re: All B.S. Aside,do y'all think OSU got Shafted???

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Yea I haven't ben a huge fan of Clemson yet. Everyone forgives them for their loss to Syracuse because their QB got hurt, but they were losing with him in the game

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They lost by a field goal on the road... The #1 ranking comes from the perception that by they had one of the most difficult schedules of the top 6 teams (ESPN rates 10 out of 13 games as top 40 FPI teams). No personal problems there... they were top 4... it was easiest to keep them at the top as there simply wasn't enough justification to bump them down.

Personally, I like Bill Connolly's S&P+ ratings as a good reference, but you'll see that neither Clemson nor Alabama rate well enough there to make the playoffs... of course S&P+ is not a reflection of the resume, instead it's predictive based on outputs, so he built a second model called the resume S&P... which would have given you a top 4 of:
Alabama
Penn State
Ohio State
Georgia...

Pretty sure that one is broken ... or it just really loves the Big 10 and Mercer.

Ultimately, losing by 31 in conference should matter if it's a close call. Let's play a hypothetical out... we lose like we did at Auburn, Auburn then goes and loses a close game to Bama, so no rematch is in the cards... If we had not won the SECCG, and instead say went to triple OT against Bama, it would have mattered for us.... I think everyone would say we get left out because of the bad loss in the regular season. If the committee had put Ohio State in, I think they're spitting in the eye of programs that are not national championship caliber and saying... your wins over big schools don't matter as much.

Here's the funny part to me... If that was Ohio State's only loss, I think they get in over Alabama... that's the real rub of all this... The committee says Strength of Schedule matters, but what they should say is strength of schedule matters AFTER we stack you up based on wins and losses, head to head, and other subjective measures. They've done the same with Ohio State last season (one fewer loss than Penn State, but lost head to head didn't play conference championship...) and even Washington had an objectively softer schedule, but was taken instead of Penn St due to the extra loss... they played 3 teams that were ranked during the season, only 2 finished the season ranked (12th and 24th I think). If Ohio State goes out and schedules Mercer instead of a home and away series with Oklahoma, they probably are in and Alabama is out this year, but they probably don't make it in last year... scheduling and schedule strength is a fickle mistress to say the least.

With UGA's schedule next year and again in 2020, we're going to have to be very careful... we don't have big games OOC to lift us, so going to have to win all, or at least not lose big if we want to be considered. Hell, next year, our schedule could literally be seen as worse than Wisconsin's this year... All depends on a couple of teams IMO... LSU, South Carolina, Auburn. If those 3 teams are at least "good", then we'll probably be OK, but with the turnover at UF and UT, those games are unlikely to be viewed as quality... UF more likely at this time to turn it around, but I think QB is a big problem there at present. Want to see how Mullen shakes out this recruiting class.