The Ofiicial SEC is the best conference thread

Flagpole Willy wrote:

Summary -- the winner of the game Monday is the best team in college football.

My God, you are capable of summarizing, even if it's dreadfully incorrect.

To recapitulate, the winner Monday of the game Monday is one of the four best teams in college football.

Sagarin wrote:

Indeed, the playoffs would not be perfect, indeed some deserving teams would get left out of an eight-team bracket (though, to borrow from your analysis, that's what the regular season is for so you'd better come to play), indeed some controversy over seeding would occur. However, most deserving, legitimate teams would get a chance, a chance that otherwise escapes them because they sustained a key injury at some point, or played a much harder schedule, or played an extra, very meaningful game, or got off to a slow start but came on well at the end. let's find out who the BEST team is on the grand stage, not merely the team that somehow found the path of least resistance.

I have to say this is right on. What the hell are we waiting for?

Does anyone else think Sagarin and Flagpole are the same person?

No Flagpole is too stupid to know how to spell deity, thus too dumb to use multiple personalities...

12 teams -> 4 rounds. Add a conference championship game. Add a regular season...17 games? No thanks. Or would you shorten the regular season so it becomes even less clear who would deserve to be in the playoff?

This is how you do it. Make the regular season more meaningful by shortening the nonconference schedule by one game, restricting the patsy nonconference games to one (the first "warmup" game), and making sure that teams are required to play at least TWO teams from other major conferences at the end of the nonconference schedule (3rd and 4th game or later like Notre Dame and USC play late in the season). Get rid of the conference championship games so the playing field is level for every conference. Take the top eight at the end of the season and play them off in the four major bowls. Take the four winners and have a playoff. Simple. Controversial still? Yes, but I don't see anyone complaining that Florida won March Madness last year, even though arguably some of the best teams in UCLA-Kansas, as well as North Carolina-Georgetown had to face each other prematurely in the elite eight.

Here are two samples of CU's back-to-back schedules in the coming years. Now, you could argue that these aren't the most solid nonconference opponents or that these teams might not be as good in two or three years, but at least CU TRIES to schedule a great schedule and they don't duck opponents, just like they didn't in their championship season of yesteryear when they played three very good nonconference opponents in Tennessee, Illinois, and Washington (all excellent that year), as well as prennial contenders (back then) OU and Nebraska. This is how every team should do it, and then NOBODY could take issue with strength of schedule (and CU has West Virginia the next two years as well).

http://www.cubuffs.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPSID=3850&SPID=255&DB_OEM_ID=600&KEY=&Q_SEASON=2010

http://www.cubuffs.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPSID=3850&SPID=255&DB_OEM_ID=600&KEY=&Q_SEASON=2011

Sagarin, you like to mention key injuries. What if a key injury happened during the playoffs? So, the #1 team loses to the #8 team in the first round of playoffs. Is that not just the same as a team losing in the middle of the season due to injuries? I'm not arguing just for argument's sake. I really don't understand your thinking here. The best team on paper just can't be guaranteed to be in the title game no matter what you do -- ESPECIALLY if you believe as you do that key injuries cause an unfair advantage to a lesser team. Why is it more legitimate to be stricken by injuries in a playoff game as opposed to week three under the current system? Why is it that you believe only the teams playing the best at the end of the season should be the ones fighting for the national title? Why give a title to a team that played well for a few games as opposed to playing well the entire season?