so who are 4 teams with a better resume than Michigan and why?

[mhughes0021]

If you are not the best in your conference how can you be considered the best in the country? Unless you're calling for 3 or 4 big ten teams in the playoff.

Technically the committee said SOS would be one of their biggest considerations. This will prove it's not. Psu and wisky will take the conf championship with a weak schedule and end up in the national champ game.

 

[tinselwolverine]

As incredible and unimaginable as it seems, the BCS formula was more objective than this.

Under the BCS, there was a specific hand and exact formula.

Sure the voters may have these been subjective, but once the votes were counted there was no subjectivity at all. The vote count was the vote count.

And the computer formulas were the computer formulas. Were the formulas correct algorithmically wise? Who the **** knows? I don't even know what an algorithm is.

Plus once the established equation was in place, then the equation was in place.

This is insane. Ohio states "resume" without having one it's conference championship well nobody else's resume that didn't win a conference championship doesn't?

And we call the people who replaced the insanity of the BCS with this insanity "educational leaders."

 

[tinselwolverine]

As incredible and unimaginable as it seems, the BCS formula was more objective than this.

Under the BCS, there was a specific hand and exact formula.

Sure the voters may have these been subjective, but once the votes were counted there was no subjectivity at all. The vote count was the vote count.

And the computer formulas were the computer formulas. Were the formulas correct algorithmically wise? Who the **** knows? I don't even know what an algorithm is.

Plus once the established equation was in place, then the equation was in place.

This is insane. Ohio states "resume" without having one it's conference championship well nobody else's resume that didn't win a conference championship doesn't?

And we call the people who replaced the insanity of the BCS with this insanity "educational leaders."

Edit: obviously I'm doing voice recognition text and I'm counting on all of you to to decipher the obvious meaning of what I'm saying.

 

[mhughes0021]

It's Condoleezza rice picking the 4 best teams. What did you expect?

 

[tomdalton22]

If you are not the best in your conference how can you be considered the best in the country? Unless you're calling for 3 or 4 big ten teams in the playoff.

but winning a conference championship doesn't mean you are the best.

 

[bphillips4gg]

If you are not the best in your conference how can you be considered the best in the country? Unless you're calling for 3 or 4 big ten teams in the playoff.

I'm not convinced that the best teams in the conference are paying for the Big Ten title. The problem with these super conferences is that schedules are so unbalanced there's no way to get a fair assessment of which team in each division is better, but it's still based on conference record. Where Michigan played Wisconsin, Illinois and at Iowa, Penn State played Purdue, Minnesota and got Iowa at home. Sorry, but I'd rather have to play both both Minnesota and Perdue than Wisconsin of we're going to argue that a tiebreaker makes us the better team.

 

[bphillips4gg]

Also, consider this. Let's assume Perdue doesn't suck this year and goes 11-1 with their only loss being Wisconsin, but Wisconsin is 10-2 with their losses coming to Michigan and OSU. Would you really say that the 11-1 team is better even though they didn't have to play Michigan, OSU or MSU? Perdue isn't a great example because they suck, but their schedule is an excellent example of why the conference championship is watered down when there's 2 divisions and one division is worse than the other.

 

[hungry]

You're thinking about this too much. We lost. Therefore we don't deserve to go. You can't compete for a national title if you can't even win your conference championship. Sorry but that's how it should be. We had our chance and couldn't do it. If we get in it would feel like favortism because in my eyes we certainly didn't earn it.

Alabama, Clemson, Pac-12 Winner, Big-Ten Winner. Those are the 4 that should go. Maybe Oklahoma too would be fine if Colorado beats Washington.

That rule does not exist, just like the rule that you can't throw your headset on the sideline is a technical foul in football. The playoff is not set up currently that you need to win your conference championship. You can debate whether or not that should be a rule, but it currently is not. In your situation, if Alabama loses to Florida, then they automatically drop out? I don't see that happening. Do you think that OSU will drop out? Again, nope. You are simply talking about a rule that does not exist.

It isn't favoritism. It is going by what actually happened on the field.

 

[hungry]

Probably have a hard time convincing the committee that the 4th place team in the Big Ten should be #3 in the nation.

You're disqualified

 

[hungry]

the counter is Wisconsin is better team than when we played them.

November games are big and we lost 2 in November...


Now I would lie girl us yo be in but our offense has not been great last few weeks

Other think we are 4-5. It us challenging task


They will have osu without a conference championship. Could be funny to have 3 BIG. Teams in

how do you prove that UW is a better team now than when Michigan played them and how do you prove that Michigan has not improved? That is all eye stuff and ideas and opinions. What I am going on about is what actually happened on the field.

UW didn't make a big trade. They didn't get a new head coach. They didn't get new players. They are the exact same team as they were when Michigan beat them. Would Michigan beat UW on a neutral site? I don't know. Would OSU beat Michigan on a neutral site? If Michigan played OSU the first game of the season, would we be having this discussion or would Michigan clearly be in the top 4?

 

[brewer229]

how do you prove that UW is a better team now than when Michigan played them and how do you prove that Michigan has not improved? That is all eye stuff and ideas and opinions. What I am going on about is what actually happened on the field.

UW didn't make a big trade. They didn't get a new head coach. They didn't get new players. They are the exact same team as they were when Michigan beat them. Would Michigan beat UW on a neutral site? I don't know. Would OSU beat Michigan on a neutral site? If Michigan played OSU the first game of the season, would we be having this discussion or would Michigan clearly be in the top 4?

How do you prove:
"Clemson? No wins against top 10...if Michigan plays their schedule, they're undefeated"


How do you justify a team that went 2-2 on the road, with those two wins coming against two teams that went 1-17 in the conference as one of the top 4 teams in the nation? The 1 win came in a game against each other, so mathematically that is the worst possible conference record those teams could have.

After the conf camp game (Wis or Penn State wiill probably fall out of the top 10), and if Colorado loses to Washington, Michigan would have 1 win against a top 10 team, does that suddenly diminish their case?

Michigan is a very good team. Could they be one of the top 4 teams, yea probably. Could there be 4 teams better than them, yea probably.

 

[hungry]

How do you prove:
"Clemson? No wins against top 10...if Michigan plays their schedule, they're undefeated"


How do you justify a team that went 2-2 on the road, with those two wins coming against two teams that went 1-17 in the conference as one of the top 4 teams in the nation? The 1 win came in a game against each other, so mathematically that is the worst possible conference record those teams could have.

After the conf camp game (Wis or Penn State wiill probably fall out of the top 10), and if Colorado loses to Washington, Michigan would have 1 win against a top 10 team, does that suddenly diminish their case?

Michigan is a very good team. Could they be one of the top 4 teams, yea probably. Could there be 4 teams better than them, yea probably.

Well, I'm clearly looking at the data we actually have, not the data that we don't have from the future. I'm not talking about what might happen if such and such happens this coming weekend. I'm looking at right now. Colorado could beat Washington. I extremely doubt that they will drop the 6 or 7 team in the nation out of the top 10 for losing to the 6 or 7 team in the nation on a neutral site. I don't see that happening in the future. That is in the future, though.

So yes, if Colorado loses and drops out of the top 10, then it does hurt Michigan's argument, but it should hurt Washington's argument, as well.

Notice my thread title. I'm not asking who people think is the better team. I'm asking who has a better resume than Michigan. I'm not asking for ideas, concepts, or opinions. I'm looking at the rankings (which i guess are ideas and concepts) and asking for teams that have performed better against those teams that are ranked.

 

[TheVictors]

Nebraska played Miami for the NC in 2001 after losing its final regular season game at Colorado 62-36 as the #1 ranked team in the nation. CU went on to beat Texas in the B12 CC and on to the Fiesta Bowl to play Joey Harrington and Oregon.

NU wen ton to get absolutely throttled by Clinton Portis and the Canes and to this day, remains one of the worst NC games ever.

So ...yeah, it's happened before

 

[MSUMatt28]

I don't think the conference champion argument works unless you have a true round robin schedule like the Big 12 has. Yes PSU advanced to the championship game over OSU due to a head-to-head tie-breaker. A game PSU won at home that they trailed by double digits for most of until a couple of 4th quarter blocked kicks. PSU also has 2 losses to OSU's 1 against an overall weaker schedule, both outside the Big Ten and also within the crossover games inside the Big Ten. When evaluating the teams nationally OSU comes out on top by any measure, regardless of the Big Ten's tie-breaker procedures. What if all of a sudden next year the Big Ten decides that the higher ranked team by the committee gets the nod in any tie-breakers? In a perfect world there would be 4 18 team mega-conferences and teams would play 8 divisional games, 2 crossover games, 2 non-conference games and conference championship games would serve as quarterfinal games. And everything would be nice and tidy with no subjectivity or consideration of "eye test" and all that. But that's not the world we live in. Expanding the current format to an 8-team playoff sounds like a great solution, until the #8 team upsets this year's Alabama (to say nothing of adding yet one more game to numerous teams' schedules).


If looking purely at resume, Michigan has a case just like Ohio State does. However I would caution using Top 10 wins as the only measure. I have a suspicion that the Big Ten is benefitting in a way that the SEC has in the past where the teams all serve to kind of prop each other up. People started with the premise (which turned out to be correct) that OSU and UM were good. OSU went out and proved it vs Oklahoma. UM got aided by the win Colorado win turning out to be better than anyone realized and held up their end of the bargain throughout the season. But then Wisconsin got propped up by playing UM and OSU tough even though they had barely beaten an LSU team that was good not great at home, and only beat Georgia State by 6 points. PSU's entire ranking is based on their result vs OSU (which as detailed a bit above was a bit fortunate and flukey), as there is little other accomplishment behind it.


All of which is to say, I'm not sure the Big Ten is deserving of 4 teams in the top 10. Alabama, Clemson, and Washington may not have the top 10 wins as a result but they have been pretty consistently dominant all year against decent enough schedules, with maybe 1 trip-up and/or one other close call. I do think overall those 3 along with OSU and UM are the 5 best teams. If Clemson and/or Washington lose and drop down into the group of 2 loss teams, I could certainly see UM having a case. Put Colorado in over a team who beat them by 17 points and played a tougher overall schedule?

 

[Michchamp]

Nebraska played Miami for the NC in 2001 after losing its final regular season game at Colorado 62-36 as the #1 ranked team in the nation. CU went on to beat Texas in the B12 CC and on to the Fiesta Bowl to play Joey Harrington and Oregon.

NU wen ton to get absolutely throttled by Clinton Portis and the Canes and to this day, remains one of the worst NC games ever.

So ...yeah, it's happened before

if Jim Tressel was still ohio state's coach, I'd wager they were heading for a complete curb stomping in the playoffs, no matter who they played.

I think they'll play decent under Meyer. I can't remember a team of his ever suffering a bad loss.

 

[MSUMatt28]

But to get to the OP's original question more directly, I would say UM does not have a better resume than Bama, OSU, Washington, and Clemson.

Bama has been too dominant to ignore even in a down SEC. 52-6 over USC who has proven to be a pretty good team.

OSU has road wins vs OU and Wisconsin, barely lost to PSU on the road, and has home wins over UM and Nebraska (who I think might still be ranked and it was 62-3).

Clemson has 2 ranked road wins (Auburn and FSU) and a win vs Louisville that has admittedly lost a bit of luster now.

Washington has a number of good, but not great wins (Stanford, WSU, Utah) and WSU and Utah were on the road and most of their wins were dominant.

So UM has no road wins that compare to the other teams and their loss vs Iowa is probably the worst loss (other than maybe Clemson at home vs Pitt). Again if Washington or Clemson trip up this week, then maybe it forces people to look at those teams differently. People could point to Washington having lost to the 2 best teams on their schedule and Clemson losing to 2 fringe top 25 (at best) teams and you can put UM right in that conversation with them. And I agree if you're evaluating OSU vs Wisconsin and PSU based on overall resume, you could give UM the edge over them for the same reason (especially 49-10 over PSU). Though putting in 2 teams that didn't qualify for the conference championship in the Big Ten would definitely be a huge can of worms.

 

[Michchamp]

on 538.com they have a playoff scenario calculator.

the highest chances I can get of Michigan making the playoffs after trying various things is is 10%... which involves a lot of teams losing games theyll be favored in

 

[hungry]

If we're looking to the future, then obviously we want chaos.

Alabama losing to Florida...this will put the committee in a position where they are forced to face the question of whether or not a team will have to win their conference. If Alabama loses, then we can just throw out the conference championship idea.

Colorado beating Washington

Virginia Tech beating Clemson

if those games go down, then the committee will be forced to put in 1 or 2 teams with 2 losses.

 

[Michchamp]

I thought it would help us if Penn St beats UW in the Big Ten championship, but apparently its the other way around (according to 538). not sure why...

 

[TheVictors]

Talk this morning in CO related to CU ...the Pac-12 South champs -- if they don't beat UW, they run risk of having USC 'leap' them (without playing) and getting the Rose Bowl invite while UW goes to the playoff.

And while SC did beat CU in LA, this would be yet another example of the stupidity of college football. Why should CU be punished for experiencing its third loss because it earned the right to play in its Conf Champ game? Why should SC be rewarded for finishing behind CU and losing the Pac-12 South?

I don't really see how or why MICHIGAN should be in the playoff but some of these scenarios are just absurd.