At -20 degrees, it isn't.
2016 NCAA football thread
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At -20 degrees, it isn't.
ummmm........
Extremely normal.
Are you sure? Pick it up . . .
ummmm........
Extremely normal.
Well, no, actually the pressure from lifting it will make it wet, but I wasn't actually doing science I was just playing along with your joke . . .
I suppose perhaps I needed a
there . . .
Perhaps I shouldn't expect so much . . .
I suppose perhaps I needed a
there . . .Perhaps I shouldn't expect so much . . .
ummmm........
Extremely normal.
Okay, so if what matters in the playoff era is how you're playing at the end of the year, should Louisville go instead of Clemson . . ?
Also, this week's 'the playoffs have made the regular season worse' rant . . :
If Alabama, Ole Miss and Arkansas all win today, Alabama could forfeit any one of our remaining SEC games without affecting our playoff chances . . .
So what's the first tiebreaker in the Big Ten after head-to-head . . ?
Also, this week's 'the playoffs have made the regular season worse' rant . . :
If Alabama, Ole Miss and Arkansas all win today, Alabama could forfeit any one of our remaining SEC games without affecting our playoff chances . . .
So what's the first tiebreaker in the Big Ten after head-to-head . . ?
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Every year there always seems to be one game where the Buckeyes just look like complete garbage and can't seem to do anything right. Of course, I also think the youth and inexperience of this Buckeye team is starting to show through. Having a tight game against a team like Wisconsin is understandable, maybe even expected, but to be in a tight game and lose to a team like Penn State is just unacceptable. This is a team that gets bludgeoned by every halfway decent team they play and the Buckeyes go in there and lay a fat stinky egg.
I think this really calls into question their ability to beat Michigan this year which means Alabama is going to cruise to another national championship. Because we all know Ohio State is really the only team in FBS that has any kind of real chance to beat Alabama in a playoff game and it's looking like the Buckeyes aren't going to make it again this year.
I think this really calls into question their ability to beat Michigan this year which means Alabama is going to cruise to another national championship. Because we all know Ohio State is really the only team in FBS that has any kind of real chance to beat Alabama in a playoff game and it's looking like the Buckeyes aren't going to make it again this year.
I'm still waiting to hear your reasoning on how regular season games in the BCS era were more important than they are now. Especially since every other sport has a playoff and the regular season in those sports aren't meaningless at all. At this point you really do sound like the crotchety old man who sits in the corner muttering to yourself about "back in my day..." The playoff system is objectively better in every single way, and it's only going to get even better when they expand it to 8 teams.
ummmm........
Extremely normal.
Ohio State lost to Penn State today, and it doesn't matter but would have in the BCS era. There you go, now you can finally move on . . .
The undefeateds . . :
Clemson -- Would need to lose at least two of FSU, Wake, Syracuse and Pitt before they even need to worry about tiebreakers. They would still have to get past the conf title game, but they are arguably the most secure playoff team atm . . .
Alabama -- passed our biggest hurdle with this Arky/Tenn/A&M stretch, but LSU and Auburn are looking like tougher games than they did a month ago. The conference title game will likely be an easier matchup than either of those, assuming we make it that far . . .
Michigan -- Penn State's win was great for Penn State, but didn't really do anything for Michigan. They can now afford to slip up once before the Ohio State game and still be okay, but they still have to win that Ohio State game to make the playoffs, so their path is not any easier than it was when the day started . . .
Washington -- One of the hardest teams for me to gauge. They've looked really good, but have a lot of losable games remaining, even before the conference title game. So they'll go fourth -- least probable of the most probable . . .
Nebraska -- Games at Wisconsin and Ohio State the next two weeks should do them in, and then they'd still have to beat the East champ in the conf title game. Gl, hf . .
WVU -- I'm maybe more surprised than I should be that they got past TCU today, but I still don't think they win the conference or that they would make the playoffs if they did . . .
Baylor -- The Big XII was probably smarter than they thought when they put the Baylor/WVU game on championship weekend, but I'd be very surprised if that game actually decided the champion of the conference. And again, I don't think Baylor makes the playoffs regardless of whether they win the Big XII . . .
Boise -- Tried to give it away this week, but failed. Two more chances with Air Force and a probable SDSU . . .
Western Michigan -- I thought Boise was going to give them a window into a major bowl, but it slipped away. Toledo is probably the biggest threat they have left . . .
No frontrunner in the playoff era, just four teams with the same shot. This year it is going to be the champs of the SEC, Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC, absent some truly extraordinary circumstances. And today's results didn't do anything to change projections about who those champs are going to be . . .
The undefeateds . . :
Clemson -- Would need to lose at least two of FSU, Wake, Syracuse and Pitt before they even need to worry about tiebreakers. They would still have to get past the conf title game, but they are arguably the most secure playoff team atm . . .
Alabama -- passed our biggest hurdle with this Arky/Tenn/A&M stretch, but LSU and Auburn are looking like tougher games than they did a month ago. The conference title game will likely be an easier matchup than either of those, assuming we make it that far . . .
Michigan -- Penn State's win was great for Penn State, but didn't really do anything for Michigan. They can now afford to slip up once before the Ohio State game and still be okay, but they still have to win that Ohio State game to make the playoffs, so their path is not any easier than it was when the day started . . .
Washington -- One of the hardest teams for me to gauge. They've looked really good, but have a lot of losable games remaining, even before the conference title game. So they'll go fourth -- least probable of the most probable . . .
Nebraska -- Games at Wisconsin and Ohio State the next two weeks should do them in, and then they'd still have to beat the East champ in the conf title game. Gl, hf . .
WVU -- I'm maybe more surprised than I should be that they got past TCU today, but I still don't think they win the conference or that they would make the playoffs if they did . . .
Baylor -- The Big XII was probably smarter than they thought when they put the Baylor/WVU game on championship weekend, but I'd be very surprised if that game actually decided the champion of the conference. And again, I don't think Baylor makes the playoffs regardless of whether they win the Big XII . . .
Boise -- Tried to give it away this week, but failed. Two more chances with Air Force and a probable SDSU . . .
Western Michigan -- I thought Boise was going to give them a window into a major bowl, but it slipped away. Toledo is probably the biggest threat they have left . . .
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Yes, it does matter. That loss puts Ohio State in a position where they absolutely MUST win all their remaining games and the Big Ten championship if they want to get in the playoff. That puts a lot of pressure on a very young and inexperienced Ohio State team that was already under a lot of pressure to begin with. That could force them to make even more mistakes and maybe lose another game or two which would certainly knock them out of the playoff picture. The thing is, you already know all of this though, you are just being willfully obtuse and arbitrarily saying "these games don't matter" and "the playoff picture hasn't changed at all" just so you can continue your nonsensical rant about how "playoff bad, BCS good".
Also, throwing out a little one-liner like that is starting to make me suspect you have no logical reason to say the regular season was more important in the BCS era and are just trying to dodge the question to cover up that fact.
ummmm........
Extremely normal.
No, I just recognize the futility of trying to reason with you. Consider what you just said in response to my pointing out yet another regular season game that would have mattered more -- in this case a great deal more -- in the BCS era than it does in the playoff era . . :
But in the BCS era Ohio State would have been in a position where they absolutely MUST win all their remaining games and the Big Ten championship if they wanted to get into the title game as soon as the season started. So all of the games between now and the end of the season would have had exactly the same value they have now, but the Penn State game and all the games that came before it would have mattered just as much. We as fans didn't need to wait for a team to lose before winning became important . . .
As you are expressing it, it is a fairly nonsensical position and when I've repeatedly asked you to clarify it with examples you have refused to do so . . .
Meanwhile, I've provided several examples of these newly meaningless games to support my position, including Ohio State/VT, Alabama/Ole Miss, Alabama/Ole Miss (again), Alabama/Tenn, Michigan/Wisky, Ohio State/Wisky and now Ohio State/Penn State, among many others. Note that I have identified most of these games before the results were known, precisely because it is the excitement of anticipating the game that is lost when the outcome has no consequence . . .
But in the BCS era Ohio State would have been in a position where they absolutely MUST win all their remaining games and the Big Ten championship if they wanted to get into the title game as soon as the season started. So all of the games between now and the end of the season would have had exactly the same value they have now, but the Penn State game and all the games that came before it would have mattered just as much. We as fans didn't need to wait for a team to lose before winning became important . . .
As you are expressing it, it is a fairly nonsensical position and when I've repeatedly asked you to clarify it with examples you have refused to do so . . .
Meanwhile, I've provided several examples of these newly meaningless games to support my position, including Ohio State/VT, Alabama/Ole Miss, Alabama/Ole Miss (again), Alabama/Tenn, Michigan/Wisky, Ohio State/Wisky and now Ohio State/Penn State, among many others. Note that I have identified most of these games before the results were known, precisely because it is the excitement of anticipating the game that is lost when the outcome has no consequence . . .
ummmm........
Extremely normal.
Fun fact . . :
There are still about thirty teams that 'control their own destiny' for their conference title . . .
There are still about thirty teams that 'control their own destiny' for their conference title . . .
ummmm........
Extremely normal.
Well I believe I'll answer my own question. Here is a nifty little bit from ESPN detailing the possible scenarios, which is interesting for a number of reasons . . .
While we're here, let's look at this week's biggest games and their potential playoff implications . . :
Clemson/FSU -- Playoff implications: none. They're in the same division, but FSU is two games back and losing to FSU would not negate Clemson's head-to-head advantage over Louisville, meaning Clemson's path to the divisional, conference and national title remains the same, win or lose . . .
Washington/Utah -- Playoff implications: none. They're in opposite divisions, so the result will not affect either team, who are both leading their divisions atm. Neither winning nor losing would affect the fact that Washington must beat WSU at the end of the season to secure the North. Similarly, Utah would fall behind in their divisional race for the moment if they lost, but whether they actually win the South will be determined when they play Colorado at the end of the season, regardless of the outcome of this week's game vs. Washington.
Wisky/Nebraska -- Playoff implications: slight. Wisconsin would still be behind Nebraska even if they win, but this is the last quality opponent Wisconsin plays while Nebraska still must play Ohio State. If both Wisconsin and Ohio State beat Nebraska then Wisconsin would win their division, and they have already proven themselves a worthy opponent to Ohio State or Michigan. If Wisconsin did find a way to win the conference title game once they got there, a two-loss Big Ten champ might open the door for the Big XII. That's a lot of ifs, and it might not matter even then since Wisconsin would have likely redeemed one of their losses in the conference title game, but it's the most impactful game of the weekend, so I suppose we'll have to take it . . .
Meanwhile, if you are looking for a game that does still have playoff implications you don't have to look past Thursday's VaTech/Pitt game, which will do a lot to decide which team will come out of the Coastal to potentially ruin Clemson's playoff hopes and open the door for the Big XII champ. While Clemson may have the easiest path to the playoffs of anyone, they also look very vulnerable so who they are playing in the conference title game is of some interest . . .
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The bigger the playoff, the less regular season games matter.
Ohio State losing does matter. Michigan already beat Penn State. OhSt didn't.
There are always frontrunners in every playoff. You just don't want to portray Alabama as the frontrunner because of the target it paints on their chest. They got all the AP #1 votes but one.
Ohio State losing does matter. Michigan already beat Penn State. OhSt didn't.
There are always frontrunners in every playoff. You just don't want to portray Alabama as the frontrunner because of the target it paints on their chest. They got all the AP #1 votes but one.
ummmm........
Extremely normal.
Yes, exactly. No idea why such an obvious statement created any kind of turbulence . . .
But that doesn't matter. If Ohio State had beaten Penn State, the winner of Ohio State/Michigan would have advanced to the conference title game. After Ohio State lost to Penn State, the winner of the Ohio State/Michigan game advances to the conference title game. No change . . .
Actually, I want to point out that there is no frontrunner bc I resent the fact that four teams are given the same opportunity at the end of the year regardless of how they actually performed during the season. The AP is only relevant to old folks like me, it has no bearing on the playoffs . . .
So because every single game doesn't have earth-shattering consequences, that makes the regular season meaningless? You do realize just how unreasonable of a stance that is to take right? You also still haven't addressed why a playoff makes a regular season meaningless in college football, but not in any other sport. And the reason you won't address it is because you have no good reason beyond some nebulous and vague reasoning of "well because every single game isn't 100% vital to a team's post-season hopes". The regular season in any sport is not meant to determine the champion (which you seem to think should be the case for some bizarre reason), but that doesn't make it meaningless. A regular season serves the purpose of creating a "body of work" that a team can present as their case for being allowed to play for a championship. It's about who did the best overall, not who did the best in one particular game.
Let me present this hypothetical scenario to you to illustrate my point: Team A and Team B are in competition for the final playoff spot. Team A has played 11 top 25 teams and one unranked team. They beat all the top 25 teams they played but had one bad game and lost to the one unranked team they played. Team B played nothing but unranked teams and even had an FCS team on their schedule and went undefeated. Are you really going to tell me that you would put Team B in the playoff over Team A? No, you would put Team A in because although they have one loss, their overall body of work is much more impressive than Team B's body of work.
And it shouldn't be relevant to the playoff. The AP (and every other poll for that matter) is nothing more than an opinion poll. They have no objective formula or criteria they use to determine rankings other than "well this team is the most popular so they must be the best". Who gets to play for the championship should not be determined by popularity contests, which is all the AP is. That's why when people say Alabama beat the 9th best team in the country when talking about their win over Tennessee, I correct them by saying "no, they beat the number 9 team in the country, not the 9th best team in the country."
ummmm........
Extremely normal.
That's bc this is the CFB thread, not the every other sport thread . . .
Well obviously we'll need to expand the playoff field to accommodate that potentiality. But your hypothetical is flawed, as you mention these terms 'ranked' and 'unranked' as if they mean something, when you know in reality those are just opinions. What we'll need instead is one playoff spot for each division champion -- conference champs won't work bc the conferences are too large for everyone to play each other at least once -- plus some wild card spots in case someone who couldn't win their division gets left out. If you count the independents as one division that's nineteen teams, or twenty-two if you count each independent as its own division. So add ten to thirteen wild card spots, depending, and that gives us a six round playoff where everything is decided on the field and no one gets a bye. We'd need to shorten the regular season to allow for that many postseason games, but conference title games would be unnecessary and games played between teams not in the same division would be meaningless anyway, so that shouldn't be a big deal. Maybe some teams would like to play exhibition games before divisional play begins just as a warm up, but I think that should be voluntary . . .
Plenty of other sports ride on opinions and have judges. Pass interference and holding calls ride on opinions. We try to take imperfections like this out of the sport, but the reality is, we can't just keep playing more and more football games until eventually every football player in America is having arthroscopic surgery or CTE.
Not really. There are actually clear definitions for what constitutes pass interference and holding, and any inconsistency in the calling is due to human error, not opinion.
Who's advocating for that? No one. An eight team playoff is perfectly reasonable and only adds one more game to the season. Even then, it only adds that extra game for the two teams that make it to the championship game.
Yet another cop out to avoid admitting your position isn't based on any kind of reasonable logic. The point was that playoffs haven't diminished the importance of the regular season of any other sport, so there is no logical reason to believe it has diminished the importance of the regular season in college football. But since you are going to be so willfully obtuse about this we'll put it like this: Every other level of COLLEGE FOOTBALL has had a playoff for decades now and it hasn't diminished the importance of the regular season, so why do you think a playoff diminishes the importance of the FBS regular season? Hint: it doesn't. Reality is simply not on your side on this one.
Now you're just being a drama queen about it. There are 128 teams in FBS and 125 teams in FCS. So I see no reason why FBS can't just do a carbon copy of the FCS playoff system. It works for them and they have a 24 team playoff. It hasn't extended their season to unreasonable lengths and hasn't diminished the importance of the regular season.
If FCS can handle a 24 team playoff, then FBS can certainly handle at least that much. Which means the current 4 team playoff is perfectly fine and there is definitely some room to expand the playoff before it even comes close to being a problem in terms of scheduling too many games.
ummmm........
Extremely normal.
I just don't have any interest in watching you derail the thread. There is little enough CFB talk as it is. I've provided simple, concise reasoning -- that you refuse to respond to -- and a plethora of specific examples that you also refuse to respond to. Why would I continue to take you seriously . . ?
You've actually gone full circle now so that I could make a post consisting of nothing but direct quotes from you bc you're actually arguing against your own earlier points, but again where is the value in that for me if you are willing to reply but not to respond . . ?
