• The KillerFrogs

FWST: TCU's Patterson embraces new path to Big 12 title

SwissArmyFrog

Active Member
A head-to-head tiebreaker is a terrible, contrived way to produce a champion

No, it really isn't. And it makes sense in a single division conference. The nimrods on the CFP committee just didn't want to be bothered with actually making a tough decision...or the CCG argument was just a good excuse for 2014.

I do understand the money angle, though.
 

French Frog

Active Member
I am preparing for some real gamesmanship near the end of the season. Let's say a team wraps up a spot in the championship game, say OU for example, then they don't have to win the final game of the season prior to the Big 12 CG. I have the feeling some teams would rest their starters and key players in preparation for the championship game trying to insure a championship.

Maybe not but it just leaves things open to further manipulation of the schedules to gain an advantage at the end of an already long season. Such as Bama playing directional Alabama State U. at or near the end of conference play.
 

Endless Purple

Full Member
Just as possible with any other conference.
Yep, I don't think other conferences have it right either. That is why the Big 12 had the potential to have the top team be the champion, but they messed it up. Last year was the one year that pretty much any conference had the rules set up for a single champion as much as could be for a football conference.
 

SwissArmyFrog

Active Member
I am preparing for some real gamesmanship near the end of the season. Let's say a team wraps up a spot in the championship game, say OU for example, then they don't have to win the final game of the season prior to the Big 12 CG. I have the feeling some teams would rest their starters and key players in preparation for the championship game trying to insure a championship.

But if they rested their starters, and lost, they would fall in the rankings and while they may still win the Conference Championship, they would fall in the CFP rankings and likely miss out on the playoffs.

Of course, if they were not really in contention for the playoffs, then that's not an issue.
 

Endless Purple

Full Member
The round robin format doesn't produce a "champion" unless a team finishes with a better record than everyone else. Go check the history books of conferences prior to the advent of split division leagues. All co-champions claimed a conference title. A head-to-head tiebreaker is a terrible, contrived way to produce a champion, it's used because it's the simplest way to do it in circumstances where playing another game isn't possible.

Producing one champion isn't important, and conference championships, regardless of how you interpreted what the CFP says, matter very little. This game was added to make money and beef up the resume of our best teams. It makes some sense, but a better way to do it would've been to ban all FCS games and start from there and see how it plays out.

I would be curious as to what the better way is.
As to past titles, that was just how the rules were written. Last year, the head to head was champion if there was a tie.
Agree on last part, the CFP could have chosen TCU as the #3 team, but just used the lack of title as an excuse to put OSU in the playoffs and keep Baylor and TCU out. (Along with all the bad marketing and whining by the Baylor people in the press) They took the easy way out and not try to get the 4 best teams.
 

froginaustin

Active Member
I don't understand the basic complaint, rematch-is-bad, as I understand it. With cross-division regular season games, there's a chance of a rematch even in a league with divisions.
 

RollToad

Baylor is Trash.
I don't understand the basic complaint, rematch-is-bad, as I understand it. With cross-division regular season games, there's a chance of a rematch even in a league with divisions.
But right now there's a guarantee of a rematch.

And my foil hat says they want UT/OU.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
I would be curious as to what the better way is.
As to past titles, that was just how the rules were written. Last year, the head to head was champion if there was a tie.
Agree on last part, the CFP could have chosen TCU as the #3 team, but just used the lack of title as an excuse to put OSU in the playoffs and keep Baylor and TCU out. (Along with all the bad marketing and whining by the Baylor people in the press) They took the easy way out and not try to get the 4 best teams.

There's no reason to declare an outright champion, just do it like every league did until they split into divisions, call them co-champions....because that's what they are. Why should the winner of the HTH team's loss not essentially not count, it was a conference game just like all the others. In every other sport if two teams tie for the best record in the league, they either play it off with another game or consider them co-champions. In basketball if Kansas goes 16-2 in conference play with 2 wins over Oklahoma and Oklahoma goes 16-2, they share the regular season conference championship. And that's how it should be.

In your last sentence you're suggesting OSU wasn't one of the best 4 teams? Did you not watch them manhandle Alabama and Oregon in the playoffs? TCU fans like to point out that our hammering of Ole Miss was proof that we were one of the best 4 teams. Well, why can't that same logic be used for OSU? I've said this before, as everyone on here already knows I'm sure, but I don't know why OSU is the target of all the bitching. They had a better resume than Oregon, and I think pretty much proved they were a better team than Oregon. But nobody here wants to complain about Oregon, I guess because they don't quite fit the "ESPN is in the tank for the Big 10 and blue-bloods" narrative.

If anything, if the CFP committee should be getting ridiculed, it should be for having OSU #6 (or #5, whatever it was) prior to the last week of the season because they were clearly much better than that.
 

froglash88

Full Member
BS

They didn't deserve to be in the so called playoffs. It became an invitational right from the beginning.

The whole thing (with this [ Finebaum ]tbox committee) is fixed just like Delaney wants it. If we had a CCG back in '14 and beat Baylor, they still would have found a reason to put Delaney's team in.
 

Froginbedford

Full Member
BS

They didn't deserve to be in the so called playoffs. It became an invitational right from the beginning.

The whole thing (with this [ Finebaum ]tbox committee) is fixed just like Delaney wants it. If we had a CCG back in '14 and beat Baylor, they still would have found a reason to put Delaney's team in.

Baylor would have gritched for a third game to settle the 1-1 head-to-head record....
 

CountryFrog

Active Member
I don't know what the big deal is about a guaranteed rematch. Teams in the NFL play their division opponents twice every year and sometimes a third time in the playoffs. No one complains that it's not fair. The team that wins the playoff game moves on. Yes, the playoff game counts more than the regular season game. That's the point of a playoff game. There's nothing wrong with that.
 

HoustonHornedFrog

Active Member
In a scenario with Oklahoma State and TCU 12-0 and 11-1 on the regular season, with TCU winning the play-in game, and both ending the year at 12-1, is there a single Big 12 champion (in this case TCU for winning the extra game), or are the two co-champions, ending the conference play each with effectively 9-1 conference records, but the conference certifying to the Gang of 13 that TCU is the conference playoff candidate? I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I've slept most nights....


OK...just one more reason for me not to like this new format....It's all about the Benjamins, I know, but the regular season is relegated to less importance as a result, even if it should be TCU winning the championship game...basketball and baseball seem to recognize regular season championship as well as conference tournament champions....

There is nothing so prevent the Big 12 from recognizing a regular season champion in football any more than there is in basketball or baseball, but for purposes of the automatic bid in baseball and basketball it is the tournament champion that gets that nod not the regular season champ. Same thing with Football except for the fact that at this point being league champion doesn't get you an automatic bid into the playoff tournament (until the tournament expands past 4 teams).
 

ifrog

Active Member
I don't know what the big deal is about a guaranteed rematch. Teams in the NFL play their division opponents twice every year and sometimes a third time in the playoffs. No one complains that it's not fair. The team that wins the playoff game moves on. Yes, the playoff game counts more than the regular season game. That's the point of a playoff game. There's nothing wrong with that.

I read somewhere that there have been around 40 rematches between P5 teams in conference champion games. Why does everyone think that this will be unique to the B12?
 

Wexahu

Full Member
The rematch isn't any big deal, but I still think this game is unnecessary. The same thing could be accomplished by just beefing up OOC schedules, starting with not allowing FCS opponents. Instead of promoting the uniqueness of the conference because of the round robin format it's like we're the weak kid trying to be like the everyone else.

The Big 12, by having only 10 teams and having every team play each other, has the best structure of all. Promote that. Don't try and be like everyone else when a 10-team league makes it seem cumbersome and contrived to match what the other conferences do. There's a real possibility of teams playing each other in back-to-back weeks, which I'm pretty sure would be unprecedented in college football.
 

CountryFrog

Active Member
The rematch isn't any big deal, but I still think this game is unnecessary. The same thing could be accomplished by just beefing up OOC schedules, starting with not allowing FCS opponents. Instead of promoting the uniqueness of the conference because of the round robin format it's like we're the weak kid trying to be like the everyone else.

The Big 12, by having only 10 teams and having every team play each other, has the best structure of all. Promote that. Don't try and be like everyone else when a 10-team league makes it seem cumbersome and contrived to match what the other conferences do. There's a real possibility of teams playing each other in back-to-back weeks, which I'm pretty sure would be unprecedented in college football.

Why is playing in back to back weeks a bad thing? It's going to be a rematch. What difference does it make whether it's a rematch from the previous week or 10 weeks ago?

I'm also quite sure that it's not unprecedented.
 
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