CFB PLAYOFF FINAL AND NO SEC

[Heisman's Ghost]

I think UT, Miami, FSU and UNC don’t really have great talent as much as they have talent that is highly rated. Two different things. I have seen GT beat the 3 ACC teams mentioned and play Uga closer than Texas did in two attempts. Don’t get me wrong… all these teams have some players that would help us immensely.

OSU let UT hang around with stupid drive killing penalties. If they had been firing on all cylinders they would have beat UT as bad as they did the other UT in round one of the playoffs.

I see your argument but all of them have players and talent and money that bottom feeders cannot hope to get in a million years. Tech will never consistently get the level of talent available to FSU, UNC, and Miami. Not going to happen which makes beating them all the more puzzling until you remember that all of them have had a long history of underperforming especially North Carolina. I read once that even the fabled Coach Dodd feared going into New Orleans to play Tulane. Tech (in those days) had better players, better coaches, better this, that and the other but just about always played poorly. Seems that Tech won most of those games but Dodd was left fuming because for whatever reason, Tech generally did not play well against Tulane or Duke for that matter. Just one of those things. I bet how Miami's coaches felt about Tech down through the years have been like Dean Wormer at the end of Animal House regarding the Delta house "I hate those guys".

 

[Root4GT]

Here is how I have the current rankings based on how the CFP has played out so far:

12. Tennessee (sorry showing)
11. SMU (looked in over their head)
10. Boise State (Just never threatened or looked competitive)
9. Clemson (Clemsoned)
8. Indiana (Outmanned but did put up a good fight)
7. Georgia (Just never lived up to the hype)
6. Oregon (Looked totally out manned)
5. Arizona State (got more out of their talent than anyone)
4. Texas (exposed in the end)
3. Penn State (Pretty solid team but needs a better QB)
2 and 1 either or Notre Dame and Ohio State (Going to be a dog fight but OSU has more bullets)

Even though Georgia beat Texas twice I give Texas extra credit for winning 2 playoff games vs UGA's none.

To be honest, on any given Saturday our team could hang with any of these teams. Just not a big delta between the top 60 or so collegiate football teams.

Go Jackets!

Depth to get thru the grind of a 12 game regular season seemed to separate most of these teams. Fewer losses on bad days or when key players were hurt.

GT clearly struggled with that this season.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Depth to get thru the grind of a 12 game regular season seemed to separate most of these teams. Fewer losses on bad days or when key players were hurt.

GT clearly struggled with that this season.

To repeat what I posted a while back, depth is going to be crucial in the expanded playoff and even then one key injury could turn a championship team into an also ran.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Really not that much difference between the elites versus the rest of us this year.

 

[leatherneckjacket]

ND was only 5th because they couldn't have a bye

Notre Dane was seeded 7th. If you eliminated the two conference champs, they would have been 5th.

 

[Root4GT]

Really not that much difference between the elites versus the rest of us this year.

We won 7 games. ND will have won 15 if they win and OSU will have won 14 games. That is pretty significant!

 

[UgaBlows]

Really not that much difference between the elites versus the rest of us this year.

If Indiana and AZ St can do it we can too!

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

We won 7 games. ND will have won 15 if they win and OSU will have won 14 games. That is pretty significant!

But you really can’t point at several teams and say they’re miles ahead of everyone else. . Like most years.

 

[Root4GT]

But you really can’t point at several teams and say they’re miles ahead of everyone else. . Like most years.

True but the final four were all very good teams. It’s a grind to get that far. Most teams simply don’t have the talented depth to get there. All teams in the CFP lost key players yet only 4 got to the semi finals. They all played winning football with backups in key spots.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

True but the final four were all very good teams. It’s a grind to get that far. Most teams simply don’t have the talented depth to get there. All teams in the CFP lost key players yet only 4 got to the semi finals. They all played winning football with backups in key spots.

But no one picked them as the final four. Until after the fact. ND lost to misdirectional Illinois and at the time most people wrote them off. Same as OSU when they lost to Oregon. And Texas losing to Georgia twice.

 

[Root4GT]

But no one picked them as the final four. Until after the fact. ND lost to misdirectional Illinois and at the time most people wrote them off. Same as OSU when they lost to Oregon. And Texas losing to Georgia twice.

Come on. Preseason they were ranked: 1. UGA. 2. OSU. 3. Oregon 4. Texas 7. ND.

Week 7: 1.Texas 2.OSU 3. Oregon 5. UGA 11. ND

Week 10: 1. Oregon 2. UGA 4. OSU 6. Texas 8. ND

They have been up there all year!

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Oh so the final four were the top four all year? I get it.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Friends who haven’t been to a football game in years announced they are headed to Atlanta to see Ohio State. Didn’t tell them I would be pulling for Notre Dame but found it interesting that they would drive to Atlanta just to see a B1G team.

Yeah, I’m beating a dead horse, but I still think we would be amazed at the extra fans Tech would pick up if we were in the B1G. I think the uga fan base is pretty well saturated and there are fans looking for someone else to pull for.

 

[jgtengineer]

Friends who haven’t been to a football game in years announced they are headed to Atlanta to see Ohio State. Didn’t tell them I would be pulling for Notre Dame but found it interesting that they would drive to Atlanta just to see a B1G team.

Yeah, I’m beating a dead horse, but I still think we would be amazed at the extra fans Tech would pick up if we were in the B1G. I think the uga fan base is pretty well saturated and there are fans looking for someone else to pull for.

Heres what happens in atlanta if we are a bgi 10 team.

Big 10 transplants will buy season tickets and unlike UGA people they will literlaly go to every game wearing GT gear except when we play their team. (No historic rivalries means they all pick up a new team) We likely end up with a very favorable set of new "rivals" with purdue and northwestern and maybe rutgers. The academic block which we dominate most years. (3 wins) The big names will cycle through atlanta on home and homes in 6 year cycles (2 vs ohio state, then 2 vs michigan then 2 vs penn state) we alternate with the west coast teams in the same cycle. Adidas likely goes ALL in on us to try to keep us from going nike like the rest of the big 10.

most years we go 7-5 8-4 with a few bursts to 11 wins and big 10 title games if we can upset the big ones.

Hopefully with added moeny basketball picks up.

As for uga sidewalks. Defintiely Especially if we no longer played them at the end of the season but as part of a early eason big10 sec challenge. If we beat them they want us to win every other game to make their SOS better. if they beat us they want the same. Right now we are the obstacle to a good season at the end. If we are good yay but even if we have 2 losses we are a severe danger.

ALums of both schools should still hate each other though. hehe

 

[stinger78]

I am completely done with UGAg. We couldn't get a fair match-up with them if the Pope was officiating. I don’t even want to play another SECheat team, they have tilted the financial table so far their way.
If the ACC becomes unviable, we will need a total break with southern football to change our paradigm. I would give the B1G a thumbs-up knowing there’s a pretty sizable tilt there, too.

 

[JacketOff]

Oh so the final four were the top four all year? I get it.

Each of the final four and 6 of the 8 quarterfinal teams were ranked in the top 8 in the preseason. 8 of the 12 playoff teams were ranked in the top 15 preseason. The 4 teams that made the playoff that were not ranked in the preseason went 0-4 in the playoff. (Indiana, SMU, Boise, Arizona St.)

The only surprises in the quarterfinals of the playoff were Boise and ASU, and they were automatically placed there without playing a game. It’s not like the playoff was littered with upsets and small programs making deep runs. There may not be 1 or 2 teams head and shoulders ahead of everyone else like what has been common in the BCS/CFP era, but the large programs who have been elite in the past were elite again this year. The preseason rankings almost perfectly matched the playoff results.

 

[Root4GT]

Wait the GT Swarm says preseason predictions are made by lazy people who don’t bother to know anything. The Swarm is never wrong

 

[JacketOff]

Wait the GT Swarm says preseason predictions are made by lazy people who don’t bother to know anything. The Swarm is never wrong

I don’t think there’s a ton of merit in the preseason rankings. They’re basically just a guess based on who’s been good historically and especially who was good last year. It shouldn’t be a surprise that teams ranked high in the preseason ended up being good, they’re usually the largest programs with the biggest budgets and influence. This year’s preseason rankings also had some huge misses. Michigan at #9, FSU at #10, Utah at #12, Oklahoma at #16, Oklahoma State at #17, USC at #23. They also omitted teams like Indiana, South Carolina, Illinois, and BYU.

There’s an inherent bias towards the large programs in the preseason. “Well they’re always good, so they’ll be good again this year.” Compared to “they’re never any good, why would I vote for them?” Most years it works out, because the large programs who were good last year are probably going to be good again, but nobody really knows, they just assume.

The point of my prior post wasn’t to highlight the intellectual superiority of preseason pollsters, just to acknowledge that no matter the system, the programs that have been large and powerful will probably remain that way. They have the largest fanbases, which generally correlates to the largest budgets and influence in the media. I don’t really see any program that hasn’t been relevant nationally since the turn of the century really making a deep run in the playoff. It’s definitely good that the opportunity is there now, but the nature of football favors the bigger, stronger, faster, and better on paper team more often than not.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I don’t think there’s a ton of merit in the preseason rankings. They’re basically just a guess based on who’s been good historically and especially who was good last year. It shouldn’t be a surprise that teams ranked high in the preseason ended up being good, they’re usually the largest programs with the biggest budgets and influence. This year’s preseason rankings also had some huge misses. Michigan at #9, FSU at #10, Utah at #12, Oklahoma at #16, Oklahoma State at #17, USC at #23. They also omitted teams like Indiana, South Carolina, Illinois, and BYU.

There’s an inherent bias towards the large programs in the preseason. “Well they’re always good, so they’ll be good again this year.” Compared to “they’re never any good, why would I vote for them?” Most years it works out, because the large programs who were good last year are probably going to be good again, but nobody really knows, they just assume.

The point of my prior post wasn’t to highlight the intellectual superiority of preseason pollsters, just to acknowledge that no matter the system, the programs that have been large and powerful will probably remain that way. They have the largest fanbases, which generally correlates to the largest budgets and influence in the media. I don’t really see any program that hasn’t been relevant nationally since the turn of the century really making a deep run in the playoff. It’s definitely good that the opportunity is there now, but the nature of football favors the bigger, stronger, faster, and better on paper team more often than not.

It will be interesting to see what happens if teams like Alabama, LSU, and Ole Miss continue to fail to reach their preseason rankings, and other teams continue to surprise by outperforming the preseason rankings. I agree with you that the “have been historically good programs” is a heavy bias in the preseason rankings. A few years of a 12 team playoff might forces pundits to find different criteria for their prognostications.

 

[stinger78]

I don’t think there’s a ton of merit in the preseason rankings. They’re basically just a guess based on who’s been good historically and especially who was good last year. It shouldn’t be a surprise that teams ranked high in the preseason ended up being good, they’re usually the largest programs with the biggest budgets and influence. This year’s preseason rankings also had some huge misses. Michigan at #9, FSU at #10, Utah at #12, Oklahoma at #16, Oklahoma State at #17, USC at #23. They also omitted teams like Indiana, South Carolina, Illinois, and BYU.

There’s an inherent bias towards the large programs in the preseason. “Well they’re always good, so they’ll be good again this year.” Compared to “they’re never any good, why would I vote for them?” Most years it works out, because the large programs who were good last year are probably going to be good again, but nobody really knows, they just assume.

The point of my prior post wasn’t to highlight the intellectual superiority of preseason pollsters, just to acknowledge that no matter the system, the programs that have been large and powerful will probably remain that way. They have the largest fanbases, which generally correlates to the largest budgets and influence in the media. I don’t really see any program that hasn’t been relevant nationally since the turn of the century really making a deep run in the playoff. It’s definitely good that the opportunity is there now, but the nature of football favors the bigger, stronger, faster, and better on paper team more often than not.

I don’t know why this point continues to need to be made.