Frogs #1 in this ranking - Strength of Schedule
- Thread starter FROGLEGHOP
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Frognosticator
Tier 1
Limey Frog
Full Member
This won't keep the committee from denigrating our achievements as needed. It never ceases to confound and depress me that when Oklahoma (or any similar team: Ohio State, etc.) runs the table they are categorically considered to be excellent, even though they never have to beat the toughest school in their league, namely themselves. But on the years when upstarts have the temerity to, say, lay 55 on Oklahoma, the blue-blood is having a "down year" and said upstart still "hasn't played anybody".
Auto-bids to the expanded playoff can't get here soon enough.
FWMOPIW, I think Georgia's demo job of Oregon is the single best win in college football, and Tennessee's wins over Alabama and LSU are the best pair of wins. I would have them #1 and #2, and TCU #3 ahead of Ohio State and Clemson. But, it's late October, so who cares?
Auto-bids to the expanded playoff can't get here soon enough.
FWMOPIW, I think Georgia's demo job of Oregon is the single best win in college football, and Tennessee's wins over Alabama and LSU are the best pair of wins. I would have them #1 and #2, and TCU #3 ahead of Ohio State and Clemson. But, it's late October, so who cares?
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Well, they played Notre Dame when they were #5. So we've played two ranked teams I guess. They didn't play an FCS school and their average win margin is 35 points.
It will all sort itself out because they have Penn State and Michigan yet to play, but do you think they are ranked too high by the AP and the coaches?
The bolded part might be one of the dumbest arguments I've seen on here, and that's saying something. So you penalize a team because they don't have to play themselves?
The bottom line is SMU is not having a good year and Colorado might be the worst P5 team in the country, and that is not going to do us many favors when comparing potential 1-loss conference champions. That would be the case for any team in that situation. That's just the way it is, you schedule an FCS school and if the P5 team you play ends up being terrible you're not setting yourself up to win many "tiebreaks".
An-Cap Frog
Member
Dogfrog
Active Member
We have beaten two teams that are still ranked. Ohio State hasn’t beaten anybody that is still ranked. Not sure your point.
HornyWartyToad
Active Member
So, guess which metric we won't be hearing about when the rankings show happens next week. I smell "EYEBALL TEST!" Also, "game control."
Limey Frog
Full Member
I think you're missing the point. I'm talking about the way that perception drives narratives and then feeds into rankings, determining actual outcomes of college football seasons.
People, including poll voters and CFP committee members, think of conferences as more or less 'tough'. But winning any given conference isn't an equal feat for every member of that conference. It's more impressive for, say, Northwestern, to win the Big Ten than for Ohio State to do so, isn't it? It's harder for TCU to win the Big XII than for Oklahoma to do so. But if Oklahoma is a 13-0 Big XII champion they'll be ranked ahead of, say, a 13-0 Clemson coming out of an ACC that is a dumpster fire. yet if TCU wins out we won't pass Clemson. Why? Because Oklahoma being good means the Big XII is good, but if Oklahoma is bad the Big XII is 'down'. That's the real circular logic employed, but it's the opposite of what actually makes sense.
This stuff matters. We're almost certain to have a 13-0 Big Ten champ. But you could easily get 12-1 champions of all of the SEC, ACC, Big XII, and Pac 12 at this point. Then what? Who gets left out, because one has to. If it's Oklahoma that's 12-1 it's not them, but if it's us you know what will happen. In fact it should be the exact opposite if we're ranking the comparative scale of achievement: we would have won a conference with Oklahoma, Texas, etc. in it, whereas from Clemson's perspective the ACC is kind of crap.
So, yes, I guess I am penalizing teams for not playing themselves. Except Aggy, which beats itself regularly.
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I think there is a very good chance if both TCU and Clemson win out we'll pass them. Why don't you let things play out before declaring what will happen? Let's see both TCU and Clemson go undefeated, and if they do, let's see what happens.
At one time the CFP was NEVER going to keep the Big 10 out of the playoff. Then they did it two years in a row. And then a G5 team had no chance of making a playoff. And then they did last year. So much projection based on emotion and little else.
The Frog to be Named Later
Active Member
So glad i have up reading wexs irrational defense of the undefensable wrt an OSU and the CFP comittee....
PineyWoodsFrog
Active Member
If** we make it all the way through, the committee will look at where our opponents are ranked at that time instead of where they were ranked when we played them bcuz that's just how thru treat us.
Limey Frog
Full Member
If we win out it won't matter because there won't be four unbeatens at the end. If we lose one, which is overwhelmingly likely, we won't pass Clemson because the entire ACC sucks. Declarations of future occurrences are, of course, nothing more than guesswork. I offer them only because this is a sports message board and it's Wednesday.
I hope you're right about the rankings, and I'd be thrilled to find out.
JogginFrog
Active Member
Game control is the answer here. I think TCU does get eyeball-test credit for its skill-position talent on offense and ability to score against quality opponents. But game control is one that TCU has to take on the chin. It's also an actual metric, unlike "eyeball test."
I'm less bothered about how this year's TCU team gets treated in the media (vs. 2014) because I think this team has more obvious flaws. It has also worked really hard to overcome those flaws, which will be the enduring memory of this season.
But in 2014, I really wanted to see how the Frogs would fare against CFP competition. I'm not there this year, so I am less invested in the arguments with/about the media. With a year or two of high-level recruits in the trenches, I'll be much more ready to engage.
When you say "the entire ACC sucks" you're doing exactly what you complain about other people doing with regards to the Big 12 when OU and UT aren't good. Why does the ACC suck? Because Wake Forest and Syracuse are winning and not Miami, Florida State or Virginia Tech?
I remember someone talking about how unattractive and boring a matchup between Wake Forest and Oregon State would be in a potential PAC-12 - ACC scheduling alliance. Well, last year those were two of the better teams in their conferences, why would that be so unattractive? Would Florida State/USC be better, two teams that finished in the bottom halves of their leagues? WF and OSU were better than both of those teams last year.
TopFrog
Lifelong Frog
Why at this point is it "overwhelmingly likely"? It is possible, it might happen, but overwhelmingly possible? It is tough for any team to go undefeated.
But here we are. We have won four straight games over ranked teams. We have a couple of tough road games left. Everyone is pretty good and capable. But sitting now at 7-0, having beat four straight ranked opponents with West Virginia, Tech (home), Baylor, Texas, Iowa State (home) left? I like our chances of running the slate if key players (Max especially) stays healthy.
Limey Frog
Full Member
I just attended a game last week between GT and Virginia. The Big XII has zero teams anywhere near that bad; that's objective evaluation of football teams. I don't care what their jerseys say. I'm dismissing the ACC because:
a) the bottom of the league contains multiple terrible teams, including Miami, actually, who I think is a disaster;
b) the then-second placed team in the conference just imploded against a top team in Clemson that was playing poorly at home and was begging to be put away, so the conference clearly isn't very deep;
c) there's really no solid group of upper- and lower-second tier teams, e.g. UCLA and Utah, and Wazzu, UW, and Oregon State in the Pac below USC and Oregon.
I don't care about prestige, I'm talking about which teams in the league I would fancy to beat their equivalent-placed team in the other leagues. I think I probably would take Wake Forest to play well and even beat the number two team in most other conferences. Below them, I wouldn't take anyone in the ACC to do that. And that's not because it is no longer 1999 in Tallahassee.
