Rolling Stone vs ESPN

[Eli]

I still think there is a chance for zero sec teams making it though

 

[GTpdm]

As I sit here at the pub reading this thread, I look up at the TV to see the SECSPN "playoff committee top 25 show", and watch them place three SEC teams in the final four...

 

[Bruce Wayne]

It is hard to argue with a lot of the points made in both articles, but it is also hard to argue with the SEC's success record. As I pointed out in another thread, according to a 2012 article, their success has been more significant in bowls than in the regular season (LINK). Over that time, they actually had a losing regular season record against a couple of the conferences. However, if this article is accurate (LINK), over the last 10 years, the SEC does in fact have a much better record against other power conferences, especially the ACC:
SEC 112-65
ACC 60-101 (ugh)

They have also won 7 of the last 8 national championship games. While there may be some bias in getting there, you also have to win it once you do, and they have at an admittedly high rate.

While I do believe there is some bias at issue here, the other conferences really need to just step it up and start winning against them more, particularly the ACC. Lord willing, we will start the reverse of that trend in November.

Your arguments are completely irrelevant. Whether a conference has been the "best" by some arbitrary measurements over some period of time has no bearing on if it is the best in a given season or if it is actually top heavy or even in overall decline. The point of bias is that it constrains the bigot from understanding present or continuing phenomenon in accord with the reality of the situation.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Great article. One great point it makes is the point about several of the teams in the top 5 building their way up there by beating Texas A&M. Earlier in the season Texas A&M and a couple of other teams pushed their way up by beating South Carolina. Both of those teams aren't very good football teams yet they were the catalyst for the rise of other teams in the polls. The SEC and ESPN have basically perfected the art of over hyping the SEC teams to the point that if they do lose, then they are just replaced by the teams that beat them who are obviously great teams because they beat the other great team. Teams like SC and Texas A&M move into the top 10 and then are just replaced by teams like Ole Miss and Miss St when they lose to them. People think the SEC is so great because they always have so many top 5 or top 10 teams when in reality, it is nearly impossible for them not to when half their conference starts off there.

And all of this is completely relevant to the non sequitur claims of GTRX7 above. Since the bias exists the polls follow the bias and that leads to the designation and placement of teams in favorable positions at the end of past seasons as far as bowl games and mythical national championships go (it isn't called "mythical" for no reason at all).

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Here is the bottom line. Playoffs need to be expanded. Champ of every power 5 conf +1. Sec will get more than their fair share of the +1s but that will go very far toward crowning the best team every year.

 

[takethepoints]

Here is the bottom line. Playoffs need to be expanded. Champ of every power 5 conf +1. Sec will get more than their fair share of the +1s but that will go very far toward crowning the best team every year.

Amen, brother! The real problem here is that the playoffs have one round. There should be at least 8 teams in there. True, that means another week of football, but I doubt the players or coaches would be too upset about that. College administrators, oth, are another story. But they brought that on themselves, after all.

 

[stevo0718]

Great article. One great point it makes is the point about several of the teams in the top 5 building their way up there by beating Texas A&M. Earlier in the season Texas A&M and a couple of other teams pushed their way up by beating South Carolina. Both of those teams aren't very good football teams yet they were the catalyst for the rise of other teams in the polls. The SEC and ESPN have basically perfected the art of over hyping the SEC teams to the point that if they do lose, then they are just replaced by the teams that beat them who are obviously great teams because they beat the other great team. Teams like SC and Texas A&M move into the top 10 and then are just replaced by teams like Ole Miss and Miss St when they lose to them. People think the SEC is so great because they always have so many top 5 or top 10 teams when in reality, it is nearly impossible for them not to when half their conference starts off there.

It's funny I was just talking with my friends this weekend.

Imagine at the beginning of the year if we thought NC State was a legit top 10 program in the country. What would that say about the ACC? How would we perceive teams like BC, Louisville and Clemson. They would all be giant killing juggernauts...

 

[Northeast Stinger]

One of our regular commentators on this a few days ago addressed the SEC bias eloquently. To rephrase what he said, imagine that Alabama won the national championship. Now imagine that they also had the Heisman trophy winner leading their team. Now imagine that they were undefeated this year. Does anyone think for a moment that they would not be number one in the country this year? Yet FSU gets bumped by Mississippi State. Ordinarily teams that are number one get bumped because they lose, not because they are undefeated. The issue is not whether Mississippi deserves to be number one, the issue is that they have not earned a higher ranking than FSU and have been anointed king because they are in the SEC. The only team they have beaten that was really worth anything was Auburn and they struggled against Kentucky before pulling away later. Meanwhile FSU has played Oklahoma State, Clemson and Notre Dame. The only way you rate Mississippi State higher than the defending National Champion is if you are already subconsciously predisposed (brain washed) into thinking the SEC is vastly superior from top to bottom compared to any other conference. But if Mississippi went head to head with FSU I know who I would put my money on, regardless of what ESPN thinks.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

The basic problem is the same this year as it has been for the entire history of D1 college football; namely, the fact that there is not now nor has there ever been a legitimate playoff system as every other college sport at every level (and every professional sport as well) long ago established to determine a yearly "best team."

In that vacuum or void of no actual games in which the "best" teams play each other in a format designed to reward actual competitive excellence on the field of play, D1 college football has instead always empowered polls of coaches and media members. It is the athletic equivalent to "modern abstract art" which made the "critic king." There is no other sport which has functioned in such a brazenly dysfunctional manner as to take determination of which team is the "best" out of the arena of actual athletic competition and into the arena of public opinion.

Since this is the case, the logic of "public opinion" (in this case actually elite and not public opinion to be precise) prevails and that is a logic riddled with the impact of biases. In the run-up to the 2007 BCS mnc game the media echo chamber completely and blindly lauded Ohio State. I remember thinking "have any of these idiots even watched what Florida's defense is capable of?" The only reasonable outcomes to expect were a close win by OSU, a close win by UF, or what actually happened--and I suspected as most likely--a blowout win by UF. Whether the narrative is the greatness of the Big 10 and OSU in 2006-7 or the SEC and apparently every single program in it today, the problem is the sport itself has never developed an actual way for the "best" teams to play each other in a format that could actually determine a champion.

And don't try and claim that bowl records fill this need . . . the bowl selection process and assignment of teams to them is wholly at the behest of the dominant narratives (and profit interests) each and every season that begin well before even a single game is played. The same goes for strength of schedule.

Only D1 conferences have so far established a means by which to determine the "best" out of their group of 12/14or however many teams on the field of play. The sport as a whole still has no means of determining its yearly best. Because of this lack even talk of which conference is best is simply speculative.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

It's funny I was just talking with my friends this weekend.

Imagine at the beginning of the year if we thought NC State was a legit top 10 program in the country. What would that say about the ACC? How would we perceive teams like BC, Louisville and Clemson. They would all be giant killing juggernauts...

What about if you thought a mythical Fluke team was a legit team and could demonstrate it by Fluke winning Coastal twice in a row? Then get destroyed in the ACCCG and whatever bowl twice in a row? Would kind of show the greatness of the Atlantic team and bowl team. Come on people, out of conference games matter a lot in determining which conference is "better". That mythical Fluke team may have won Coastal due to scheduling and so could other teams in favorable post season match ups. But the fact remains they won they games they played.

To really know who is playing the best football at the end of the season, you need a much deeper playoff. Hopefully we'll get to the ideal (IMHO) of 16 teams at some point. Then it would be 14 SEC teams plus 2? (tic)

 

[inGTwetrust]

Hopefully we'll get to the ideal (IMHO) of 16 teams at some point. Then it would be 14 SEC teams plus 2? (tic)

The funny thing is, if 13 of those 14 sec teams lost in the first round and 1 won it all, it'd still be turned into how dominant the sec is!

 

[GTpdm]

To really know who is playing the best football at the end of the season, you need a much deeper playoff. Hopefully we'll get to the ideal (IMHO) of 16 teams at some point. Then it would be 14 SEC teams plus 2? (tic)

Nah--I'm sure that by the time a sixteen-team playoff is established, the SEC will have added two teams, anyway. That way, the playoff system can simply canonize the entire SEC, and we won't need to have all this "selection committee" melodrama shoved in our faces.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

16 team playoff means 5 additional games for the final two. That's an 18 game season counting conference championship games. I don't see that happening..... ever. I'd be thrilled with an 8 team playoff with conference champions mandatory plus a few wild cards. Make the championship playoff a contest of champions like it should be or don't do it at all.

 

[Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau]

I was watching game day this past weekend and Chris Fowler went on a little rant about how stupid everyone sounds saying that ESPN has a bias towards the SEC and how they have no say in the playoff system. He got a little heated and Desmond had to calm him down.

Yeah, but Herbstreit, Desmond, Eddie George, they have jumped in with both feet to be the shills for the SEC. It is the company line.

 

[Sheldon's]

I think there is some bias to ESPN, and I agree that some of the Key SEC schools have not played as tough a strength of schedule.

However, football outsiders, imo, has one of the best algorithms for ranking teams based on opponent-adjusted offensive, defensive, and special teams efficiency. Here's there current top 25:
View attachment 480

When did FSU and Miss St. lose a game?

 

[UgaBlows]

16 team playoff means 5 additional games for the final two. That's an 18 game season counting conference championship games. I don't see that happening..... ever. I'd be thrilled with an 8 team playoff with conference champions mandatory plus a few wild cards. Make the championship playoff a contest of champions like it should be or don't do it at all.

i think they would need to get rid of conf championships at that point

 

[TomOReilly]

Make championship week the first round to get to eight....making the 3 at large play that week too.

 

[GTRX7]

Your arguments are completely irrelevant. Whether a conference has been the "best" by some arbitrary measurements over some period of time has no bearing on if it is the best in a given season or if it is actually top heavy or even in overall decline. The point of bias is that it constrains the bigot from understanding present or continuing phenomenon in accord with the reality of the situation.

I think that is a fair point, but maybe a bit overstated. I agree that, what a team/conference did 6 years ago is completely irrelevant. However, while each year is "new," there is some continuity in college football from one year to the next because players stay 3-4 years and the coaches generally stay the same. FSU returned their staff, most of the team, and their Heisman QB. Given that, I think it is probably fair to take that somewhat into consideration when evaluating this year's team. Not as one of the biggest factors, mind you, but something. It is simply impossible to compare, for example, an ACC team to a Pac 12 team, and I would have no problem if the committee looks to that type of very recent history as one factor to help decide between two teams with the same record.

That said, I agree with CPJ that there should be no polls until at least week four, and there is absolutely no reason at all that there should be a championship poll before maybe the last week of the season going into the conference tournaments. Those early polls do nothing but establish the type of bias you are talking about.

 

[AE 87]

When did FSU and Miss St. lose a game?

Sorry, that's a byproduct of my copying the data in and out of excel.

 

[stevo0718]

I dunno, I am not a playoff person. In baseball the playoffs are a crap shoot, in the NFL the playoffs are who is clicking at the right time, NHL is who has the hottest goalie, and the NCAA's are completely random. I think playoffs don't determine the best team, but the tournament champion. Many times those are one and the same, but many other times they're two different teams. I do think the NBA playoffs do always have the best team win, and they do determine the true best team. Their playoffs just go on forever, and you can't fluke your way to winning a 7 game basketball series.

In my opinion, if you like college football because you want to find out who the champion is, you're missing the point. College football is about the regular season. The traditions, rivalries, homecoming, the fact that EVERY game matters, this is what sets college football apart from other sports. Determining the champion is the least of my worries, I am worried that the determining of the champion will screw up what I like best about the sport.

If through inevitable expanded playoffs we get to the point where you can lose 2-3 games and still be ok, the sport will have taken a big hit.