Big 12 commish wants answer for Ohio St. in CFP

[JonLP24]

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby would like some clarity from College Football Playoff officials on the importance of conference championship games and strength of schedule, he told ESPN on Sunday after the selection committee put 11-1 Ohio State in at No. 3 despite the Buckeyes not winning the Big Ten East Division or their conference title.

"Obviously I acknowledge the difficulty of the task, but I'm not sure what I advise my members right now, because we've been telling them that nonconference schedules matter, and one of the four has an exceedingly weak nonconference schedule," he said, referring to No. 4 Washington, which notched wins over Rutgers, Idaho and FCS Portland State. "And we've been telling them the 13th data point matters, and we added a conference championship game because of that. We've always heard that conference championships matter and division championships matter, and now it's confusing."

He added, "I'll have some questions to ask when the time is right."

In 2014, after TCU dropped from No. 3 to No. 6 in the final rankings for the first year of the playoff, the Big 12 went through more than a year of discussions and debates and even hired data consultants to help determine whether it needed to add a conference championship game to best position the league for the playoff. In June, the Big 12 decided to bring its title game back in 2017 and announced in October that the game would pit the league's top two teams against each other instead of going to divisions.

(Snip)

"I'm just looking for clarity," Bowlsby said. "We didn't have a team that was a likely participant in the playoff, and so from that standpoint it doesn't make a lot of difference to us this year, but I'd just like to know what we're supposed to advise our members. Does the 13th data point make a difference, or does it not? Does the conference championship game make a difference, or does it not? Are they only used as tiebreakers, or is it other metrics?

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/18201632/big-12-commissioner-bob-bowlsby-wants-clarity-non-league-champion-ohio-state-buckeyes-washington-huskies-make-playoff

[hughee99]

1. This question seems to have more credibility coming

From someone without a dog in this fight, like the Big 12 this year.

Yes, Ohio state was a one loss team, but one that didn't win their conference or even their division. It's a legitimate question to ask, but they're not going to get an answer. If the value of these things could be quantified clearly, they wouldn't need a selection committee at all.

[LP2K12]

4. According to the Big Ten

They won a share of the division. Both Penn State and Ohio State split a share of the division, but Penn State went to the championship.

[hughee99]

6. Yeah, the big ten can say that, but you know it's just

So that the selection committee can pretend like they're conference champs too. Everyone knows that is complete bullshit. How can you have a conference championship game, and still have "co-champs"?

It doesn't matter to me, the big 10 was going to get a spot either way, and I don't care for Ohio St. any more than Penn St, but this is the sort of thing that never gets explained clearly. Next time, when this type of situation happens again and the selection committee keeps someone out because they didn't win their conference, it's going to look like they just play favorites, which is what people already believe.

[JonLP24]

9. The reason why I posted this is to highlight how screwed up

The Big 12 is. After TCU and Baylor was left out, they floated expansion but a lot of the schools didn't want to give Houston a recruiting advantage so they opted out and decided on a ridiculous conference championship for a 10 league team and now are left wondering what they have to do.

I personally would have put Ohio State in because they are a 1 loss team and they are #2 in the nation in defensive yards per pass attempt. I liked the BCS Rankings better, they should have kept them and expanded to 4.

[Angleae]

2. Penn State probably would like some answers too.

Not only being the Big10 champion but having beat Ohio State

[LP2K12]

5. Penn States Big Ten title and win over Ohio State mattered. But other things mattered, too.

Side note, if you look at the final coaches poll ballots, Penn State's coach voted Ohio State into the top 4 as well.

I. Conference titles matter in the selection of the College Football Playoff. As of now, 11 of 12 teams the CFP committee has chosen have been conference champions.

Ia. Winning a conference title game matters. It helped to push Ohio State ahead of the Big 12's Baylor and TCU in 2014. (The Big 12's odd "One true champion, but hey both are good, so let's try to get both of them in" machinations at the time probably didn't help.)

II. Head-to-head matters. It helps to decide conference champions, which, as we learned in (1), matters.

III. Other things matter, too. Lots of things. Like every other game contenders play.

Penn State beat Ohio State on Oct. 22. Great game. The Nittany Lions trailed, 21-7, heading into the fourth quarter but blocked both a punt and a field goal to turn the tables; the former set up a field goal, and the latter was returned for a touchdown. PSU pulled off an awesome, improbable 24-21 win.

Better yet, the Nittany Lions followed up this win with a steady run. James Franklin’s squad waylaid Purdue and put on a nearly perfect performance in rocking an Iowa team that would go on to beat Michigan. They survived a tricky trip to Indiana and sleepwalked through a still-easy win over Rutgers.

Maybe the best second-half team in the country, Penn State finished the regular season by outscoring Michigan State, 35-0, in the second half to win, 45-12.

PSU’s win over Ohio State, combined with Michigan’s losses to Iowa and Ohio State, gave the Nittany Lions the Big Ten East title and a No. 7 ranking from the committee. The Nittany Lions’ conference championship win over Wisconsin bumped them to No. 5, ahead of a Michigan team that destroyed PSU, 49-10, in September.

Penn State’s head-to-head win over Ohio State helped to earn the Nittany Lions the Big Ten title and nearly made up for the fact that they lost to Michigan and Pitt early in the season.

Nearly.

* Ohio State lost via blocked kick on the road to the No. 5 team in the country. But Penn State still lost twice, to the No. 6 team in the country (a team Ohio State beat) and to Pitt.
* The Buckeyes played Oklahoma in non-conference play and stomped the Sooners in Norman. The Nittany Lions played Pitt and lost via last-second interception. (At the time, we thought that result was important because of how it pertained to Franklin’s employment prospects. It ended up deciding a Playoff spot.)
* Ohio State is second in both the AP and coaches polls; Penn State is fifth in both.
* The Buckeyes are third in S&P+, second in Sagarin, and ahead of the Nittany Lions in nearly every other computer ranking.
* Scoring margin against six common opponents: Ohio State plus-149, Penn State plus-78.

That’s why Ohio State is in the Playoff and Penn State is not.

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/12/4/13834496/penn-state-big-ten-championship-ohio-state-college-football-playoff-2016

[KamaAina]

3. "the game would pit the league's top two teams against each other instead of going to divisions"?!

As someone mentioned, the past two years that would have led to More Bedlam.

[Auggie]

7. Can we please STOP THIS BULLSHIT and go to an eight team playoff?

[hughee99]

8. Remember when people thought going to a 4 team playoff would end the bullshit?

The bullshit isn't going away even with eight teams. Teams that finish #9-12 will be able to make the argument that they deserve the spot more than the #8 and #7 teams.

You see this in the basketball tournament and they take 68 teams now.

[JonLP24]

10. College basketball is different because they give every

Conference tournament winner which leaves out many teams that are better but I personally would have left it 64.

I favored 4 to 8 just to give dominate mid majors a chance but the playoff committee seems intent on giving them no chance in hell. I crack up when I see AP and coaches poll rating them mostly fairly only to see the selection committee rank them way down.

I want to see them get rid of the selection committee. FCS is able to give all their conference champions a spot plus 14 other teams. It might the only fair way to do it.

[hughee99]

11. I agree on that. My point was that wherever you set the number, 2, 4, 8 or even 64,

there's going to be teams that didn't quite make it, and can make the argument that they deserved it more than some of the teams that did. Without any clearly defined criteria, the subjective decisions made by the committee about the bubble teams will always lead to "bullshit".

People don't complain about this in professional sports because at least everyone understands the objective qualifications for making the playoffs, but with pro sports, you're only talking about 30 or so teams, not the 100+ teams in college sports. The same system isn't nearly as feasible, particularly in football, where you're very limited in the number of games you can play.

[JonLP24]

12. I think if we shorten the season from 12 to 11 games

We could do it like FCS. There is the issue of conference championships. It probably wouldn't work because most conferences play 9 games but teams as it is play 13 if they make it there. We could shorten the season by 1 game, eliminate those FCS games and maybe we could do an FCS style playoff.

[Auggie]

13. There was controversary with four teams from the very start