How many teams with Byes have to lose for the “Bye is a bad thing” narrative to have legs?

Indiana women are UGLY

It will be interesting for sure. Way too many people around here are convinced that a bye is a bad thing based on two games last season.

Arizona State was a 13 point underdog and Boise was the DEI team. Arizona State actually overperformed.

Georgia was a shitty running team last year, not nearly as awful as Alabama this year, and Georgia had a quarterback starting his first career game. Notre Dame scored 14 points in 40 seconds.

So it comes down to last year's Rose Bowl, which was definitely a shitkicking.

It's definitely a 2 edged sword.
For a team like ours with multiple injuries the extra time to heal is beneficial but the idle time also creates lack of continuity leading to less sharp execution.

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I’ll say 3. Although if IU and OSU both go down, it could be 2 due to B10 media bias (that would require Oregon to lose as well making the B10 look really bad all around).

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Historically there is a tendency for good teams and even elite teams to look pretty bad for some part of bowl games with a month or so off between games. Anyone who doubts the benefits of playing a G5 team between the last game of the season and a bowl game has to also question the obvious benefits of mid season byes and rent a win games....it helps. That said I don't think it is that huge a difference. UGA lost to ND last season because UGA was not elite last season....good, not great. UGA got manhandled in Oxofrd last season and was lucky that Texas is lousy at winning anything that matters.

Indiana, and Texas Tech may be in for some rust issues. UGA and Ohio State's coaching staffs have been here before and have had teams play at an elite level with a month off between games.

Everyone who did not play 2 weeks ago played an extra game the week before except for Ohio State. Alabama has actually played an extra game thus far. My poorly made point is if your "bye" is the result of winning a conference championship game you didn't get a bye, you played a game a week early.

It has nothing to do with the bye, it's about the teams that get byes.

Last year was worse because they gave bye status to AQ teams.

Also, if you have to play in the conference championship game, you aren't really getting a bye.

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Bama/IU and OM/UGA are relative equals as well that could go either way.

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You made a great post but I disagree on the above. OM and/or Bama winning would be fairly significant upsets. Source: what I personally believe having watched these teams lately, and what Vegas believes.

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I believe that objectively UGA is definitley the better team. However it's still just in the back of my mind that these teams played down to the wire in Athens earlier this seaoson. Sure thins have changed since then, but we are not very far removed at all from teams being damn near equals

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It's a great story and while I'd love to see it play out, I will be absolutely shocked if OM wins this game, their second effort with Pete fricking Golding at the helm.

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With bama, look I know they are a shell of whta they once were but they are still vastly more talented than indiana. And of course it would be oh so typical for bama to win a game like this when they are a touchdown underdog. I think coaching and "intangibles" or whatever go clearly to indiana, but often times superior talent has a way of shining through.

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Yeah I get all of this and pretty much for these reasons I wouldn't be blown away by Bama winning this one even though I think IU is a pretty bad matchup for Bama. Bama has really relied on opponent mistakes this year and IU doesn't make many of them. But Bama has the horses and if the receivers can catch the fricking ball and a lucky bounce here or there, it could go Bama's way. But make no mistake: if that happens - to the OP's initial point - a 7-point dog, three loss team beating undefeated BIG Champion would certainly be considered a significant upset.

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I’ll say 3. Although if IU and OSU both go down, it could be 2 due to B10 media bias (that would require Oregon to lose as well making the B10 look really bad all around).

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It depends on how the games go. If all the teams with a bye come out sluggish and then look a lot better in the 2nd half, then the bye needs to be examined. When I mean sluggish...they're taking bad angles and don't look up to speed.

Also, there is no media bias with IU. There's an argument for tOSU being in the 3 spot.

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UGA- playing our backup QB in literally his first start. We led the nation in WR drops and honestly weren't even a great team, we just managed to beat texas twice. This game was pretty dead even except for about a 90 second stretch of game clock that we collapsed. We certainly didn't lose because of the bye.

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You also left out a terrorist attack that delayed the game a full day and Kirby’s dad literally dying just before kickoff after falling in New Orleans.

All to say, it was a bad situation all around for UGA with or without a bye. We weren’t all that good last year and it caught up to us, plus all the other shite that went down.

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I think that our players looked past Notre Dame.

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Idk that I agree here, I think we were just really banged up, starting a QB in his first game against a solid defense, and we’re in general just really out of sorts all year long.

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I also think they looked past Ohio State in the Peach Bowl because they were from the Big 10 like Michigan and our players figured it'd be another game like the Michigan game from the previous CFP.

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Again, I don’t think we looked past them. CJ Stroud just had the game of his life and made defending what they were doing nearly impossible. He was a platform QB all year long with very little running ability. Next thing we know he’s extending plays, throwing off platform, and making 15 yard runs downfield. He complicated our strategy and it took us the full 4 quarters to adjust and take back the win.

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I don't think we'll look past Ole Miss because we're right back in the Sugar Bowl.

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Agreed. If anything, last year gave Kirby a dress rehearsal for how to try to prep with a 4 week lag and how to mentally approach this game in a new CFP format. We’ve seen what happens after we have a disappointing showing at the end of a year (2018 Sugar Bowl vs Texas): Kirby doesn’t repeat mistakes, especially in preparation.