Here’s some food for thought.
Also…
Somewhat valid points, and also taking into account that the SEC starts the season with several ranked teams, so any win against said ranked team looks good on the computer scorecard or in things like FPI. If a conference like the ACC starts with fewer ranked teams, then any win in the conference looks lesser on the computer models than it would against teams like Missouri and Tennessee. In truth, neither have beaten a team worth a lick…same could be argued about Georgia Tech, though, and they’re pretty high up there in the rankings.
I’ll give credit to Miami, they did beat Notre Dame, who is now chugging along like a death machine after two early losses to start the year. But the question here is this…is the SEC overrated? Are we really a gritty team that’s notching quality wins, or are we just skating by against somewhat average teams that have a higher sticker price because of the brand alone?
Timothy makes a valid point about Missouri. They lost to the two best teams they played. On the other hand SO DID NOTRE DAME and no one seems to be counting that against them. Other than the two games they lost, ND’s schedule has been ridiculously easy.
That CFB Kings account is nothing but anti-SEC bias, period. Alabama beat 4 ranked teams in a row at the time they played. Nobody in the country can come close to that claim. I hate to say it, but that more than neutralizes the FSU loss. Alabama got treated badly by the committee this week after a 2 point loss.
All of this is why the committee still is garbage. I don’t care how many teams the SEC gets in. I don’t see any of the money that results.
There are too many teams to select the playoff teams off objective records (the NFL model), but the committee can’t or won’t see that the same record doesn’t mean a similar team.
The only way to remedy this is to have a BCS-like formula that selects the at-large teams – highest 5 conference champions plus the top 7 otherwise based on a formula everyone agrees to.
Take the 12 teams and seed them based on their appearance in the formula rankings.
Instead, we get these mental gymnastics that make no sense. What we’re going to get as a result is a 16+ team bracket where the argument will be about the 11th+ wild card.
Makes me want to puke.
Yes but bored office workers who don’t follow college football will get to fill-in brackets!
Fine post, ee…you are exactly right about this crap.
This is the right take. This bullshit overtakes the regular season as soon as they post the first poll. Here’s an idea. Why don’t we wait until it all plays out before having these debates. I know lazy sports radio guys and podcasters love the easy content, but I can wait a couple of weeks to hash out the ND/Miami comparison.
Exactly right in regards to Tech. You can say the same about Indiana’s and Ohio St.’s schedules, as well. At some point the eye test plays a part. It is a subjective system.
NC State just scored again on Fech’s defense.
I’ll stick with my impression that some jackass comes up with this every year and about 90% of the time some media anointed darling gets on the field with a decent SEC team and get’s biblically smote.
Not bothering looking up examples, just my $.02.
*gets*
FTMF and the flying pinky apostrophe…
Without those ratings/rankings, Mickey would not be able to advertise a top 5 or top ten game to those companies willing to pu$h their product$s into our line of $ight….
Valid points indeed but, what about all the past years of Big10 bias where Penn State was always ranked in top ten despite not having beaten any ranked opponent the previous 15 years or so thus giving Michigan and “A” Ohio state a quality top ten victory for the pollsters to fawn over?
Getting beat by FSU has consequences. IMO rankings don’t look at worst loss enough. Bama’s loss to FSU is the ugliest loss between, Bama, Miami, ND and BYU.
So if Bama goes to the SECCG, it looks like it would be a must win for them.
I’ll be pulling against Bama whoever they face.
I hate Bama too, but why only look at losses?
Bama beat UGA…What is Miami, ND and BYU’s best wins? That whole article was written to Dawgrade the SEC..
Can’t believe J.P. basically endorsed that piece of horse-shit.
I didn’t say ignore, I said look at it enough.
Bama has an ugly loss that stands out.
When you’re splitting hairs, sometimes you have to look at the big zit.
The 4 ranked wins offset the ugly loss. I would love to see Bama miss the 12 team playoff again, but I have to give the Tide their due.
It’s all made up and flatulent with the committee. They cherry-pick stats, eye test, or resume to rationalize the result they want.
My stance all along has been the committee should meet once … on championship weekend. That’s the only rankings that matter. ESPN wants rage-bait content, so we have what we have.
I understand what the committee did.
If I were on the committee my vote would have BYU and likely Miami ahead of Bama.
2 of Bama’s ranked wins are against teams that are now 3-3 in the SEC.
Hence the folly of the tournament. You can’t pick who’s best out of ~120 teams when they only play a small fraction of each other. Add in pre-season polls and it becomes a circle jerk.
I do think the SEC plays tougher football than other conferences, but their points are valid.
Remember, it’s all made up and flagellant.
There is a bit of a difference between a good team and a team with good players.
The SEC has LOTS of good players relative to other conferences so playing an SEC schedule is just a tougher deal week in and week out than playing Minnesota or Wake.
The nuance is that SEC teams should get more credit for handling their schedule than teams from other leagues. Doesn’t necessarily mean that Kentucky or Mississippi State are beating Miami or Michigan or Notre Dame.
In the end a 7-3 SEC team is going to have preformed better or more admirably and/or is more deserving than many 2 loss teams from lesser conferences.
In short, if you rank Indiana 2nd over Georgia and they’re playing at Jerry World Saturday you will not ALSO be laying your cash straight up on Indiana.
Unless you’re stupid.
Hence, rankings are a joke. Always have been. Always will be.
Unless and until voters rank based on:
Who would I pick between X and Y on a neutral field?
they always will be.
Exactly.
And polls are ALWAYS biased as hell. Until the biased human input is removed from whatever equation is used to rank/select teams, we’re going to see horse shit articles like this one, written by jealous anti-SEC jerks that are trying to accomplish with ink what in most cases can’t be accomplished on the playing field.
Hate or like Herbstreit..at least he was recently honest about the SEC’s strength.
It’s absurd to count wins against “ranked opponents” early in the season because those rankings are based on perception, not reality. Also, the media does have a bias towards the B1G and the SEC and ND. I think any team’s wins against ranked teams should be based on the current ranking, not what they were ranked early on. After all, FSU was ranked highly week 1 of 2024 and turned into a dumpster fire.
As for counting good losses, that’s how the committee justifies putting ND ahead of Miami even though they Miami beat them. It must be exhausting trying to go through such rigorous mental gymnastics to get your golden child into the tourney.
Good words, carolinadawg.
Agreed. Ranked when played is stupid. Rankings should not begin to matter until the regular season is over. Until then, rankings are subjective.
The AP and coaches aren’t going to stop the Top 25. Professional sports don’t have this because they have a limited number of teams where everyone plays a similar schedule.
The polls are actually a pretty good barometer for where teams across the sport measure up to one another. You have enough voters from a cross-section of the country to neutralize bias through number of voters in the poll.
The only objective way to select the teams would be to have a champions only format, but that would require such realignment of the sport that it would be unrecognizable.
It’s a valid question to ask. This season there are zero cupcake conference games. Every SEC team is capable of beating you especially on the road courtesy of the portal and NIL. Every other conference ls loaded with teams that just suck. There is no weekly grind. It’s much easier to get up for a real game once a month then sustain that weekly pounding that now is the SEC schedule.
3 auto-qualifiers for SEC and B1G, 2 for ACC and Big 12, 1 for Go5 and 1 at large (ND 🙄) for 12 teams or go to 16 and go with 4 more at large. 4 loss in conference teams lose auto-qualifier status with that spot going into the at large pool. Protect the SECCG and the B1G championship games by giving both participants auto-qualification. I’m sure the ACC and Big12 would scream. Now the committee can fuss over best of the rest but the top bracket spots are filled in by what happens on the field in conference play. Conferences determine their auto-qualifiers not the committee. Top P4 teams can schedule 1 big OOC game since loss would not likely hurt unless they miss auto-qualifier status.
There is no perfect system. The old computers had bias built in. Remember Saragin ALWAYS dawggraded us.
You drop the highest and lowest computer ranking to remove the bias. The polls are good measures of the teams because of the number of voters.
13 people in a conference room with a full hat rack outside the room have too much control.
There’s the problem, FPD…
Auto-bids…and bias.
It should be the 12 best teams with no pre-given bids to any conference…I don’t care if all 12 teams are from one conference or half are independent..it should be the 12 best regardless of who they are and what conference they play in.
This auto-bid system isn’t fair to Cinderellas.
To dismiss computer systems because the old one supposedly had bias is to accept the f’d up human biased system which is ridiculously biased and likely twisted by Mickey’s thirst for eyeballs = $$$.
Have a computer system..designed by MIT or some company in Taiwan or Malaysia that doesn’t have an ax to grind…or have three systems from three foreign places with a fourth to average the three results in December.
It’s very doable but won’t happen because the folks in the rest of the country don’t want to see a 50% SEC playoff every year. Mickey’s nightmare, too.
I hear ya, but…there’s no way to say who’s “best” with the small amount of data. 12 games across 120 teams just doesn’t clue you in on the “best” of the 3 loss teams. Computers will weigh San Jose and North Texas’ schedule equal to an SEC team. They don’t have a metric to fix it.
I’m contending that rather than determine this nationally, get back to “local” such as it is by letting the conferences sort it out. Within the SEC we know who’s best and have enough data. Same for B1G and maybe the ACC and Big12. Let conferences decide their best to send to the dance, not NY Times and ESPN bloggers.
I think we just need to be called overrated. The not “rat poison” is good. I’m not saying we are. I just want others to say it.
BTW Russ, I have been meaning to thank you for feeding my dopamine addition with all your likes.
Did someone say “Money”?
First three games of the season:
Old Dominion
Kennesaw State
Indiana State
Last five games of the season
Opponent A 3-7
Opponent B 3-7
Opponent C 4-6
Opponent D 4-6
Opponent E 2-9
Who schedule is this that is overrated?
I’ll take the Indiania Hoosiers for $500 Alex.
The mouse always wins, everything else is idle fodder