Sorry michigan,try again next year :-)

The Coffee Shop
21

Imagine what would happen if you had two BIG 10 teams go undefeated but one got left out of a playoff.

You elimante that by making two divisions and having a conference championship game be mandatory. The Big 10 is done playing Nov 18. They can handle it.

Sometimes there will be occassions like in the Big 12 where Nebraska is playing Oklahoma for the Big 12 title, and Nebraska might be the 4th best team in the conference. But, if they win the game … they’ve displayed their prowess ON THE FIELD and Head-to-Head.

they have 65 teams and there is always complaining from the bubble teams about being left out.

I don’t think anyone REALLY takes the 66th team’s complaint that they “deserve a shot a to play for the title” seriously.

22

If Michigan’s losing to #1 Ohio State on the road eliminated the Wolverines, then Florida losing to #11 Auburn should eliminate the gators (using the same logic).
You know it always depends on whether you lose your game early or late in the season.

23

What if you lose during the middle of the season?

24

It’s horseshit. Apparently losing to Auburn is less important than losing to OSU. Urban Meyer also gets on my nerves as well. His open campaigning was not terribly classy.

Watching Florida play such a sloppy game against Arkansas doesn’t exactly inspire one to think they will put up much of a fight against OSU. Wojchiechowski at ESPN is reporting that Vandy (who played both UM and UF) said that UM was a better team.

This may be the only time I ever root for OSU. I hope OSU crushes Florida by 30. I was impressed that Tressel abstained from voting. It was a classy move.

25

they have 65 teams and there is always complaining from the bubble teams about being left out.

I don’t think anyone REALLY takes the 66th team’s complaint that they “deserve a shot a to play for the title” seriously.

When was the last time you payed attention on the day of the announcement of the tourney and the next couple of days? Every year their are teams that everyone thinks should be in.

26

First off - Thank You Bruins!

Second - What coach has argued loudest and longest for a playoff system? … That would be Urban Meyer.

Third - Coach Sweater-vest is going to be singing the blues come January 8th.

Fourth and final - Gators might not win pretty but we happy to pick up our 2nd National Championship within 12 months. Which reminds me that … Its Great To Be A Florida Gator!

27

I was impressed that Tressel abstained from voting. It was a classy move.

Was it really? I’m not so sure. I think he avoided having to put Michigan 3 to avoid playing them. He knows UM would give them a much better game. Troy Smith is going to rip Florida a new one. By not voting, he avoided putting himself on record as hurting his conference brethren, while also giving himself an easier road to a championship.

28

Yeah, he didn’t mind voting when the ballots were secret, but once they became public…

The question is, what will happen now? Will coaches refuse to vote when it benefits/affects their team?

29

I think he was damned if he, damned if he didn’t. I don’t think he wanted to look like he was controlling the system to his team’s benefit, which is the right thing to do. I have no doubt that Meyer would have been less scrupled about it, however.

30

Honestly, with all the talk about undeserving Florida is, it makes me wonder how important the actual results of the season, outside of win-loss records really are? It seems as if people just vote their preference or gut, and ignore the facts.
Honestly, with all the talk about *deserving *Florida, it makes me wonder how important the actual results of the seaon, outside of win/loss records really are. It seems like people see that: 1) Florida beat Vandy; and 2) Michigan beat Vandy; therefore, equal. This is the same with loss to OSU (@ OSU) v. loss to Auburn. It’s the quality of the games and Florida just had too many “lucky” things happen to be considered over Michigan’s BEAT DOWN of almost everyone on its schedule. I would expect this from the faulty computers, but these are supposed to be educated humans, and it seems like they were all listening to Gary Danielson’s ridiculous chart. Did anyone notice that Florida won @ South Carolina because of South Carlolina’s field goal ineptitude, or LSU’s turnover-itis, or notice that Vandy outgained Florida? Don’t people look at these things? It seems like the same people who defended Arkansas when they got trounced by USC (due to no McFadden, and it’s irrelevant anyway because it was earlier in the season) consider Florida’s fortunate victory over Arkansas as great (notwithstanding a 75% McFadden). It makes no sense. In the end, I am almost glad it turned out this way because if there was a OSU-UM BCS, then that would have settle nothing with regard to the SEC people. Now, when OSU smokes UF and UM smokes USC, it will be settled.

31

The “defend the fact I voted for Florida” campaign has begun in earnest. Jeremy Schaap(he who carries his father’s last name, and maybe 1/10000th of the ability and respect of his father) said “If Michigan wanted to be playing Ohio State, they shouldn’t have scheduled Central Michigan and Ball State.”

Two things: A)Western Carolina was already booked. B)Why did this become a problem not during the season, not right after UM lost to OSU, but after USC lost to UCLA and made a rematch quite likely? I think I am going to find out what cologne Schaap wears and buy stock in that company, because he has always ben full of sh!t, and is even moreso now, that he needs a lot of it to cover up the smell.

32

I agree. How can anyone even bring up the Ball State game in this context wihout it merely acting as an introduction to the true punchline … Florida’s “game” against D-**IAA **Western Carolina “whose two wins, back in September, were against something called Chowan and Eastern Kentucky (to go along with blowout losses to Elon, Wofford and Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University).” It’s sad that college football pollsters who were bright enough to criticize ND’s Charlie Weiss’ ridiculous posturing only a few weeks prior, but this time, they just ate up Urben Meyer’s whining. Is that what we want college football to become? If not, then we shouldn’t reward it. Aren’t their any Skinner-ists out there to agree that you will get/deserve the behavior that you reward?

33

every year their are teams that everyone thinks should be in.

I’m not understanding you point.

I already acknowledged that every year teams complain that they should be the “65th team”.

I was stating, “no one takes that seriously”. Once the tournament starts no one is saying "this is a fraud because the “17-14 team isn’t here”.

See the difference?

Teams in various sports will complain … that doesn’t mean all complaints are equally valid.

34

every year their are teams that everyone thinks should be in.

I’m not understanding you point.

I already acknowledged that every year teams complain that they should be the “65th team”.

I was stating, “no one takes that seriously”. Once the tournament starts no one is saying "this is a fraud because the “17-14 team isn’t here”.

See the difference?

Teams in various sports will complain … that doesn’t mean all complaints are equally valid.

Actually every year people are saying that people do take it seriously, all of the experts talk about teams that got screwed. In this case Michigan got screwed for not playing into December…plain and simple. By the way looking at the Sagarin ratings Florida had the 19th toughest schedule, behind Michigan, who was 13th.

35

Actually every year people are saying that people do take it seriously, all of the experts talk about teams that got screwed. In this case Michigan got screwed for not playing into December…plain and simple. By the way looking at the Sagarin ratings Florida had the 19th toughest schedule, behind Michigan, who was 13th.

We’re talking about completely different scenarios.

An anlogy to the 66th team not getting into March madness would be like people talking about which team got screwed out of the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsetta Bowl.

If the final four were decided by at large bids, then the discussion about the “5th team getting screwed” would be more along the lines of the BCS title game.

One discussion is for fun and to occupy airtime, the other discussion is highly relevant. No one is calling for the NCAA tournament to change because a 17-13 team won’t be “playing for the title”. That’s what I mean about “serious”. Debating the 7th Big 10 team or 5th SEC team getting in or not getting in isn’t really all that serious of a conversation.

As for strength of schedule, I was just repeating what they said on ESPN … it could be they were referring to only “strength of schedule among BCS elgible teams”. I don’t know exactly. I trusted their commentary over looking up all the information myself. It simply wasn’t worth the time investment.

36

As for strength of schedule, I was just repeating what they said on ESPN … it could be they were referring to only “strength of schedule among BCS elgible teams”. I don’t know exactly. I trusted their commentary over looking up all the information myself. It simply wasn’t worth the time investment.

How sad is it when you argue something using a specific point that you could not even be bothered to find out the truth.

37

Are you really suggesting that it’s sad that I hear something on the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” college football special, and don’t invest my own time to research to see if what they’re saying is correct … as if their my statistical analysis resources are somehow greater than theirs? When I post player statistics and schedule results from ESPN’s website, should I call the coach/AD at each college and verify before posting them? =) I know we get pretty anal about some of the discussions here, but calling it sad that I quoted an ESPN College Football Analyst is a bit much, dontcha think?

Not quite sure how Sagarin forms the strength of schedule rating. According to his numbers, Notre Dame played a tougher schedule than Ohio State, LSU, Louisville, Auburn, Oklahoma, Texas, etc.

By his rankings, Stanford played the toughest schedule with 4 ranked teams … #21 Oregon, #12 Notre Dame, #9 USC, #21 Cal (rankings at time of game).

It’s also clear that Sagarin uses end of year rankings or some other combo, because he has Ohio State listed as being 1-0 against top 10 teams. I think we can all agree they beat (at that time) #2 Texas, and #2 Michigan. How that doesn’t count as “2 wins against top 10 teams” I don’t know, because if Ohio State lost to Texas (and Texas stayed high ranking due to the win), it sure would count as a loss against a top 10 team.

So, teams like Ohio State get punished because their wins against Texas and Iowa destroyed those team’s seasons and/or top rankings. So, with his formula, the teams with the toughest SOS are the teams that LOST to ranked teams (pushing their opponents rankings even higher). Beating ranked teams actually hurts your SOS because they are destined to be lower ranked after the loss? IMO, that’s worse than taking the ranking “at that time”, even if they include (the dreaded) pre-season rankings. SO, USC gets credit for thumping top 10 Arkansas when Arkansas was an unranked team and McFadden wasn’t doing much.

The schedule doesn’t account for games played against teams that were tough early and then faded or suffered injuries (killing your SOS) or teams that were lowly touted early on but improved drastically as the year went along (signifcantly raising your SOS). Example, Michigan could have beaten #1 Ohio State, and then the following week Smith gets hurt and the Buckeyes lose the last games, fall to #11, and Michigan doesn’t get crdit for a win over a top 10 team. Weird.

IMO, that rating system gives too much credit to end of year rankings (the early season ranking drop out of his formula once all teams are “connected”), doesn’t account enough for rankings at the time of the game, and gives too much credit to playing games against teams ranked #20-#30. But, that’s just me.

38

After I posted about the Sagarin ratings I said to myself “I bet he will go read the Sagarin ratings and come up with some long diatribe about why they are all wrong” and I was right. Sagarin has been and is one of the most respected people in sports rankings. His power rankings are dead on most of the time. You can make every excuse in the book for Florida but what it comes down to is that Michigan got screwed for not having a season that goes further into the year. By the way if you watch ESPN enough you would know they have as much of an agenda as the voters did this year. They are always hyping the matchup they like instead of the one that deserves to be played…and it was sad that you could not be bothered to make the “time investment” (wow, it took me all of one minute) into something you are arguing so vehemently.

What it comes down to is that, based on all your posts in this thread, you will not listen to anything that might suggest that you are wrong about Florida deserving to play for the title.

39

I suppose I’m running in circles, but I heard a real good point about how the voting was rigged. Had USC won, does anyone believe Florida jumps Michigan in the voting then?

40

I suppose I’m running in circles, …
Same here. Still …

**but I heard a real good point about how the voting was rigged. Had USC won, does anyone believe Florida jumps Michigan in the voting then? **
Let’s take it even further following the pollsters seeming logic and practice to demonstrate how ridiculous it was … If the one-dimensional Arkansas with a 75% McFadden was able to actually play to its standard, thus, beating Florida, then who would have the pollsters voted to leapfrog Michigan? Boise State? Louisville? It reminds me of a court jury who, in the end, can base its verdict in any manner, including “We voted guilty becaue we didn’t like the defendant’s haircut.”