Voters who admitted they didn't watch night games played on the West Coast? Or computer formulas that were unknown to the public? That is no better than a committee.
Polls are no better than a committee, agreed. Both are subjective opinions, no matter how credible, justifiable, and effective the committee decisions may turn out to be. I can only hope that the playoff committee takes into consideration both popular opinion polls, professional opinions (coaches, media), as well as impartial factual data and formulaic rankings. I really like the idea of impartial computer rankings. I understand why someone who developed the formula would not want it to be publicly available, it is proprietary information. But it should be available to the selection committee just so that they can determine if it is entirely empirical. I dislike formulas where the formulator has some sort of subjective adjustment that he can put into the formula. But barring that, the computer rankings would eliminate any kind of subjective bias due to school, region, media perception, school tradition, name recognition, notoriety, racism, sexism, or alien abduction. It would provide fact-based rankings which the selection committee should have access to.
Overall, the makeup of the committee seems to be a very good mix of people, experience, smarts. They are still people however. And it seems to me that 4 isn't enough for a playoff. I understand the proprietary info but with no check or balance, I had little faith in how so many computer generated systems couldn't NOT have some kind of bias. For instance, I think Colley used a superior method to Massey and definitely better than Sagarin. And I do believe the committee will be using computer rankings to aid their discussion and selection.
I thought it was for along time. Rarely are more than four teams in contention for the title by December. And if you come in 5th or 6th, well . . . you should have done better. But I am beginning to think that an 8-team playoff would be ideal. Right now, 4 of the top-10 teams are in the SEC West. Every year they beat up on each other, mostly losing only to each other, yet only one will get to play in the SECCG and get into the playoff, even if 2 or 3 are quite worthy. An 8-team playoff would allow conferences with multiple contenders to get in another team or two when justified.
I agree. Initially I thought 4 would be better than 2 - which is essentially what it was. I'd like to see at least 6, and I think we will, eventually.
I don't think we'll ever see 6 & hope we don't. The bye week that 2 teams would get is too advantageous. Plus the money left on the table by losing two games would be incredible. They would definitely go to eight teams I'd think.
I agree. The question is when? And I think it's going to be rare to see two SEC teams in the Final 4. I think you would almost have to have an undefeated SEC champ and a one loss other team.
Exactly. And, how many championship teams at other levels or in different sports are truly the best all season long? It is often who has been really good all season, but has gotten better along the way, and then is the "hot" team come playoffs. LSU in 2003 was this way. This expectation of being undefeated, or only 1 loss, is part of the problem with this system. A team may be playing fantastic, have gelled, but lost 2 early, have not climbed back up the "ranking ladder" into the top 4 and end up being cut out.
Well to be fair, unlike other sports, you play 1 game a week. You don't have a huge amount of games to see who is playing well etc. Hell you might have just have favorable matchups 2-3 weeks in a row. As much as I hate it, the undefeated or 1-loss type system is the best for the sport. Unless we're going to lengthen the season.
