Wait, what happened last weekend? Did Notre Dame play? I thought we had a bye? How many of you have to deal with the pity from your friends? That’s way worse than anyone rubbing it in, way worse. Oh well, onward and upward to another week my friends.
Top 11
1 Alabama (+1, 10-0, 31-24 W at Miss State)
Gutted out a tough road win to gain their 10th win for the 10th consecutive season.
2 Oklahoma (+2, 9-1, 38-20 W vs. TCU)
Surging forward and the only team, right now, I’d predict could beat Alabama.
3 Miami (+3, 9-0, 41-8 W vs. Notre Dame)
The Turnover Chain has magical powers.
4 Clemson (E, 9-1, 31-14 W vs. Florida State)
Fell asleep a bit against the ‘Noles but ultimately took care of business.
5 Wisconsin (+4, 10-0, 38-14 W vs. Iowa)
Completely suffocated an Iowa offense that scored a million against Ohio State.
6 Auburn (+5, 8-2, 40-17 W vs. Georgia)
The Tigers leap ahead to the top of the 2-loss teams with a big win over Georgia and close road losses to quality teams.
7 Georgia (-6, 9-1, 40-17 L at Auburn)
Stumbled hard on the Plains and will have the SEC Championship game to make a statement.
8 Ohio State (+4, 8-2, 48-3 W vs. Michigan State)
Embarrassed the Spartans and are now in the driver’s seat for the Big Ten East.
9 Notre Dame (-6, 8-2, 41-8 L at Miami)
Most likely out of the national title picture barring massive carnage.
10 USC (NR, 9-2, 38-24 W at Colorado)
Don’t sleep on the Trojans they could finish 12-2 this season and sneak up into the Top 5.
11 TCU (-4, 8-2, 38-20 L at Oklahoma)
Expected to rematch with Oklahoma and could torpedo the Big 12 playoff chances.
Next 2
Oklahoma State (+1, 8-2, 49-42 W at Iowa State)
Out of the playoff picture but firmly in the NY6 discussion with both Kansas schools remaining.
Penn State (NR, 8-2, 35-6 W vs. Rutgers)
Similar to Okie State, out of the playoff picture with a great chance of securing a major bowl bid.
Dropped out: Washington, Michigan State
G5 Top 3
1 UCF (E, 9-0, 49-24 W vs. UConn)
The Civil Conflict Trophy remains in Orlando for another year.
2 Memphis (E, 8-1, Bye)
A decent SMU team awaits this weekend, currently in line to face UCF in the AAC title game.
3 USF (E, 8-1 Bye)
A win at USF in 2 weeks would put the Bulls in the AAC title game.
You Were Bad
Toledo
The Rockets had a chance to lock down the MAC and break into the AP rankings. They lost by 28 to Ohio, instead.
Ball State
More MACtion as the Cards lose by 46 points to Northern Illinois.
Pitt
Allowed North Carolina their first ACC win of the season.
Notre Dame
Michigan State
Probably too much to ask Sparty to win this one. Something better than a 45-point loss to OSU would’ve been better.
Duke
Lost to Army which isn’t that big of a deal I was just wanted to mention the Black Knights are 8-2!
Florida
Defeated at South Carolina and now flirting with their fewest wins in a season since 1979.
Nebraska
They got Fleck’d by 33 points in Minneapolis.
Syracuse
Allowed 40 second half points to Wake Forest in a 64-43 loss.
Tennessee
Butch Jones now officially fired after a 33-point loss at Missouri.
Colorado State
Blew a 35-10 lead late in the 2nd quarter and fell to Boise State in overtime.
Week 12 Preview
Enemy Watch
Eastern Michigan (+3) at Miami, Ohio
California (+16) at #22 Stanford
Virginia (+19.5) at #3 Miami
Western Carolina (OFF) at North Carolina
Kentucky (+21.5) at #7 Georgia
Maryland (+16.5) at #17 Michigan State
Boston College (-21.5) at UConn
#19 NC State (+1.5) at Wake Forest
UCLA (+16) at #11 USC
If I really bet money I would probably have lost more on Stanford than any other team. Here I am again wondering if it’s wise to pick Cal and those points.
How surprised would you be if Virginia beat Miami?
Did you know Kentucky is 7-3 with a pair of close losses? As Vegas shows it’s a really weak 7 wins. I’m sure Georgia will be coming back with vengeance following last week’s loss.
Wake being favored at home over NC State makes me giggle.
The Rosen vs. Darnold bowl is sure to excite very few college football fans compared to NFL fans.
Too Close for Comfort
Syracuse (+13.5) at Louisville
A pair of awful defenses with potent offenses. Take those points!
Upset Pick of the Week
Texas A&M (+2.5) at Ole Miss
The Aggies can’t be this bad, can they?
National Spotlight
#24 Michigan (+7.5) at #5 Wisconsin
This weekend is pretty awful for our viewing pleasure.
So, I think Ohio State is going to make the playoffs with 2 losses with a November blowout loss to Iowa on their resume. I think we’re *finally* going to have a massive talk-about-it-all-offseason controversy. Here’s how:
Alabama defeats Auburn and Georgia knocking both conference foes out of the playoffs.
Oklahoma beats West Virginia and survives a rematch with TCU.
Clemson beats Miami in the ACC Title game and Ohio State defeats Wisconsin in the B1G Title game. Let’s say USC beats Washington State in the Pac-12 Championship but won’t get into the playoffs. So, before the league title games we should have rankings like so:
1 Alabama
2 Oklahoma
3 Miami
4 Clemson
5 Wisconsin
6 Georgia
7 Ohio State
Miami going 12-0 and then missing the playoffs would seem crazy but so would losing and still making the playoffs. The Canes will have the Notre Dame win, probably a quality Virginia Tech win (8-4 at worst, likely) and then a cavernous drop for a third-best with an overall thin resume as a non-champion of a conference.
If Michigan beats Wisconsin that would mean the Wolverines are going to be inside the Top 15 come next weekend and finish no worse than 9-3. Ohio State would then turn around and beat 11-1 Wisconsin. Even with 2 losses they’d have 4 wins over post-championship week Top 20 teams: Michigan State, Penn State, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Doesn’t this conference champion get in over Miami?
I think a final four of Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Clemson/Miami winner would happen to be the four best teams, so that’d be fine by me.
Plus then we wouldn’t have to play Ohio State in a bowl game. Bring on Wisconsin!
Yep not excited about a OSU bowl game. Just about anyone else is ok
I wouldn’t be super excited to play Auburn or Oklahoma either, but I think we’d have a chance in those games. Ohio State, on the other hand, would probably be justly favored by double digits.
I wouldn’t rank Wisconsin ahead of Georgia or Notre Dame. Yeah, they both looked bad but they both played top 10 teams on the road. Winning on the road is hard. So far in Wisconsin’s joke of a schedule their toughest road game was at Indiana. Notre Dame has actual quality wins. Iowa is a different team away from Kinnick Stadium especially in a letdown spot the week after Ohio St.
Not a crazy theory, but one that will ultimately be tested in the B1G championship game (well, neutral site).
I’m delighted to think we won’t play OSU. They have become the USC of our generation – superpower team with 1-2 head scratching losses each year.
Eric, I love the theory and it seems highly plausible to me. And I agree that if Miami loses the conference championship game, OSU seems like the stronger candidate to me.
I still don’t trust Oklahoma’s defense. If there’s an upset near the top, I think it’s going to be Oklahoma going down. Also, in that scenario, ND would potentially have 4 wins over top 20 teams (if Stanford hangs around despite losing to ND), including the Pac-12 champ (and I think USC would be ranked higher than any team OSU beat). I certainly don’t think ND is worthy of a playoff spot, but I don’t think OSU’s resume would be any more impressive than NDs.
Man it’s going to be wild to see what the committee does.
More to your point:
ND would have 4 quality wins (if Stanford stays in top 25) and OSU would have 3. But even more surprising is how many teams with winning records ND would have beaten: 8 (BC and Navy need to win a game they are favored in to make it happen and if it did 8 would be the most in the country as far as I can tell though it could tie Clemson with a win over Miami), while OSU likely would have only 5. Interestingly if Miami were to lose to Clemson they would have only 2!!! wins over teams with winning records (that’s how weak their schedule is). One loss I think drops Miami out of the picture.
I agree it could be wild because there will almost certainly be a two loss team in the final four. Honestly, it seems that for teams 1-9 there are relatively normal scenarios in which those teams could get in – especially if you consider a loss by Miami and Wisconsin would knock them out and be passed over by a 2 loss team.
Our best bet may be for Alabama to knock out Auburn and Georgia with losses. Clemson to beat Miami, OSU to beat Wiscon.
This would leave something like:
1. Alabama
2. Clemson
3. Oklahoma
4. OSU/Notre Dame
If Oklahoma were to lose in their champ game (how ironic that the year they would get in easily they start a champ game which actually knocks their team out) that would open a spot for both osu and notre dame.
There is a zero percent chance Notre Dame gets in over a one-loss Miami. You’re way overthinking that.
If we have any chance of making the playoff, it involves both Alabama and Miami winning out (or hilariously improbable losses, e.g. 1-AA schools beating schools ahead of us).
n.b. again a 1 loss Miami would have 1 quality win for the season and wins over 2 teams with winning records. ND would have 4 quality wins and 8(!) wins with teams with winning records. It’s hard to see a 1 loss Miami getting in over ND.
If there’s an argument make it but I don’t see it (unless 1 loss just negates all other factors which we know it doesn’t from wisconsin, etc.).
Edit: and 1 loss would mean no ACC champ. A non-conference champ with such a weak schedule and a late loss would move behind ND.
I saw the argument the first time. All that is way, way trumped by 41-8 in a head-to-head matchup AND one fewer loss by the winning team. If we’d gotten killed by a common opponent instead of the team itself, it might be an interesting discussion, and you might be right in that case based on the strength of schedule. But with the head-to-head involved, that’d be a no-brainer. It would be somewhat surprising for the Committee to rank Miami behind us if they somehow lost two games down the stretch, but at least that’d be plausible. With one loss, no chance.
At the end of the year, the head to head matters when comparing equal teams. But with those resumes so vastly different the head to head won’t be the deal breaker.
If Miami lost TWO games they would clearly be ranked behind us.
If head to head were good enough – Penn St. would have gotten in over OSU last year because they beat them. But they didn’t because their resume was weaker.
Penn State won a close game on a fluky play and had one more loss than Ohio State (one of which was a blowout). Miami crushed us and, in your scenario, would have one fewer loss than us. Those are hardly comparable.
Ohio State over Penn State last year was a eminently reasonable thing to do, and I think most (non-Penn State) fans got it and thought it was right. If 2-loss ND made it in over 1-loss Miami, that would rightly cause an uproar.
Now you are making a different argument. And now presumably agree that’s it’s not just about head to head.
Now you add the one fewer loss which I admitted is where an argument would have to start but that’s not enough because teams with weak resumes and better in the loss column can still be several spots below teams with additional losses. And I already responded to the head to head that that gets factored in as one quality win for them and more as a tie-breaker but I don’t think it would be a tie worth breaking because of the resumes. Miiami would be treated more like Wisconsin has been with a good record but weaker than other teams with worse records.
The statement that it would cause an uproar begs the question.
It doesn’t beg the question – what the population at large will think about the rankings is a factor that helps determine the committee’s rankings. The Committee doesn’t operate in a vacuum. The CFP needs legitimacy, and picking a Notre Dame team that got rocked by Miami, especially when that Miami team has fewer losses, would justifiably render it illegitimate in the eyes of most disinterested observers.
I think the ND-Georgia thing would have been an interesting debate given the closeness of that game, and, while I thought 1-loss UGA (even with a later-in-the-season-loss) would have gotten in over 1-loss ND, I recognize it was a close question. Your scenario isn’t.
I take your point that, in the abstract, this could be an interesting question given the discrepancy in resumes. I’m telling you that, grounded in reality, it is not an interesting question. 2-loss champ Ohio State will probably get in over 1-loss Miami, but 2-loss Notre Dame absolutely will not (and will not be ranked ahead of 1-loss Miami either).
No where does the committee explain that they need validity so they follow what the population thinks about things.
You’ve offered no evidence for your claim other than most people will think its wrong to have a 1 loss Miami ahead of ND.
I think the null hypothesis is that the 2-loss team that lost by almost 5 touchdowns to a 1-loss team is going to be ranked behind the 1-loss team, so I don’t think I really need to put forward evidence for my (totally obvious and frankly uninteresting, IMO) claim. And, as far as I know, there is no evidence for your position.
To be clear, I’m not disputing that teams can be ranked behind teams with more losses than them, because, well, look at the poll. I am disputing that teams will be ranked behind teams with more losses than them that absolutely destroyed them. I’m pretty sure that hasn’t happened in the history of the CFP.
In fact, I would actually be very surprised to hear of any poll in the last 30 years where that situation presented itself and the 2-loss team was ranked ahead of the 1-loss team that beat it by 30+ points, and that’s with full knowledge that the Coaches Poll can be very weird.
So that’s what begging the question is. When you think your conclusion is self-evident (and its not however obvious it is to you) and requires no evidence you simply assume your conclusion.
I have presented evidence as a comparison of both team’s resumes. You say the resumes don’t matter; one team has one less loss and beat the other team badly end of story. I say the committee (totally different than how polls have behaved in the past) want to look at the whole resume and will not be locked in only on the losses and the head to head. They will see the resumes look vastly different and could reasonably decide to put ND ahead of Wisconsin. I don’t think you are considering how the committee operates but only how the overly simplistic polls operate and have operated in the past. If it were just the polls then I would agree with you entirely, but the committee operates (and intends to operate) by looking at more than loss column and head to head. We are going to be dealing with a lot of unique scenarios for the committee this year and it certainly will be interesting how they apply their principles in ranking the best teams.
It’s not begging the question; it’s applying historical patterns and, basically, how rankings are always done. There are plenty of instances in the history of the Committee where a team with one more loss that got destroyed is behind the team that destroyed them (e.g., USC this year behind ND after we crushed them). There are zero instances of the inverse. Because that would be nonsense.
I feel like this guy – https://xkcd.com/386/
There are only 3 years so not much to go on – not “plenty” of examples. And the question isn’t what you said but you have to ask how many of those instances in which the team got beat had in the end a far superior resume.
You could simply name one example that is like this with the vastly diverse resumes but you haven’t. In such an example you’d have to compare both quality wins (top 25 at end of year) and wins against teams with winning records.
So you haven’t shown that there is historical precedent that’s why its all assumptions without much evidence.
And they try to say that the playoffs would ruin the regular season! Nd09 v irishchamp is an example of how the playoffs heightens the intrigue. Could you imagine ND having a whiff of a chance making the BCS championship as a 2 loss team?! Ahh, life is good…
Now, if we would just be undefeated!!!