The committee is in a weird place. No matter who they pick for the final four they will be right and no matter who they leave out they will be wrong. An eight team playoff would solve this. 8) I don't think you can leave out the reigning undefeated National Champion. :?
There is no way you can make everyone happy. I do not think I would want to be on the playoff committee! There are so many valid arguments, that any decision made by the playoff members will be a nightmare. I think Alabama should step aside to help solve this dilemma? :wink:
Alabama and Oregon earned their way this weekend. Ohio State...wow what an impressive win. TCU..also won impressively, could have beat Iowa State by 70 or 80 if they had wanted Baylor...solid win and the only one playing a top 10 ranked opponent. FSU...not that impressive but how do you leave out the undefeated defending champion? Naturally I'd like to see Baylor or TCU get that 4th slot. But I'd understand if they gave it to Ohio State. Really too bad they didn't do 8 team playoff.
Don, I saw the wink but trying to look at this objectively, Alabama should be looked at along with all of the other one loss teams. FSU is the only team that did everything it was supposed to, that is win. The rest of us should be judged on whatever criteria has been established by the committee's charter. It should not change weekly but should be applied week after week. I guess we will see this afternoon. There are going to be a lot of unhappy people though. We have to remember though with the BCS we would only have 2 teams, not 4. 8)
I will say that if the Univ of Texas had had the season that either TCU or Baylor had nobody would be jumping them. You betcha.
Remember, they list 4 main criteria: SOS, conference champion, head to head, and comparable results. TCU played a tougher schedule. according to sagarin, they rank ten spots higher, and played twice as many top 30 teams. Both are conference champions. They did not play head to head. They both played Minnesota. TCU beat them by 23. OSU squeaked by them by 7. TCU only lost to a Top 5 team on the road. OSU lost at home to a bad VT team.
Apparently Art Briles got into it with the B12 Commish yesterday in the post game ceremonies. http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/11992137/baylor-bears-coach-art-briles-criticizes-big-12-co-champions-policy
They have a good case. But I will tell you that I watched that game and TCU was screwed in the last 1:30 of that game by the refs. The refs ingnored a PI call on the TCU 4th down, and then the exact same call went Baylor's way when they had to have a 4th down.
I don't know how much strength of schedule will factor into the decision. Here are the current Sagarin SOS rankings following this weekend's games: Alabama - 4 TCU - 40 Oregon - 33 FSU - 37 OSU - 52 Baylor - 56
I hope Baylor is punished for their ridiculous non con sched. TCU then falls out by losing to Baylor. That leaves me with OSU getting in if I was the committee... Guess we'll see.
I'm completely neutral and actually would prefer to see a Big10 team in the final four. However, it seems that everyone is focusing on one game, the final game. All season-long head-to-head comparisons between TCU and OSU appear to favor TCU. I posted the comparative schedule strength rankings above. Let's look at the losses. OSU's only loss was at home to the team currently ranked 50th by Sagarin (Va. Tech). TCU's only loss was on the road to the 7th ranked team (Baylor). Baylor's only loss was on the road to the 26th ranked team (W.Va.). As far as yesterday's games, believe it or not, Iowa State's SOS ranking by Sagarin is 10. Wisconsin's is 54. Kansas State's is 25. OSU's win over WI certainly is impressive, but is it enough to overcome the TCU's season-long statistical edge? We'll know soon.
Big 12 may have screwed itself by having co-champions instead of declaring Baylor the champion. These 4 are as good a choice as any. I still don't think Alabama deserved the No. 1 seed....but I'll take it. 8)
I got it like I wanted. Mostly I wanted FSU to have to face a real offense that will not relent late in the game... AND... they have to travel!