The Case Against Ohio State

#1
VFL-82-JP

VFL-82-JP

Bleedin' Orange...
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#1
Forget the name Ohio State. Forget every pre-season expectation. Forget what you think you know about the team.

Now imagine a nameless team that has only played 5 games this season. Doesn't even qualify for its conference championship game, following the conference's own rules.

The team has beaten mostly really weak teams: one was 2-4, another was 2-5, yet another 2-5, the toughest opponent was 6-1 but is not a team normally associated with the top tier of the sport, and the final opponent was another 2-4. Combined, four of the five opponents have an 8-18 record this season. Almost the entire short season for this team, was against teams like that. 2-4 and 2-5 teams.

So let's pretend this team is in the SEC. Their five opponents (going by win/loss records) would be Tennessee...Arkansas...Mississippi State...A&M...and South Carolina.

If it were an ACC team, the five foes would have been: Florida State, Duke, Syracuse, Miami, and Lousville.

Does this unnamed team deserve ANY consideration for the college football playoffs? If you don't know their name, don't have a pre-disposition, do they?

I think not.

Five games, four of them against teams whose seasons have been more or less as bad as our season has been, that does not earn one admission to college football's most selective gathering. Not even in a weird coronavirus kind of year.

I don't think so, anyway.

But because their name is Ohio State, they'll probably get in.


p.s. Who do i think the four should be? Alabama, Notre Dame, Clemson (unless they lose to Notre Dame again in the ACC CG), and either Florida (if they win the SEC crown) or A&M (if Florida loses in Atlanta).
 
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#5
#5
It doesn't really matter. They need 4 teams. One should be Alabama assuming they win out. It doesn't really matter who the others are so long as they're pretty good.
 
#6
#6
I'll go a step further.

They don't deserve a shot to play for a damn thing even if they played every single game. You can't get a shot to play for a title playing that trash.

When Indiana, Northwestern and Iowa are the only other teams in the league who aren't a complete embarrassment, then you don't get shots at championships. And let's remember that those teams have the records they do because they are beating up on the other turds.

No, they need to sit at the kids table while the grown folks go handle business.
 
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#9
#9
Who has Alabama beaten, the whole SEC sucks!
Alabama boat raced Texas am and will do the same to Florida.
This conference is not tough at all.
 
#10
#10
TheFlash1971 said:
Who has Alabama beaten, the whole SEC sucks!
Alabama boat raced Texas am and will do the same to Florida.
This conference is not tough at all.
Click to expand...

Hmm. Compare Alabama's record this season against Ohio State's. Forget the names and the backgrounds, just look at the results on field. We'll call the two teams Crimson and Scarlet, to help avoid preconceptions.

Crimson is 9-0. Teams they have beaten include a 7-1, a 6-2, a 5-3, a 5-4, and a 4-4 record. That's four teams with winning records, and a fifth who would have a winning record except, you know, they lost to Crimson. Oh, and Crimson also beat the defending national champs, though that team has fallen quite far since last January's title. Three of the teams they've beaten are ranked; two are in the Top 10.

Scarlet is 5-0. Roughly half as many wins as Crimson. They've only beaten one team with a winning record, that team went 6-1. They've only played one ranked team (that same 6-1 squad). They haven't won against any teams in the Top 10.

That's the comparison.

So sure, you can say Bama sucks. Hating on Bama is fun.

But there's no comparison between the two performances. One is head, shoulders, midriff, and kneepads above the other.
 
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#12
#12
VFL-82-JP said:
Hmm. Compare Alabama's record this season against Ohio State's. Forget the names and the backgrounds, just look at the results on field. We'll call the two teams Crimson and Scarlet, to help avoid preconceptions.

Crimson is 9-0. Teams they have beaten include a 7-1, a 6-2, a 5-3, a 5-4, and a 4-4 record. That's four teams with winning records, and a fifth who would have a winning record except, you know, they lost to Crimson. Oh, and Crimson also beat the defending national champs, though that team has fallen quite far since last January's title. Three of the teams they've beaten are ranked; two are in the Top 10.

Scarlet is 5-0. Roughly half as many wins as Crimson. They've only beaten one team with a winning record, that team went 6-1. They've only played one ranked team (that same 6-1 squad). They haven't won against any teams in the Top 10.

That's the comparison.

So sure, you can say Bama sucks. Hating on Bama is fun.

But there's no comparison between the two performances. One is head, shoulders, midriff, and kneepads above the other.
Click to expand...

The problem is two fold...

First....the conferences are top heavy....like really top heavy. Yes, Bama beat some teams with winning records, but outside of Ole Miss not a single game was competitive. None were even really in doubt. Same with OSU - but the difference is the records of the opponents weren't as good. None of the games are ever really in doubt. I don't see this changing, ever, unless everybody is held to the same standards with rules and regulations. The days of cycling are over. When teams like OSU and Bama can sign buckets of 5-stars and rotate coaches every year and not drop off and meanwhile the coaches that leave are suddenly pedestrian - it's rigged. Team like Ole Miss get put on probation and the rules suddenly matter. It's the top dogs with maybe one outside team every few years squeaking in.

Second...the conferences and NCAA protect the blue bloods. Notre Dame gets to join the ACC for one year, and then Miami doesn't get a chance to even play them. The Big 10 changes the rules so OSU gets in the conference championship game. And I don't GAS what the Bammers and other say on here, the Gumps are protected from the office in Birmingham and can recruit and skirt regulations more than anyone else.

IMO - it has been clear, especially the last several years, that there is clear bias towards the teams that draw the biggest markets and make the most money. This year with COVID as an excuse it has gotten completely out of hand. The conferences and NCAA will protect the blue bloods and the rich will continue to get richer. It is not an even playing field and it's ruining the sport. The flat out changing of the rules to get OSU in is just plain hilarious.
 
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#13
#13
The CFP is a television show. The objective of any TV show is to maximize revenue via ratings and ad revenue. More revenue is generated by the number of eyeballs watching said TV show.

Ohio State brings eyeballs from the Midwest. Notre Dame brings them nationally.
 
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#14
#14
rjd970 said:
The problem is two fold...

First....the conferences are top heavy....like really top heavy. Yes, Bama beat some teams with winning records, but outside of Ole Miss not a single game was competitive. None were even really in doubt. Same with OSU - but the difference is the records of the opponents weren't as good. None of the games are ever really in doubt. I don't see this changing, ever, unless everybody is held to the same standards with rules and regulations. The days of cycling are over. When teams like OSU and Bama can sign buckets of 5-stars and rotate coaches every year and not drop off and meanwhile the coaches that leave are suddenly pedestrian - it's rigged. Team like Ole Miss get put on probation and the rules suddenly matter. It's the top dogs with maybe one outside team every few years squeaking in.

Second...the conferences and NCAA protect the blue bloods. Notre Dame gets to join the ACC for one year, and then Miami doesn't get a chance to even play them. The Big 10 changes the rules so OSU gets in the conference championship game. And I don't GAS what the Bammers and other say on here, the Gumps are protected from the office in Birmingham and can recruit and skirt regulations more than anyone else.

IMO - it has been clear, especially the last several years, that there is clear bias towards the teams that draw the biggest markets and make the most money. This year with COVID as an excuse it has gotten completely out of hand. The conferences and NCAA will protect the blue bloods and the rich will continue to get richer. It is not an even playing field and it's ruining the sport. The flat out changing of the rules to get OSU in is just plain hilarious.
Click to expand...
RJD, I don't think the B10 has changed the rules to allow Ohio State into the B10 CG. At least, not yet.

We'll see if they do. I think it could go either way, at this point. Indiana and the other "little programs" are probably banding together to fight an 11th-hour rule change.

p.s. Just a year ago, LSU was the national champ and Bama didn't even get into the SEC CG (or the playoffs). Sure, the big dogs get favorable treatment, but there are more big dogs in the SEC than just Bama. I'd count at least five teams (Bama, UGa, LSU, Auburn, and Florida) as favored children of the league in the current environment. (oh for the days when Tennessee was one of those....)
 
#15
#15
Lawrence Wright said:
The CFP is a television show. The objective of any TV show is to maximize revenue via ratings and ad revenue. More revenue is generated by the number of eyeballs watching said TV show.

Ohio State brings eyeballs from the Midwest. Notre Dame brings them nationally.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Naming a "champion" is a charade. This is only partly about finding the best teams. If the blue bloods run into a little bad luck then the rules are bent or decisions are made to correct for it. If it is anyone else, then it is just bad luck.
 
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#16
#16
VFL-82-JP said:
RJD, I don't think the B10 has changed the rules to allow Ohio State into the B10 CG. At least, not yet.

We'll see if they do. I think it could go either way, at this point. Indiana and the other "little programs" are probably banding together to fight an 11th-hour rule change.

p.s. Just a year ago, LSU was the national champ and Bama didn't even get into the SEC CG (or the playoffs). Sure, the big dogs get favorable treatment, but there are more big dogs in the SEC than just Bama. I'd count at least five teams (Bama, UGa, LSU, Auburn, and Florida) as favored children of the league in the current environment. (oh for the days when Tennessee was one of those....)
Click to expand...

What should really happen is Texas AM should play OSU this weekend. OSU doesn't want that though. They want the rule change and it will happen. The fact that it is even an option being considered is ridiculous.

Rules matter until they affect the ones that matter, then they are expendable. One or both of the following will happen for sure:

OSU gets in the Big10 CG and/or OSU gets in the playoffs. Because they are OSU.
 
#17
#17
rjd970 said:
OSU gets in the Big10 CG and/or OSU gets in the playoffs. Because they are OSU.
Click to expand...

I think the rule will get changed, so the rest of my post is hypothetical.

That said, I've talked with several colleagues that have connections to the CFP committee. To a man, they've all come away with the impression that tOSU will not get in if they don't play in the Big 10 title game. I think there's a strong contingent on the committee that feel that the Big 10 (and to a lesser extent, the Pac 12, which also has two unbeaten teams) dug their own grave with their initial response to the pandemic. The SEC, Big 12, and ACC all worked extremely hard to get a season played under the most extreme circumstances, and they've been way more successful than anyone had reason to expect. The Big 10 and Pac 12 created these weak, truncated seasons that had no room for adjustment or modification. What is going on with tOSU was easily foreseeable, but the Big 10 did nothing with that foresight. The majority opinion is that they should not be rewarded for their failures.

Take that for what it's worth, which may not be much.
 
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#18
#18
bamawriter said:
I think the rule will get changed, so the rest of my post is hypothetical.

That said, I've talked with several colleagues that have connections to the CFP committee. To a man, they've all come away with the impression that tOSU will not get in if they don't play in the Big 10 title game. I think there's a strong contingent on the committee that feel that the Big 10 (and to a lesser extent, the Pac 12, which also has two unbeaten teams) dug their own grave with their initial response to the pandemic. The SEC, Big 12, and ACC all worked extremely hard to get a season played under the most extreme circumstances, and they've been way more successful than anyone had reason to expect. The Big 10 and Pac 12 created these weak, truncated seasons that had no room for adjustment or modification. What is going on with tOSU was easily foreseeable, but the Big 10 did nothing with that foresight. The majority opinion is that they should not be rewarded for their failures.

Take that for what it's worth, which may not be much.
Click to expand...
Do we or will we every truly know why the Big Ten seemingly never wanted to play this season to begin with?

We know why they changed their mind about playing, because the SEC/ACC/Big 12 didn't follow their lead. But why were they seemingly hellbent on not playing from the start?
 
#20
#20
What’s the criteria for choosing the 4 playoff teams? Do they pick the 4 best teams or the 4 “most deserving”? OSU is probably one of the 4 best teams in the country, but they certainly aren’t one of the 4 “most deserving”. On the flipside I dont think Notre Dame is one of the 4 best, but they’re deserving in that they went undefeated playing a major conference schedule. I just think there needs to be consistency in the criteria for determine the teams. Most years it doesn’t really make a difference, but this year it will.
 
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#21
#21
Here's what I think about the idea of "deserving". If there was a 32 team playoff, then all the drama would simply be around determining who was the 33rd most "deserving" team. It's not about 4th place. It doesn't matter if you deserve to be 4th best or not, as long as the best team is in there. You can argue about which team is "the best" but with the system we have, there simply isn't room for 5 opinions. Historically, there hasn't be a problem that we ever had even 4 undefeated teams.
 
#24
#24
golfballs said:
What’s the criteria for choosing the 4 playoff teams? Do they pick the 4 best teams or the 4 “most deserving”? OSU is probably one of the 4 best teams in the country, but they certainly aren’t one of the 4 “most deserving”. On the flipside I dont think Notre Dame is one of the 4 best, but they’re deserving in that they went undefeated playing a major conference schedule. I just think there needs to be consistency in the criteria for determine the teams. Most years it doesn’t really make a difference, but this year it will.
Click to expand...


If it is the "best" teams then just go by recruiting rankings and who was decent the year before. Actually playing games and winning against good competition doesn't matter.

In reality, it is who has looked good and will bring the highest ratings. The committee can say what they want and go back and forth and have their little meetings but that is really what we are talking about.
 
#25
#25
Right. The eye test. Sometimes there can be confusion. For instance, let's say Clemson beats ND. Well, that would be confusing. Maybe Florida will beat Alabama. If that happens, the eye test is about the only measure left, and it's good enough.
 
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