Here for the Wins

Absolutely? No. Funny you default back to wins as the deciding factor. Notre Dame was clearly better the past two months. There were considerable common opponents. Notre Dame dominated those common opponents. Notre Dame lost their first two games. And if you do an honest evaluation, those were both tossups. Miami not only failed to win the conference they failed to make the game because they lost twice to decent, not even great teams. One of those teams was 0-2 versus the Big 12. The question remains. Best 10 teams or best season/record? Yes, Texas was more deserving than the final two participants. They also were better based on available information than some of the top 10. Being in a conference has limited value when evaluating strength of schedule. That is consistently brought up. There’s a formula to calculate it. At the end of the regular season, Techs SOS was worse than Notre Dame. Miamis was very similar. And Ole Miss’s was slightly better. There is little to harp on this point when that is the case. Use the metric or not. If Notre Dame had the number 1 SOS, would people still complain? You didn’t give a damn that Miami wasn’t even top two in its conference. You give some hubbub about 8-4 Texas with injuries and losses yet give no credence Miami beating ND at home, on a last second FG, when one team had a new QB, first game of season. You’ll probably tell me Arch grew leaps and bounds but won’t introduce that for Carr. It has been discussed that Indiana watered down their non-conference. Bill Snyder used to do it. Jim Schlossnagle does it in baseball. It’s not entirely for wins and losses, but that is a reason. You need to view it from the lens of a non-Texas team. Every team in contention is better off with fewer losses. Duke lost 3 games in non-conference last year. They won the conference but didn’t get invited to the tournament. Maybe that doesn’t change their scheduling, but you have to think they thought about it. As you invite more 3 and 4 loss teams into a tournament, you are expanding the number of teams that will fight to keep that extra loss off the ledger. If you have byes and home games, you’re incentivizing teams to lose one less game to get that incentive. Texas clearly missed out because of that extra loss. If more teams dumb down their non-conference schedule, then it devalues the regular season. If the Tx-OU games has fewer implications, it devalues it. If a team decides, like the high school example I gave you, to play not to win in the final game, that devalues it. I don’t expect that to happen, but it certainly happens in the NFL. I can see sitting a player or two in that scenario however. Let’s just say Texas-Ohio State play every year. You get a small number of other top 20 matchups, but the teams that would typically fall from 15-40 schedule no one. Not only that, but they sit at home for all of them. The college football fan doesn’t win.

That’s a good UTSA team. Top 10 in the country in batting average, OBP and runs scored.

Man, we’re good.

Not ideal hustle.

If you go 8-4, you likely aren’t beating great teams. Miami and Ole Miss both played 8 home games last year. Neither played all the top teams in conference. OU, Bama. Had any of those lost 4 games, there’s virtually no way that team has a great record versus solid teams. I would wager you were one to say that Miami deserved the nod over Notre Dame because of their head to head win this past year. Game 1. At Miami. On a last minute FG. With a veteran QB versus first time starter QB. So to your argument now. Notre Dame clearly played better the past two months of the season. Yet another question not answered. Is the teams that had the best season or is better at the end? The committee didn’t answer that directly but ultimately didn’t care because Texas and Notre Dsme were pretty clearly playing amongst the top 10. The more teams you invite the more chaos comes with it. It really just comes down to what an individual prefers. A tournament will just never be my preference. I read considerable discussion leading up to this year that expanded playoffs would result in better non-conference matchups. It took exactly 1 season to call that into question. That was 100% foreseeable. Further expansion likely ends in more disagreement and potentially unintended consequences.

A&M has given up 7 thru 5 to 10 win Prairie View. So with Texas and A&M both eliminated from CWS contention because of Tuesday blues who else we got?

Nah. We’re not close. I like tradition. I like the finality of only getting one shot at a team. College football represents something to me for which there is no equivalent. If there’s no equivalent, then don’t compare. If I wanted to be like the NFL, I’d just watch the NFL. And I do. I wouldn’t go more than 8 and could be fine with 4. People act as though they think they can get it perfect. Texas-USC was perfect. That’ll never happen again. Give a bye based on unbalanced schedules? Nope. Give a home game based on unbalanced schedules? No. Anytime you give these rewards based on uncertain criterion you’ve effectively manipulated that tournament. No way I’d give a team that loses 33% of their games a shot at a team that lost 0% or 8%. I am not an advocate for it, but the solution for a “best system” is to limit it to 64 teams. Maybe you go divisions and get it down to 8. Even then, you’d have to say any non-divisional game is irrelevant. If you go 32, you just kicked out teams that have competed for 100 years. I’m not talking playing for titles, but those teams have spoiled it for others over the years. I am fine with high school but imagine being the bi-district opponent for Duncanville or DeSoto every year. There are teams that get the short end of the stick due to matchups. I think it was two years ago that my local school basically gave up the last regular season game to manipulate the playoff match. So there are flaws and limitations.

That’s pretty good if you got that without looking it up. The reason I asked is because few pay much attention to the other divisions. I’d be interested to know how many persons watch those divisions over a BCS game. You know since they “get it right.” I can find meaning in many a football game. Just because a bowl game is meaningless or pointless to you doesn’t mean it is for all. How is that much different than a mid-October game between two teams you know won’t play for anything? I even enjoyed the Texas-Michigan bowl game.

But to the rest of your post, four teams per district make the playoffs in Texas high schools. Texas and Notre Dame weren’t in the playoffs because of some dumb rule that required a G5 and a mandatory 4th conference champ. Oregon, Ole Miss got favorable seeding that gifted them a win and provided them an advantage the following week. There has been ample bitching about Notre Dame’s schedule. Ole Miss played 4 games away from home. I don’t remember exactly but think they tied for the fewest games against the above .500 SEC teams. Their strength of schedule was similar to NDs. A&Ms strength of schedule was far better, which earned them a far more difficult opening game. I would not have felt sorry had OSU not won it in 2024. There is something faulty about not winning your conference but winning a national championship. If you think the time off after losing to Michigan versus us playing Georgia after A&M did not have an impact, you could be right. I’m confident in saying that time was incredibly beneficial to OSU. There are too many teams, too few games and unbalanced schedules to get it right. Then throw in some unearned qualifiers.

Give me the name of all college football champs last year.

Do you watch much football at any other level of college? None of them are really comparable so why compare? A big fan of Texas high school football with 2-8 teams making the playoff? Pretty cool when you have two winners from same division. A .500 team making the NFL playoffs? That same team getting a home game over one with a better record. There isn’t a need to expand further when they can’t get it right currently. It’s not just about the teams being selected, but the seedings are massively important too. College is not the NFL, but if you want an equitable system, you need to head more towards that. Limit the teams. No discretion in scheduling unless playoff participants are limited based on conference/divisional games.

Sure. But a Labor Day weekend start is ideal.

Pretty sure the Ohio State-Texas matchups do not encourage this. A loss adds an extra game to the schedule, which would be counter to the ultimate goal. A win gets you little except one more high level game to get beat up or emotionally result in a letdown.

That depends on whether you can live with less experience. For example, Zina and Jackson opposite each other is not roster depletion in spite of Simmons loss. DT would be the same thing if January, Terry, et al return.

Mark, Teams get up for Notre Dame like no other. Yeah, the talent on their schedule may not necessarily be prime, but that is offset a tad. It’s a bit of what Texas sees but maybe more. Our non-conference this year is very stout because UTSA and Texas State are not cakewalks on top of the OSU. There is a strength of schedule metric. Notre Dames was similar to Tech and Miami last year. Maybe even Ole Miss.

How much do you weight titles is the question? Indiana and Michigan have some big holes in their performance. Oregon somewhat got gifted an appearance but more significantly they were gifted a win then parlayed that into another in which they had a significant advantage.

I’d bet at least two of Texas, Ohio State and Georgia are seeded top 5 into the playoff. Oregon in. Notre Dame in. Tech in. Miami in. BYU, OU, Ole Miss, Bama, LSU, Michigan, Indiana, USC, some random ACC team, say Virginia are in the mix to round it out.

Maybe we’re in the midst of baseball happening. Hitters hit a slump. Hitters come out of a slump. No team is more equipped for Omaha than this team.

That was ball 4.

Coulda been a ball.

And Howe is a little ahead of my feed.

I missed all but final two hitters in top 1 but hard to imagine strike 1 and 2 were both legitimate with 3 walks in the top half. After the bs strike call to Pack in the 9th yesterday, I’ve already had my fill. Nevermind the bs delay on the faux catchers interference review that changed the course of that game.

His final 6 games he ran for 246 yards on 60 carries, 1 TD. Over that time, he had 16 catches for 65 yards. He had 92 yards on two carries during that time. Only 4 runs of 10+ yards during that span. That was against 3 very good to better defenses, 1 average defense, and one poor defense. No idea how those games played out, but you’ll likely find his floor in them.

It’s always odd to me how people make judgments on teams/players while seemingly ignoring how it works for all other teams. Hard to believe the Aggies left their starting pitcher in for ALL 7 innings while giving up 18 runs today.

Ump changed this whole AB