College Football 🏈 Season is Here !!

Only two games left, so only 4 possible outcomes:

Washington 4/4 IN
Alabama 4/4 IN
Michigan 2/4 In if they win
FSU 2/4 In if they win
Texas 3/4 In with a Michigan or FSU loss
Georgia 1/4 In with both a Michigan and an FSU loss

1) Will the committee put Alabama in ahead of Texas?
2) How far does Georgia fall with this loss? To #6 at this moment?

QQ
 
I'd say going into these last two games, only Washington is a lock into the final 4.

Mich win and they are obviously locked.

I think the Florida St. Game likely won't mean much unless they win by like 30. They just likely aren't in even though they are ranked 4 now.
 
I'd say going into these last two games, only Washington is a lock into the final 4.

Mich win and they are obviously locked.

I think the Florida St. Game likely won't mean much unless they win by like 30. They just likely aren't in even though they are ranked 4 now.
For sure if FSU wins, they’re in. Even if by the skin of their teeth. No way an undefeated team from a legit conference like that is denied in favor of multiple one loss teams. As a Wolverine alum, I don’t have any skin in that opinion, other than I hope Mich doesn’t play any SEC team in the first CFP round.
 
For sure if FSU wins, they’re in. Even if by the skin of their teeth. No way an undefeated team from a legit conference like that is denied in favor of multiple one loss teams. As a Wolverine alum, I don’t have any skin in that opinion, other than I hope Mich doesn’t play any SEC team in the first CFP round.
Sorry but history is against that statement. Teams with qbs out drop rankings
 
Sorry but history is against that statement. Teams with qbs out drop rankings
I don’t know my football history well enough, but I would be curious some examples of an undefeated team from a power five conference not getting the nod in favor a one loss team. These teams are usually deep enough that a back-up qb isn’t an automatic death sentence. Tua sure stepped up for Bama a few years ago.
 
Only two games left, so only 4 possible outcomes:

Washington 4/4 IN
Alabama 4/4 IN
Michigan 2/4 In if they win
FSU 2/4 In if they win
Texas 3/4 In with a Michigan or FSU loss
Georgia 1/4 In with both a Michigan and an FSU loss

1) Will the committee put Alabama in ahead of Texas?
2) How far does Georgia fall with this loss? To #6 at this moment?

QQ

What about The Ohio State? Georgia losing to a one loss #8 Alabama is worse than OSU losing to #3 Michigan. Alabama losing to then #11 Texas is also a worse loss IMO.

Would have been a great year to put 12 teams in.
 
Ohio state made it in with their backup qb and then won the whole damn thing.
The backup’s backup, even.

Who once famously tweeted “I ain’t come here to play school.” (But went onto finish his degree during a brief stint in the NFL)
 
Well then, my earlier prediction leads to:

Michigan
Washington
FSU
Alabama (but maybe Texas)

Not as simple as I thought it would be, of course.

The deeper question in my mind is whether you go with the teams that "earned it," particularly an undefeated, ACC champion FSU, or do you ask a bunch of Power 5 head coaches, "Who are the four teams you would least like to play right now?" Pretty sure that list would look different from what I just wrote.

QQ
 
The following is not my prediction of the committee's choice, but how I would decide if I was on the committee.

At each step see if you are down to 4 teams, stop - and there is an intentional hierarchy to the criteria for example, saying you achieved #3 even though you failed at #1 or #2 is not relevant.
  1. Eliminate all teams with 2 losses or more. (sorry, probably some good teams on the list, but if we are saying best of the best, you have to win at a very high rate)
  2. Eliminate all teams who failed to beat at least two teams from the Nov 30 AP Top 25 (this cleans up teams that won a lot of game but had unimpressive strength of schedules)
  3. Eliminate teams that lost to another remaining team in the last 3 weeks of the season, incl. conference championship games. (I know this knocks out some great teams, but hey if you are going to be the best you have to win the tough games at the end of the season)
  4. Eliminate teams that lost to any of the remaining teams. (head to head is important)
  5. Eliminate teams that have one loss. (if I have to pick between otherwise great teams, going undefeated has to count for something)
  6. If you still have more than 4 teams, order the remaining teams by longest time since making the playoffs - and select the top 4. (I know this isn't great, but hey, it's college football not brain surgery -- fun to see new teams)

If after a step you have less than 4 teams - lock in the ones that did make it past that step and then go back a step and ask the generic "who do I personally think is better today" question to fill in up to 4. (I understand this isn't well-defined standard, but at some point you gotta make a call)

This year that means steps 1 & 2 would quickly get us down to:

Georgia
Michigan
Washington
FSU
Ohio State
Texas
Alabama

Step 3 would kick out Ohio State and Georgia. So we are down to:

Michigan
Washington
FSU
Texas
Alabama

Step 4 drops Alabama and the final 4 are:

Michigan
Washington
FSU
Texas


Alabama may be the best of the bunch, but losing to Texas and having 3 undefeated teams ahead of them keeps me from feeling too bad about the outcome. Georgia too might be a top 3 choice, but hey, they had their playoff game yesterday and lost.

As for next year - I think 12 teams will get in all the viable potential champions. I am sure ESPN pundits will spend countless hours arguing #12 vs #13, but who cares, all the legit contenders will be in the top 12. Hell, they squabble between #68 & #69 in men's basketball - it makes them money.
 
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The following is not my prediction of the committee's choice, but how I would decide if I was on the committee.

At each step see if you are down to 4 teams, stop - and there is an intentional hierarchy to the criteria for example, saying you achieved #3 even though you failed at #1 or #2 is not relevant.
  1. Eliminate all teams with 2 losses or more. (sorry, probably some good teams on the list, but if we are saying best of the best, you have to win at a very high rate)
  2. Eliminate all teams who failed to beat at least two teams from the Nov 30 AP Top 25 (this cleans up teams that won a lot of game but had unimpressive strength of schedules)
  3. Eliminate teams that lost to another remaining team in the last 3 weeks of the season, incl. conference championship games. (I know this knocks out some great teams, but hey if you are going to be the best you have to win the tough games at the end of the season)
  4. Eliminate teams that lost to any of the remaining teams. (head to head is important)
  5. Eliminate teams that have one loss. (if I have to pick between otherwise great teams, going undefeated has to count for something)
  6. If you still have more than 4 teams, order the remaining teams by longest time since making the playoffs - and select the top 4. (I know this isn't great, but hey, it's college football not brain surgery -- fun to see new teams)

If after step 5 you have less than 4 teams - lock in the ones that did make it past step #5 and then go back a step and ask the generic "who do I personally think is better today" question to fill in up to 4. (I understand this isn't well-defined standard, but at some point you gotta make a call)

This year that means steps 1 & 2 would quickly get us down to:

Georgia
Michigan
Washington
FSU
Ohio State
Texas
Alabama

Step 3 would kick out Ohio State and Georgia. So we are down to:

Michigan
Washington
FSU
Texas
Alabama

Step 4 drops Alabama and the final 4 are:

Michigan
Washington
FSU
Texas


Alabama may be the best of the bunch, but losing to Texas and having 3 undefeated teams ahead of them keeps me from feeling too bad about the outcome. Georgia too might be a top 3 choice, but hey, they had their playoff game yesterday and lost.

As for next year - I think 12 teams will get in all the viable potential champions. I am sure ESPN pundits will spend countless hours arguing #12 vs #13, but who cares, all the legit contenders will be in the top 12. Hell, they squabble between #68 & #69 in men's basketball - it makes them money.
The only counter I have is I don't think games against those in the remaining list after 1/2 should count until a very ending tie breaking scenario. So your step 3 and 4 idk about. Like what if team A is undefeated and team B was undefeated but lost to team A in the championship game on a blown PI call with time expiring. Both teams were ranked 1 and 2 heading into that game. Team A and Team B still are 1 and 2 and by your layout I think it eliminates them from the talk. Georgia would be the team this year that sort of follows this.
 
The only counter I have is I don't think games against those in the remaining list after 1/2 should count until a very ending tie breaking scenario. So your step 3 and 4 idk about. Like what if team A is undefeated and team B was undefeated but lost to team A in the championship game on a blown PI call with time expiring. Both teams were ranked 1 and 2 heading into that game. Team A and Team B still are 1 and 2 and by your layout I think it eliminates them from the talk. Georgia would be the team this year that sort of follows this.
I agree that late season "quality losses" are a challenge, but what happens if the semifinal game results in the same bad PI? At some point, a loss is a loss. I essentially treat the last few weeks of "quality" games as first-round playoff games. Not perfect, but it does somewhat mimic an 8, 12 or 16 team playoff framework.
 
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