Before the Logic Poll is released, I have a bone to pick:
At the beginning of any college football season, there will be only a handful of teams who have a legitimate chance to go undefeated and guarentee a punched ticket to that National Championship game that everyone seems so hellbent on winning. Last year, among others, proved that you can indeed reach that game with a loss (or two!) but to guarantee your trip you must follow one simple rule: Win. Every Saturday.
The season began with the mighty, but oh holy hell how they've fallen. Georgia, USC, Ohio State, Florida have been erased from the top 2 - all having violated the first rule of a guaranteed Title Game appearance. Gone. Eradicated. The dream of the guaranteed trip is now out of reach, but the trip itself is still very tangible. Each team with one loss has the chance to regain that magical 2 spot, or, given the craziness we've seen recently, slip up to the 1 ranking and play a fellow rule-violater. How they accomplish that feat, however, is no longer up to them. The ranking Gods of the BCS are now at work, and their fates rest solely with algorythms and mechanics that I'm convinced nobody really understands, including the AP and Coaches - both of whom figure largely into the equation (I know that those polls are no longer included, but the various mechanics that make up the BCS still base a good portion of their reckoning on the traditional polls). Rankings, which until now - until the losses - were largely academic, now figure prominently in the actual destiny of those teams who have...well...lost.
The AP now ranks the one loss teams who were firmly within the handful of teams who could run the table as such, loss in parenthesis:
9) USC (unranked Oregon State)
11) Georgia (now #2 Alabama)
12) Florida (unranked Ole Miss)
13) Auburn (now #3 LSU)
14) Ohio State (now #9 USC)
My question is simple: Why is USC not being punished more for losing in terrific fashion to unranked Oregon State? I mean - even in the catagory of "unranked" Oregon State is probably the worst team up there on the board. Why is it that Ohio State - who lost on the road to the number 9 team in the country - is still ranked lower than Florida who lost to unranked Ole Miss at home?
Every year, there is an "insert alliterated cliche" weekend where a ton of previously top 7-ish teams get beat. That was last Saturday. Now the rankings, which until this point were largely academic, start to matter because frankly, the fact that Auburn is ahead of Ohio State could cost Ohio State a chance at the Title game in the future. Based on the "quality" of loss, the most recent poll should look more like this:
11) Georgia (now #2 Alabama)
13) Auburn (now #3 LSU)
14) Ohio State (now #9 USC)
12) Florida (unranked Ole Miss)
9) USC (unranked Oregon State)
USC should drop to the bottom, Florida should be more severely punished, Ohio State and Georgia should be moved up. I don't normally cry out about SEC bias, or that the "media hates Ohio State" but in this case, I think both Buckeyes and Bulldogs have reason to be pretty shitty at the most recent polls.
The fly in the ointment is the fact that USC beat Ohio State head to head. However, week to week results have never really mattered much, see Ole Miss' and Oregon State's absense from the rankings. Just because one team beats another on a given Saturday has never played much into final rankings - USC lost to a marginal at best football team in Oregon State. The media and coaches aren't punishing them for it, so they must still think that USC is a damn good football team. Why then, if bias against the BXI and Ohio State has nothing to do with it, are they punishing Ohio State so severly for losing on the road against a damn good football team?
I'm calling shenanagans on this whole thing...
Monday, September 29, 2008
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7 comments:
Relax....plenty of time for two unbeatens to remain at season's end. I mean, the Big Ten already has Penn State and...gulp...Northwestern.
(Throwing purple salt over my shoulder, avoiding ladders, hoping and praying NU can keep up their excellent play so far....)
True story Chad - and should probably have been mentioned in the actual post had I, you know, been thinking about anything other than "my point rulz!"
This whole thing goes to remote regions of irrelevant if two teams remain undefeated.
However, I would still postulate (you're a NW grad, right?) that a one loss USC team - at this point in the rankings - would get the nod over an undefeated BYU team. Shouldn't that be Georgia sitting at 9 instead of USC?
When it comes down to it, there is only one conclusion that can be drawn: the BCS is a load of crap and should be replaced with a playoff system, but never will because people like sponsors' money too much.
While quality of loss does have an effect on ranking, quality of wins (i.e. resume) is important as well.
Ohio state has exactly 0 quality wins, and one complete spanking by USC.
USC, on the other hand, waxed the #2 team in the country (and, perhaps not quite as relevant for a ranking such as this, they have a decisive head-to-head win).
@beauford -- good point, but teams with similar records routinely jump over other teams with the same record due to particularly impressive wins or losses. I think if Georgia gets thru the rest of its schedule unscathed and USC does the same, Georgia will be ahead of USC (and an undefeated BYU) due to who he plays....
That being said, I still think we see two unbeatens in the national title game. And while my brain says NU is not one of those teams, I do note that NU and Penn State don't play this season.....how about two Big Ten unbeatens as a scenario to piss off the entire SEC?
Chaddogg - I love it! We'll have a Northwestern vs. Penn State National Title game.
My biggest problem, and the point I concur most with Beauford on, is that USC simply did not fall far enough.
Keeping them in the Top 10 immediately after a loss to an unranked football team is a point I'd love to see argued, anyone who's going to support that point and then not have Georgia ranked ahead of the Trojans is likely contradicting their own logic.
The tough part is that in my own opinion, the whole transitive property simply does not apply. I can't sit here and say that Penn State should get an artificial boost because a team they waxed at home one week went out and beat USC another week.
I don't think anyone should argue that OSU should be ranked ahead of USC at this point, seeing as how USC thoroughly proved that they were a better football team in direct competition. What gets me is that anyone would drop Georgia below USC. Georgia has a victory on the road against a Top 15 opponent and lost to a team now ranked in the Top 5. USC beat a Top 5 team at home and lost to an unranked opponent. Without getting out the microscope, USC lost to a far inferior opponent, and the quality of their "big win" is not so much greater than Georgia's to make up that difference.
I agree that it's still early, but if USC manages to beat out several other one loss teams due to them playing exactly nobody the rest of the year, it's going to be mighty frustrating.