SEC armor - hypothetical results

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Schnauzer

Schnauzer

Pretty Sure You are Wrong
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I’ve long witnessed how the preseason rankings are so heavy in SEC teams, that it becomes difficult for those teams to drop out of the rankings. Rank em high, let them blow through digestible non conference opponents, and then let them mostly maintain their rankings when they lose because any losses are likely to other ranked teams in the SEC. The earlier in the season, the more hypothetical rankings are. With each week, there are more results to consider and the rankings become more objective.

With the playoff expanding, I’ve spent enough time on social media to see how consistently the SEC folk gravitate to hypothetical results over actual results, and how much this is based on the way they see team’s abilities related more to their accumulations of recruiting stars than actual head to head wins.

It really becomes obvious when you see what a tizzy they get worked into when they want to see Indiana out and Alabama in to the playoffs. Alabama hypothetically beating Indiana means everything. Alabama actually losing to Oklahoma and Vandy mean nothing. It’s like it didn’t happen because Alabama hypothetically beating those teams with their recruiting stars matters more than the actual game results.

It’s why I think many SEC people would love to see as few teams in the playoff as possible. Just count the stars and let two SEC teams play for the title. And if there are more teams in the playoff, pretty much only SEC teams and perhaps Ohio State are worthy.

Why bother with games at all?
 

You good man?

Aren’t you currently mad about hypotheticals about an SEC team?
 

I agree.

I loved watching Tennessee get blown out. I'm going to be rooting hard for Arizona State to beat Texas. For one of the few times in my life, I'll be pulling for Notre Dame to beat Georgia.

Over time, I've more than had my fill with the SEC/ESPN bullshit.

Whever I'm feeling down, I still replay the Gophers beating Auburn in the Outback Bowl.
 


Wins are hard and as you win they get harder. People forget about the psychology of the game.

You can’t allow more than one free loss to a team. SEC teams feel entitled to multiple losses not hurting them.

If you don’t wake up from a loss and you don’t qualify as a top 2 in your conference you don’t control your destiny.

No 1 loss P4 team should ever be left out. I’d argue that no 2 loss team that gets a second loss in a conference championship game should be left out.

When you have unbalanced schedules you have to reward winning games and not hypotheticals.

It’s a National tournament with 5 auto bids, I think they got it right.
 


Schnauzer said:
I’ve long witnessed how the preseason rankings are so heavy in SEC teams, that it becomes difficult for those teams to drop out of the rankings. Rank em high, let them blow through digestible non conference opponents, and then let them mostly maintain their rankings when they lose because any losses are likely to other ranked teams in the SEC. The earlier in the season, the more hypothetical rankings are. With each week, there are more results to consider and the rankings become more objective.

With the playoff expanding, I’ve spent enough time on social media to see how consistently the SEC folk gravitate to hypothetical results over actual results, and how much this is based on the way they see team’s abilities related more to their accumulations of recruiting stars than actual head to head wins.

It really becomes obvious when you see what a tizzy they get worked into when they want to see Indiana out and Alabama in to the playoffs. Alabama hypothetically beating Indiana means everything. Alabama actually losing to Oklahoma and Vandy mean nothing. It’s like it didn’t happen because Alabama hypothetically beating those teams with their recruiting stars matters more than the actual game results.

It’s why I think many SEC people would love to see as few teams in the playoff as possible. Just count the stars and let two SEC teams play for the title. And if there are more teams in the playoff, pretty much only SEC teams and perhaps Ohio State are worthy.

Why bother with games at all?
Click to expand...
The Pre-Seaaon ratings don't mean squat. CFP Committee doesn't even meet until Week 10.

It was plenty of time for Indiana to be Unranked (not even getting a Vote) to rise to #8 the first time the they convened.
 

RememberMurray said:
I agree.

I loved watching Tennessee get blown out. I'm going to be rooting hard for Arizona State to beat Texas. For one of the few times in my life, I'll be pulling for Notre Dame to beat Georgia.

Agree. I liked Norte Dame when I read about the Gipper in fifth grade, now I see them as entitled brats. But today they are the enemy of my enemy. Ohio will meet them in the champtionship and prevail.
Click to expand...
 

ESPN is employing the 24 hour news strategy to keep fans engaged.

Come up with a single issue "SEC is best!" where about half the fans fall on one side and half the fans fall on the other. Defend it tirelessly and use irrelevant data points and cherry picked outcomes (outrage drives engagement!).

You've now given fans a reason to tune in to the games and the punditry, even if they don't care about the teams in the game, their identity and points of view depend on it.
 

Schnauzer said:
I’ve long witnessed how the preseason rankings are so heavy in SEC teams, that it becomes difficult for those teams to drop out of the rankings. Rank em high, let them blow through digestible non conference opponents, and then let them mostly maintain their rankings when they lose because any losses are likely to other ranked teams in the SEC. The earlier in the season, the more hypothetical rankings are. With each week, there are more results to consider and the rankings become more objective.

With the playoff expanding, I’ve spent enough time on social media to see how consistently the SEC folk gravitate to hypothetical results over actual results, and how much this is based on the way they see team’s abilities related more to their accumulations of recruiting stars than actual head to head wins.

It really becomes obvious when you see what a tizzy they get worked into when they want to see Indiana out and Alabama in to the playoffs. Alabama hypothetically beating Indiana means everything. Alabama actually losing to Oklahoma and Vandy mean nothing. It’s like it didn’t happen because Alabama hypothetically beating those teams with their recruiting stars matters more than the actual game results.

It’s why I think many SEC people would love to see as few teams in the playoff as possible. Just count the stars and let two SEC teams play for the title. And if there are more teams in the playoff, pretty much only SEC teams and perhaps Ohio State are worthy.

Why bother with games at all?
Click to expand...
This is why Trump does so well in the Sun Belt. Lots of illiterate, diabetic, uneducated morons with no concept of reality.
 



The original post gets to a lot of my frustration with how college football (and more and more now basketball) handles selection. I hate the focus on predictive models. The point of sports is to earn it by actually winning games, not to produce stats that make a spreadsheet think you will win games.

Obviously, in pro sports, playoff fields are set based on record, with guaranteed spots and seeds for division winners. It doesn't matter if everyone in the country thinks you got lucky, wouldn't be able to reproduce your record if the season were replayed, and won't have success in the playoffs. The division winner structure also guarantees that a team with a claim to best team in the league (if you aren't the best team in your division, you aren't the best team in the league) still gets a somewhat favorable path to the title.

Obviously with how many teams are in college football and how unbalanced conferences are, you can't just compare straight records. But I've always thought the goal of the system should be to replicate that kind of selection process (your resume is based on how good you were at winning games, not whether they were convincing wins or lucky wins) while building in a strength of schedule component.

All of this is why I,for decades, have thought the system should be a 16 team playoff, auto bid for every conference, and a model (maybe the hockey PWR) that is only based on wins/losses (no predictive or margin of victory component). This would eliminate the possibility that the most deserving team is left out (even you are snubbed, you weren't the best team in your conference). The one caveat i guess would be independents, but that's their fault.
 

Ope3 said:
The Pre-Seaaon ratings don't mean squat. CFP Committee doesn't even meet until Week 10.

It was plenty of time for Indiana to be Unranked (not even getting a Vote) to rise to #8 the first time the they convened.
Click to expand...
The preseason rankings evolve and by the time the committee does meat, they usually aren’t far off from what has been developing with the rankings.

I’m not talking about Indiana’s ranking. I’m talking about the way the SEC teams ride their early rankings and that is how the sec folk always continue pushing their teams for playoffs even after they have accumulated multiple losses.
 

Schnauzer said:
The preseason rankings evolve and by the time the committee does meat, they usually aren’t far off from what has been developing with the rankings.

I’m not talking about Indiana’s ranking. I’m talking about the way the SEC teams ride their early rankings and that is how the sec folk always continue pushing their teams for playoffs even after they have accumulated multiple losses.
Click to expand...
I think you would be better off ignoring SEC folk.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
The original post gets to a lot of my frustration with how college football (and more and more now basketball) handles selection. I hate the focus on predictive models. The point of sports is to earn it by actually winning games, not to produce stats that make a spreadsheet think you will win games.
Click to expand...
The actual reality is that Indiana & SMU got in because they Won games, not based on any predictive model.

Ole Miss, Alabama and South Carolina lost more games. Miami (Fla) lost as many (as SMU) but didn't qualify for the ACC Championship. All 4 are Bowl Bound instead of CFP Bound.
 





There has long been a circular logic regarding the quality of teams in the SEC and the playoff is only going to make that more obvious. There are many seasons in which the media would view the top 3-4 SEC and top 3-4 B1G teams as equivalent, but teams 5-10 are where the media will tell you there is a difference. As a result, losses by top SEC teams to teams 5-10 are frequently forgiven or dismissed. Meanwhile, if Penn State had lost to the Gophers, I think there would have been meaningful discourse about whether they belonged in the playoff over Ole Miss or Alabama, who lost to teams demonstrably worse than Minnesota.
 

Schnauzer said:
The preseason rankings evolve and by the time the committee does meat, they usually aren’t far off from what has been developing with the rankings.

I’m not talking about Indiana’s ranking. I’m talking about the way the SEC teams ride their early rankings and that is how the sec folk always continue pushing their teams for playoffs even after they have accumulated multiple losses.
Click to expand...
Preseason rankings definitely skew the way early season games are viewed. Best example was last year when Colorado beat TCU, spurred a ton of hype in Colorado that was not deserved because TCU was not the team the preseason polls pegged them to be.

In the end the back portion of the playoff is going to be largely dependent on schedule luck. If you gave Alabama Indiana's schedule this past season they probably go 11-1 or 10-2 and make the playoff. Give Indiana Alabama's schedule and they probably go 9-3, 8-4 and miss the playoff.

And in both cases Alabama or Indiana loses to Notre Dame in the first round of the playoff.
 


bleedsmaroonandgold said:
The division winner structure also guarantees that a team with a claim to best team in the league (if you aren't the best team in your division, you aren't the best team in the league) still gets a somewhat favorable path to the title.
Click to expand...

The division winner structure also results in the occasional team with a losing record getting a high playoff seed while better teams are left out. Where I have more of an issue in the NFL with this, is the divisions are so small, you're not really winning much by beating out three other bad teams some years.

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
Obviously with how many teams are in college football and how unbalanced conferences are, you can't just compare straight records. But I've always thought the goal of the system should be to replicate that kind of selection process (your resume is based on how good you were at winning games, not whether they were convincing wins or lucky wins) while building in a strength of schedule component.

All of this is why I,for decades, have thought the system should be a 16 team playoff, auto bid for every conference, and a model (maybe the hockey PWR) that is only based on wins/losses (no predictive or margin of victory component). This would eliminate the possibility that the most deserving team is left out (even you are snubbed, you weren't the best team in your conference). The one caveat i guess would be independents, but that's their fault.
Click to expand...
You and I agree 100% on this. It's how every other level does it, and how it should be done. I think the one difference is the lower levels do seed regionally (I think) but I suspect that has more to do with travel costs and logistics than anything else.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Preseason rankings definitely skew the way early season games are viewed. Best example was last year when Colorado beat TCU, spurred a ton of hype in Colorado that was not deserved because TCU was not the team the preseason polls pegged them to be.

In the end the back portion of the playoff is going to be largely dependent on schedule luck. If you gave Alabama Indiana's schedule this past season they probably go 11-1 or 10-2 and make the playoff. Give Indiana Alabama's schedule and they probably go 9-3, 8-4 and miss the playoff.

And in both cases Alabama or Indiana loses to Notre Dame in the first round of the playoff.
Click to expand...
or usc beating lsu this year. florida was also so back in 2022 after they beat utah and was ranked 12th but went on to go 6-7. polls are whatever to generate commentary, dollars, debate but they should 0% be a thing anyone with half a brain cell cites as being meaningful before at least halfway through the season (unless its that the gophers are highly ranked and that it is very important and meaningful)
 


GophersInIowa said:
This take is insane.

Click to expand...
“I don’t want to hear about… wins”

Herbstreit and McDonough selling out to ESPN to this degree saddens me because I have enjoyed them doing college football for many years.

As long as this only ever stays as just talk, I can live with it. But if a 1 loss B1G team ever fails to make the playoff so a 3 loss SEC team can get in, I’ll implode.
 

Schnauzer said:
“I don’t want to hear about… wins”

Herbstreit and McDonough selling out to ESPN to this degree saddens me because I have enjoyed them doing college football for many years.

As long as this only ever stays as just talk, I can live with it. But if a 1 loss B1G team ever fails to make the playoff so a 3 loss SEC team can get in, I’ll implode.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I always thought Herbie was pretty impartial, especially announcing OSU games. This latest sellout episode from both of them is sad.
 

RememberMurray said:
I agree.

I loved watching Tennessee get blown out. I'm going to be rooting hard for Arizona State to beat Texas. For one of the few times in my life, I'll be pulling for Notre Dame to beat Georgia.

Over time, I've more than had my fill with the SEC/ESPN bullshit.

Whever I'm feeling down, I still replay the Gophers beating Auburn in the Outback Bowl.
Click to expand...
I have never routed for Notre Dame, until now. Beginning to be for ASU too
 

cant wait for the bracket to get set as was intended on august 21st by a bunch of morons like herbstreit and include 8 SEC teams, OSU Oregon ND and a team picked from a hat in the but only including FSU Miami and Clemson as any REAL cfb fan would understand given the wins don't matter.

this is arguably one of the worst takes of all time and that's saying something given how bad the garbage ESPN puts out has gotten
 

If the SEC is so hard to win in, maybe some teams should leave? I'll name a few to start... Texas, Texas A & M, Oklahoma
 

on top of this, since the cfp started, the title game has been decided by an average of 20.1 points and has given us a spread under 10 3 times.

guess indiana is closer to nd than the runner up has been to the national title 70% of the time
 

They were ranked where they were ranked, which was in the top 12. Indiana ended up losing by 10 to what looks like a very, very good Irish team. Tennessee lost by how much...? Herbie may be right...Vols should not have been in the playoffs.
 



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