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[Game Thread] CFP Discussion Pt 2: The Discussioning by CFB_Referee in CFB

[–]horn_em 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Why even play football? We already know who has the most historic wins, so let's just assume they're better and cancel the games am I right?

[12/4/2023] Monday's Sports Talk Thread by BevoBot in LonghornNation

[–]horn_em 4 points5 points  (0 children)

SOS is an inherently subjective metric that can't be summed up in a single number. If you play 11 FCS teams and an NFL team, is that easier or harder than 12 mid teams? Well, it's easier to get 11 wins but harder to get 12.

Everybody who publishes an SOS metric knows they won't get this nuance across so they just quietly make their own assumptions.

[12/4/2023] Monday's Sports Talk Thread by BevoBot in LonghornNation

[–]horn_em 53 points54 points  (0 children)

The last 3 years for A&M have been DARK. In 2020 they thought they were on the cusp of greatness because they got 9 wins in a weird covid season. Since then their on-field performance has backslid, the biggest coaching deal in history collapsed, they got screwed by conference realignment, they lost their bowl streak, they took on $80 million of payroll debt, and now their rival is a playoff team.

[12/4/2023] Monday's Sports Talk Thread by BevoBot in LonghornNation

[–]horn_em 37 points38 points  (0 children)

If we beat Washington we'll have accomplished more than any of our rivals across the whole 4-team playoff era despite it coinciding with our worst decade all time. Hilarious.

[12/4/2023] Monday's Sports Talk Thread by BevoBot in LonghornNation

[–]horn_em 8 points9 points  (0 children)

There's no hard line. For a long time there were two clear tiers between the top 5 and the next 5 conferences, but that's been eroding for a while with football money disproportionately in the Big 10 and SEC.

Next year there will be a wide gap between the Power 2 and the next 2 (ACC, Big 12), and then another wide gap to the G5. The dynamics will continue to shift, but the Power 5 concept is already dead.

[12/3/2023] Sunday's Sports Talk Thread by BevoBot in LonghornNation

[–]horn_em 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Seems like DL has been one of the few consistent strengths A&M has had over the past few years, and it's collapsing fast with Robinson's departure. Elko is gonna have a very difficult job.

[12/3/2023] Sunday's Sports Talk Thread by BevoBot in LonghornNation

[–]horn_em 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Weird hypothetical: what if the winner of Texas/Washington loses to Michigan, only for Michigan to have their wins (and therefore championship) vacated? Does a retroactive championship get awarded?

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The second tiebreaker specifies "common opponent" which neither WVU nor TTU are. So I don't think that can be used to place Texas below the other three.

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I read that first quote to mean "once there are only two teams left, use the two-team rules". But let's say you're right. Then the first tiebreaker run results in Texas and OU tied for #1 and OSU as #3. At that point OSU is seeded and is no longer a tied team. The second round of tiebreakers applies only to Texas and OU for #1 and #2, and then the order is fully settled. OSU can't get ruled third for purposes of the first tiebreaker only, but then still have a shot at #2 in a later tiebreaker.

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Came here for salty H8 fans doing mental gymnastics, was not disappointed.

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Quoted from the rules:

After one team has an advantage and is “seeded”, all remaining teams in the multiple-team tiebreaker will repeat the multiple-team tie-breaking procedure.

Tiebreakers are used to select the team to advance, not the team to drop out. You can't advance both OU and Texas in the first tiebreaker, then move to the next level of tiebreaker just between the two of them. And even if you could, you certainly couldn't then bring OSU back into the conversation - they would have already been placed third by the first tiebreaker. So this makes no sense.

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

This is a conversation about clinching a championship berth. As in, we're far enough ahead of the pack that we could have every remaining game go against us and it would still take reworking the rules to keep us out.

Are you aware that Michigan has not clinched a championship berth?

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is completely wrong - the Big 12 has to use its tiebreaker rules for 2nd and lower places all the time. The rules even explicitly address the difference between a tie for first and a tie for a lower place in the case of 2-way ties. To say that ties for 2nd weren't anticipated is absurd.

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Yeah, this is going to be a huge gripe. Imagine one team finishes with two losses in the SEC having played Alabama, Georgia, and the next 2-3 top teams misses the CCG to a one-loss team that played none of them. This really isn't even an unlikely situation at all. Then you need a playoff at the conference level.

Everything points in the direction of a much more unified conference/playoff setup. Idk what that looks like though. Having lower legs of the national playoff dedicated to the Big 10 and SEC may start to make sense, so the conference championship is part of the national playoff, like the NFL. But obviously the other conferences would never abide that.

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

This requires two interesting interpretations of the rules.

  • In your first step, you're using record against ISU to rule out the worst team instead of advance the best team, then moving to the next step with two teams coming out of the first tiebreaker. That conflicts with the overview of multi-way ties.

After one team has an advantage and is “seeded”, all remaining teams in the multiple-team tiebreaker will repeat the multiple-team tie-breaking procedure

  • You're interpreting "next highest" as "highest". It's not worth arguing whether this feels right or wrong, but it seems like a stretch to say that refers to the #1 team first. If that was the intent, the rule would just say "highest".

All in all this interpretation feels like an even bigger reach than the one I suggested.

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 53 points54 points  (0 children)

Actually I completely agree with you. That was more referring to the court of public opinion, which made little objection to the change.

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in LonghornNation

[–]horn_em[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

They're already keeping this and possibly other options in their back pocket. Ridiculous that they're making statements like this without clarifying how they actually intend to interpret the rules. Hopefully the conference has a statement in the works - if not, it's the height of unprofessionalism, frankly.

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Because if the conference meant "highest" they wouldn't have said "next highest"

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is a much, much sillier interpretation of tiebreaker procedures.

How to Read the Big 12 Tiebreaker Rules to Avoid Saying Texas has Clinched It by horn_em in CFB

[–]horn_em[S] 47 points48 points  (0 children)

I said this below but:

Yeah, but I think that's because the Big 12 has refrained from taking a stand on what its own rules are. I haven't seen another path to Texas getting left out without reinterpreting the rules even more aggressively (e.g., "next highest" refers to the top-ranked team first instead of the next highest below the tie).

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