re: SIAP UCF to hang a national championship banner in their stadium

Ok? Ole miss has a few illigitimate banners hung as well. They don't mean shite bc everyone knows they're bogus as frick.

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I know you've seen me say that I don't care about that several times.

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I know you don't care..

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I've seen the downvotes.

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Good. They'll keep coming when I disagree with you.

Not that you care, but I have given you some upvotes, too.

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The ultimate point here is that the committee sucks. Do we at least agree on that?

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Actually, no. I don't agree. I'll say the committee isn't perfect by any stretch but there isn't a perfect system. There's always going to be someone who is on the bubble that is left out.

At the time of the selection committee rankings, their top 6 teams agreed with the AP and the Coaches Poll. Their #7 and #8 agreed with the AP, their #9 agreed with both the AP and the CP, and only #10 (Miami) differed from both the AP and the CP (UCF).

If that means that the selection committee sucks, then what's a better alternative given that we only have 4 teams that make it in? If expanded to 6 or 8 teams, UCF would still be left out, regardless of which of those three you choose.

So, not only would you need to expand the playoffs to include more teams, you'd have to entirely change the way the rankings are calculated.

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The ultimate point here is that the committee sucks. Do we at least agree on that?
Actually, no. I don't agree. I'll say the committee isn't perfect by any stretch but there isn't a perfect system. There's always going to be someone who is on the bubble that is left out.

At the time of the selection committee rankings, their top 6 teams agreed with the AP and the Coaches Poll. Their #7 and #8 agreed with the AP, their #9 agreed with both the AP and the CP, and only #10 (Miami) differed from both the AP and the CP (UCF).

If that means that the selection committee sucks, then what's a better alternative given that we only have 4 teams that make it in? If expanded to 6 or 8 teams, UCF would still be left out, regardless of which of those three you choose.

So, not only would you need to expand the playoffs to include more teams, you'd have to entirely change the way the rankings are calculated.

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My thought on the committee is that I would probably like it a bit more if they used some formulaic BCS approach to create a starting reference point... then say... "here's what the computers spit out to us... here is what we disagreed with and why"

But... with that said, their top 4 was the same teams (inverted UGA/OU in their order) as the BCS "projections" from the hypothetical models that still exist. It's not like they pulled some insane conclusion out of thin air that Alabama was the best team to include in the 4 spot...

If you want to see another weird way of looking at a top 4 based on "merit" of the schedules played, here was Bill Connelly's "Resume S&P+"... LINK

Bill is a numbers guy... he seems to think that UCF's SOS was ~103. Alabama at a ~34... I mean... I don't necessarily agree with the raw values, but I do agree that UCF's schedule wasn't in the same ballpark... at a minimum not close enough to say they were one of the 4 best teams in the country at the end of the conference championship game weekend.

As you correctly noted, neither did the majority of football fans... the real outrage was over Alabama vs. Ohio State at that time... As you can see in Bill's rankings, they would have been included with Penn State... for all the reasons I've mentioned... the top 5 or so teams in the B1G were really good this year... That OSU/PSU game was a hell of a ballgame. I don't think either of those teams deserved to be in over a 1 loss Clemson or Oklahoma (particularly Oklahoma v Ohio State - when you have the head to head and the better overall record to draw from as well), but I can at least see where the argument could be made.

Every dog has its day. Let them be them and enjoy their imaginary championship

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Fair enough. Just wanted to throw out a "in hindsight" out there...

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Yeah... I get it... it's why this whole thing is even happening right? Everyone wants to apply the transitive property to the win over Auburn to say they somehow could definitively have beaten UGA or Alabama... never mind that UGA and Bama lost to Auburn @ Jordan-Hare stadium, or the fact that UGA then created a 40+ point swing in the rematch... beating Auburn by 21 in the same place that UCF managed to hang on to win by a TD. It is what it is... a great season from UCF, but this nonsense is cheapening it in the eyes of most rational fans. I've yet to see a realistic argument put forth as to why they should have been in the top 4 teams based on the evidence available at the end of Week 13. Fair or not... that's the way it played out. They either were unable to or refused to reschedule the GT game (I've heard both... no clue where the truth lies)... meaning they played exactly one P5 team. Unfortunately, it was an awful Maryland... that at the time looked like an OK win since it was by SO MUCH after they'd beaten Texas... until we realized what both of those teams were.

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Reason I put that out there is a gauge to illustrate quality of teams that they beat. Look at FSU - they were ranked highly at the start of the season when Alabama beat them (#3), but we saw what FSU turned out to be. So, using how the team performed throughout the entire season seemed to be much more subjective of a look.

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So you're saying you "saw what FSU turned out to be" - except that they played the rest of their season with a true freshman backup quarterback. They were a flawed team, yes. But they weren't a 7 win team with Francois at QB. Again, that's why I called it out... if you *solely* look at end of season rankings, you are potentially ignoring relevant data. That personnel change is not insignificant. (And the same would be true regardless of the team that benefitted here... the reality is I obviously didn't have a preference for Alabama to make the CFP... but they were not "undeserving" as people seem to want to imply).

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Quality of wins - yes. Quality of losses - okay, how are you wanting to use this for your argument? In retrospect, it would go against your argument.

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What do you mean "in retrospect"? Again... you can't use bowl game outcomes to say "see, we would have been right"... the decision has to be made based on what happened up to and through the CCGs. The quality of losses is what ended up hosing Ohio State... @Iowa < @Auburn... the Oklahoma loss @home was more on par with the Auburn loss... that inherently is what killed them, the final nail was not beating Wisconsin by "enough".

If I'm exclusively comparing say Alabama and UCF, then obviously it's a quality of wins argument and then a look at Alabama's one loss to see if that changes the balance at all... I think losing on the road, to your rival who is a top 5 team is hardly enough to say... yeah UCF's quality of wins were essentially equivalent to Alabama's and they went undefeated... they belong. 1 P5 win...

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Okay, which SEC teams do you think would have beaten UCF that Alabama beat? This could be a fun discussion with hypotheticals. My guess is LSU or MSU may have be the only ones that would have been able to pull off the win. But I still think UCF would have beaten both of them.

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That's the thing... it's not about which teams do I think would definitely beat UCF... we're talking quality of *wins*, as in the teams that they played against... and if you look at Alabama's schedule and say how many of them were better than the teams on UCF's schedule, you can safely say a good chunk.

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Oh, they lost to another team in their division that ended up losing in the conference championship game. :)

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So they lost to a team that had 3 losses to 2 teams in the top 4 nationally, 2 wins over the #1 ranked team at the time of the game, and one additional loss on the road to another team that was better than most everyone on UCF's schedule...

(hard to keep up with what is a hypothetical and what isn't here... )

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So, you're asking if they get in over P5 conference champions? No, I don't think any independent school should get in. I believe only teams that are part of a conference and actually won their conference should take up the limited spots in the CFP. But if the question is changed to, "Should they get in over a P5 team that didn't win their division, and had the same number of wins over opponents that ended up ranked?" You bet they should.

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I mean, you can set the goal line there, I just disagree with your qualification. No biggie... reasonable minds can and will disagree on this. As I said, I have no preference for Bama to be in, but UCF was not a top 4 team prior to bowl season by any reasonable standard. They were not better than Alabama or Ohio State at a minimum, probably could have made a case for somewhere in the 6-8, but having 1 P5 game played hurts from a perception standpoint. I've seen the argument that no one wants to play them, but it just doesn't hold up. Typically, most of that OOC schedule would have been set about 2-3 years in advance... ie. right after they went 9-4, and then 0-12.

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THIS is exactly how I feel about UCF, who cares? It's just a parade and a banner.

It means absolutely nothing in the P5, CFP environment that exists in college football today.

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Yet, Georgia and the Gumps are very bent out of shape about it.

You've gotta give their AD credit. For example, more people are talking about UCF right now that Alabama/Georgia on R/CFb.

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Actually, no. I don't agree.

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OK, cool.

Subjectivity is something I think should be minimized as much as possible if we really are after finding the best college football team in the country. Unfortunately, that's not really what anyone is interested in.

If you disagree, I'm fine with that.

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Just because UCF thinks they are national champions doesn't mean much.

Sure. Just because Georgia/Alabama thinks they're playing for a national championship doesn't mean much.

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These two statements are obviously as equivalent as Alabama and UCF's strength of schedule.

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We both know that the system isn't getting changed at the request of a school like UCF.

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There is a reason that many have said that the G5 schools probably should have separated out and had their own Playoff system... The deck will be stacked against them... that isn't WHY Central Florida didn't make the playoffs, but it is a fair analysis of their situation.

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We both know that the system isn't getting changed at the request of a school like UCF.

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Again, why on earth the G5 conferences agreed to a system that gives them exactly 1/3 of the total votes is ridiculous. They have to convince 2/5 P5 conferences to side with them on anything to have their vote "count"... Objectively, it's ridiculous.

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UCF now has a common opponent with three of the four teams placed in the playoff.

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So they've played one common opponent *after* the Playoff selection and that somehow now forces us to retroactively say that they should have been in the playoffs? You can't assume facts not in evidence at the time of evaluation. Rewriting history is fun, but ultimately it's insignificant.

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It's a small enough difference that eight spots different is ridiculous, particularly when taking their resumes in wholly. We're not talking about facts, either. We're talking about nothing more than subjective rankings rotated into whatever system a particular entity feels like using.

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By any objective standard, UCF did not play an "equivalent" schedule to Alabama at the time of playoff selection. They played 1 P5 school in Maryland... didn't reschedule a game against Ga Tech. If you want to complain that they should have been closer to 5-8 in the CFP final rankings, I think that's fair, but they weren't one of the 4 best teams in the country based on what we saw on the field. To act like they were somehow snubbed out of the playoffs is asinine. Particularly given the fact that tOSU fans were bitching about their own team not getting in... with 2 losses.