(01-17-2019 04:25 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-17-2019 02:54 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(01-17-2019 02:34 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-17-2019 01:55 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(01-17-2019 01:47 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Restating what I said is "an answer" when your response to the data the first time I posted it didn't come close to addressing that data.

Heck, if we're building for a "worst case", what if we have a situation where five G5 champs are all unbeaten, with good OOC wins over P5, and the five P5 champs all have two or three losses, and the AP poll has four of the G5 champs in the top 5? What would be the reaction if say two unbeaten G5 champs ranked higher in the AP poll than a 9-3 B1G and PAC champs get left out of the playoffs because the P5 all have auto bids? That would be nuts.

So once we talk realistically, we look at the actual data, and that data shows that in the past five years, 24 out of 25 of the P5 champs would have made a "straight 8" playoff, and heck a G5, UCF, would have made it this year too. That doesn't scream "we must have autobids to prevent champs from getting screwed!" to me.

Heck, if we look at the two times that P5 champs didn't make the playoffs in favor of non-champs, they obviously didn't deserve to make it - Ohio State was clearly inferior to Alabama last year, and Penn State was clearly inferior to Ohio State in 2016.

There is literally no example during the CFP of a P5 champ getting screwed out of the playoffs in favor of a non-champ. None.

With only a 5 year sample it’s not necessarily going to happen. Look further back at years like 2008 and my scenario isn’t far fetched at all.

Your scenario on the other hand isn’t at all likely.

1) IMO you can't look back to 2008, because the selection procedure was different. In the BCS era the rankings were based on combining polls and computers that used their own criteria.

In contrast, the CFP teams have been selected by a committee that has been specifically instructed to give preference to conference champions. It's thus no accident that we've had more conference champs finishing higher in the rankings the last five year.

I’m talking about the way the teams finished prior to the bowls and how a potential selection committee would rank them for a playoff. Your objection doesn’t apply here as it’s not hard to envision a similar year occurring multiple times over the next 15 years.

Quote:2) We weren't talking about "likely" scenarios, you said "worst case", so I came up with a worst case that blew up autobids.

Realistic worst case then.

Quote:3) As for the counter-question, if it really doesn't matter one way or the other if their is an auto-bid or not, then there shouldn't be an auto-bid. Rules should have to justify themselves.

So you dodged the question and offered no year where a non champ got screwed.

The justification is that in years you have similar resumes and too many teams the favoritism should go to teams that actually won something objective rather than a subjective eye test.

So again- where are is he third beat non champ or 2nd best G5 getting screwed over the last couple of decades?

1) Rankings in both the CFP and BCS end before the bowls. We see a significant disparity in how conference champs were ranked during the last years of the BCS and during the CFP era. To me, that's easily explained by the different selection methods - the CFP method involves a charge to weigh being a conference champ as an important factor whereas the BCS did not. It's pretty clear the committee has done that - which people who value conference titles should applaud.

2) I didn't dodge the question, I rendered it irrelevant. There should be a justification for a rule. Your justification is, IMO, not a good one. As the CFP data show, it is a solution in search of a problem. All you've said to that is it could theoretically be a problem, but there's little reason to think it would ever be one worth mentioning. That's because we'd expect it to be more likely to be a problem with a 4-team playoff, because there are fewer slots to go around, than in an 8-team playoff, and yet it hasn't been a problem in the 4-team playoff.

E.g., had the two times in the past 5 years that a conference champ got left out in favor of non-champ, both conference champs would have gotten in to the playoffs had it been an 8-team setup, even without autobids.

One thing that I find strange about folks complaining about non-champs getting in over champs in an 8-team playoff is their apparent lack of concern over what happens in the real, existing 4-team playoff that we have right now and will almost surely have for the next 7 years. E.g, while it is impossible for all P5 champs to make the CFP playoffs, we could have a rule that says that champs must be ranked ahead of non-champs, thus ensuring that no conference champ can ever miss the playoffs because a non-champ got in instead.

But I've never seen anyone argue for that.

On #2 you are arguing for a less objective, less transparent, and more subjective system. I can’t agree.

On #3 you are willfully limiting your potential outcomes to a narrow sample of years on a pretty flimsy basis. Your conclusions will be similarly limited and IMO you turn a blind eye to years that present other qualifying scenarios.

Even within the playoff era there are issues with straight eight. 2018 is one where 2 loss UGA and Michigan teams that got blown out by 20+ would leapfrog Washington who lost each of their losses by 5 or less. In that scenario UW deserves to get one of those spots.

It also ignores 2017 where unbeaten UCF would be leaped by 3 loss Auburn and would have been the fourth team left out. Same with 2016 WMU who is six spots out and wouldn’t get a fair shake compared to a 3 loss P5.

Using a semi-autobid (3 losses or less) would make for better fields and an objective process.