7-5 teams in. You want it pre-BCS, fine, I disagree but understand some prefer no playoff….and no champion, but I think that is a legitimate position You are usually a serious commenter but this denigrates the discussion by saying everyone who wants one is a fanatic that has no sense of proportion.
I don’t know that we are a country that loves playoffs but I do think most fans do want a champion and playoffs are how you get there, not by having a popularity poll. The process is important, and that requires legit discussion. Are there flakes who would want a 16, 32, or 64 team playoff? A miniscule percentage I am sure, but no one here has gotten that extreme…nor could they sell it.
It is bad rules/laws/processes that drive over the top reactions, let’s get it right and things will settle down. When a speed limit was really bad, say 75 MPH through a town, a proposed change to 60 can most sertainly be ridiculed before being enacted because it doesn’t address the issue or concerns. That is why the cry for an eight team playoff isn’t wrong, it was obvious a four team playoff was a half ass measure before this season began. It isn’t “expansion fever” driving this, it is getting the damned thing right. You have to give each conference representation at a minimum and the change didn’t even do that. It will soon because the public loves the playoff to find a worthy champion and they are disappointed it wasn’t accomplished, and we know that in advance.
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Search the archives for Dan Wetzel and you’ll find plenty on both.
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Agree, there are those who mention the 1AA system but just never heard anyone here seriously advocate that.
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Mac, you continue to be on the mark today. It’s the logic you use that can’t seriously be refuted. Could swear we talked all about this in some dream blog of long long ago.
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No one has proposed a 16 team playoff. That is totally laughable. It happens all the time, but I also never said it was just on this blog. There are folks all over the place that talk about 12 with 4 byes and 16 as well. Don’t kid yourself.
You know College Football has always been a very special sport. That is obvious from the people who post here and at other places. But college football was also a very unique sport with its great bowl games on New Years Day. Multiple fan bases went home happy at the end of the season and while the National Championship was nice to have…or nice to discuss if it was a split title. There was not an obsession with this national title crap.
The sport was different and it had its own traditions which made it so special. Now we are trying to put the peg into a square hole and make it different. Why? Because everyone else does it. Why exactly do we want it to be the same as the NFL or the NHL or NCAA Basketball? And by the way, have you seen ratings for NCAA Regular season basketball? No one cares until March. It wasn’t always that way. Duke-Carolina used to mean something. Now it is a yawner.
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The only differences that we have revolve around the word “Playoff”. Logic says only eight teams can satisfy that word in cfb. Otherwise, don’t have something called a “playoff”. Just let the media crown the Big10 Champs like they did for so many years.
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Let’s see if I understand you properly. An 8-team playoff is the perfect system because you say so. Every other system is wrong because you say so. Only your preferred system of a playoff can produce a “legitimate” champion because you say so. A poll naming a champion is illegitimate because you say so. Any person who has a preference that differs from yours isn’t serious and is an over the top reaction. And you’re actually being serious without any hint of self-awareness at the level of mind-numbing arrogance it takes to hold those views.
I suppose I could argue in favor of my opinions, but since they differ from yours, what would be the point? It’s your world and the rest of us are just living in it.
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If you did understand me properly (your opening), it would be a first. And arguing in favor of your opinions (your close) is pretty much all you do. Not well, but you are entitled like all others to an opinion. Seems you are the one who doesn’t respect opinions who differ, I generally make sure I state that in many of mine.
You and I have had exchanges on this very subject a few times and I would happily acknowledge good responses, you just haven’t made any interesting statements. As I recall, you actually said the playoffs would diminish the value of the regular season and that may be the weakest position I have heard for an argument against a limited playoff. The playoffs, even this 4 team version is generating more excitement and discussion than ever.
While I don’t usually find your opinions to make solid points I realize you just aren’t very good at evaluating people, or situations. 🙂 But I don’t make fun of you for it.
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As a hopeless Luddite who thinks we should just go back to the old bowl system, I was about to make some sort of smart ass remark along the lines of “why don’t we just skip the ‘regular season’ and go straight to ESPN wet dream play offs that include everybody (and with everybody getting a ‘playoff contender’ trophy).” But then it occurred to me with the clarity of one of those thoughts that become premonition: Georgia gets into this damn thing as the #3 or #4 team (as it would have, say, in ’02 and ’07 if memory serves) and wins it all. If (when?) that happens, I guess I’m all in on this play off thing! (But never, ever the 8 and then inevitable 16 teams.)
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We definitely would have been in the final 4 in ’02. We’re probably on the outside in ’07.
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That Georgia team finished 2nd in the nation after the bowls.
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UGA was #5 in BCS standings before the bowls. VA Tech and Oklahoma both lost in their bowls and allowed UGA to move up in the polls.
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UGA just has to barely win the east. Then it is a 3 game playoff to the for the whole burrito. Let Gurley rest until mid November. We’ve just about locked up the east. Keep Gurley in bubble wrap.
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In this scenario, it is simple to me. UGA is in, I do not care about the other 3.
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Ole Miss does not get by LSU.
MSU does not get by Bama.
MSU beats Ole Miss.
Bama goes..Unless Auburn beats Bama.
Possible that Ole Miss and MSU play each other with one loss.
Dawgs have to get by Gators and Wildcats on the road. Sorry, but I am not that optimistic yet.
And if Dawgs win out. 11-1. Where will the rankings go.
The Gurley watch moves to week three. And no news.
Not much coming out of Athens. Can the Dawgs just get some players totally healthy for the stretch drive.
But SEC West will add another chapter to who goes. Just do not see Bo Wallace moving the ball on LSU secondary…best in the West and the SEC…plus it is at night in Tiger Stadium and the Hat wants a sig-win..
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Aren’t Michel and Marshall available in two weeks?
Your scenario is plausable, but were you optimistic when we played w/o Gurley? Now you can be optimistic again. C’mon, just before season started several of us projected all wins and the only thing causing a doubt is the game-changing Gurley 58-yd td phantom “holding” call. Chubb has taken Gurley’s place on the team that was in the original optimism which floated well logically at the start of the season. Yeah, the teams change during the season, but so do we. Richt has kept the team apace for what was on the table from the beginning.
Before the miraculous reception of last year we have owned Auburn and we still do. Yeah, Nick can help get’em some points, but we will also score like champs on their D except this year we don’t have a Grantham D to keep Aub in the game. Ken is better, but still not in this Dawg team’s class. Gators,Schmators…..they just don’t have it, the program is in disarray and now they’ve cost me the only bet I’ll lose in four years with their name on it. The Gator fan (and alum) I bet with is actually chortling at FU’s losses and touted that UGA and FSU would slap hell out of them and he would win his bet. It takes all kinds, but this old fart’s heart is loving every minute of slush they throw on their program. The sarcasm he will have to live with for two or three years is worth it all. What a sad sad bunch.
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Sen., the Pat Forde article you linked also had a nice shout-out for CMR, as well as this nugget, which left me queasy…
“the Seminoles…will have to deal with Louisville’s No. 1-ranked total defense.”
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Likely nothing will work well. Trying to have a fair and practical college football playoff means mating practicality and fairness. I’m not sure they are compatable, yet it’s managed in the lower divisions, and even in high school football. What if we had a panel pick the four teams in the AAAAAA football playoffs in the state? Blood would be shed, that’s what. Four teams can’t get it done…fairly. There will never be a consensus among fans that the winner of a four team playoff is absolutely legitimate, (of course that is a problem in any system we think of or have used, but it will be amplified with this four team situation). What if UGA loses another game but goes on to win the SEC and then gets left out? Don’t think it can’t happen because it can. Maybe not to UGA, but to some team in some conference it will happen. This system will cause more ill will, hard feelings and resentment than the pre-BCS and BCS combined.
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Let’s add to the nightmare…with Archie sitting out, the committee is 12. Would love to see a split vote they simply can’t resolve. Who ya gonna call?
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I’d like to see how 4 teams works. Obviously if you go to 8 then it’s gonna be the five big conference champions have automatics and three wild cards. But I’ll say this, at least this way we will not have an Auburn 2004 situation, or a Penn State 1994 situation again. For that I’ll be grateful. If UGA is locked out, part of that will be our own fault for how we played at Scar.
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I miss the BCS, it should be the SEC vs FSU if they win out.
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