i post my six team playoff again

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Nick’s Question:

What do you guys think of Bama getting in ahead of OSU? Do you still trust they’ll get it right in the future? I know Brian has a six-team playoff, but do you guys all agree on that or have other ideas?

…that we broke into three parts.

Q1: Did the committee get it right this year?

David: I think they got it fine. Clemson, Oklahoma, and Georgia are the Top 3 and probably should be. Maybe bump the Sooners to 1? This is fine, though.

As far as Bama/OSU goes...whatever, I think its pretty 50/50. Bama's schedule wasn't great, and OSU had an extra loss. It was a coin-toss.

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Nobody’s arguing Ohio State looked like a playoff team; the problem is Alabama didn’t either. [photo: Patrick Barron]

Brian: I don't think there was a way to get it right, really. You're choosing between a team that has its most notable win over Mississippi State and one that lost to Oklahoma and Iowa uncompetitively. (Remember that OU-OSU game should have been worse than 15-point loss; OU spent the first half driving the field and then shooting itself in the foot.) And USC, which also got blown out embarrassingly by Notre Dame. This isn't a year when there's a clear choice, or even a vaguely clear choice. It's a coin flip.

But it's one the committee got wrong, for the same reason they got it wrong last year. It's a coin flip as far as resume and team quality goes. So make the season count, dammit. If a conference championship isn't going to be a tiebreaker why even bother? Penn State last year and Ohio State this year both went through an extra game against a tough opponent to win a supposedly important thing only to get passed over for a team that sat at home and watched. That's garbage.

[Hit THE JUMP for ripping on the SEC, and how teal were the 90s? So teal]

Harbaugh-Crab2

really should have used this for the bowl game post

That is a large spread. Michigan is favored by 6.5 against FSU. S&P+ has Michigan by 11.8 and with a 75% shot at victory. Other lines that are already up: Wisconsin –7.5 against WMU and PSU +7 against USC.

S&P+ lines for other Big Ten games:

  • OSU-Clemson: OSU by 4.9.
  • Wisconsin-WMU: Wisconsin by 8.
  • Iowa-Florida: Iowa(!) by 4.6.
  • USC-PSU: USC by 3.4.
  • Nebraska-Tennessee: Nebraska by 1.1.
  • Utah-Indiana: Utah by 1.9.
  • Pitt-NW: Pitt by 5.1
  • Washington State-Minnesota: WSU by 0.5.
  • Maryland-BC: Maryland by 0.1.
  • Michigan State-Dignity: Dignity by 35.

I thought a sure consequence of four Big Ten teams getting pulled up into NY6 bowls would be the rest of the conference getting set on fire, but S&P+—which was 56% against the spread this year—thinks almost everything is a tossup at worst. I did not know that the Big Ten would lose the Citrus (which is LSU-Louisville, yes please) if they got the Orange, but they rather sensibly do.

Good to see that the bowl revamp has added flexibility and created a bunch of good matchups.

Cole also plans to return. As of yesterday:

Center Mason Cole, speaking to reporters Sunday evening, suggested that he will return, though the junior was hesitant to commit to anything.

"Not right now," Cole said of thinking about the NFL. "I'm focused on this next game and getting the win. I'll take a look at everything, but as it stands now, I'm definitely leaning towards coming back."

Chris Wormley volunteered a return for Maurice Hurst as well. Both guys will be critical starters on next year's team should they follow through on those statements. (Hurst had previously said he'd be back.)

So we've got that going for us, part zillion. Per PFF Michigan is the best team left out of the playoff and one of the top four overall:

All four of the teams that will be in this year’s playoff rank in the top five of PFF’s cumulative grades for 2016. Alabama ranks first, Washington second, Ohio State fourth and Clemson fifth.

The No. 3 team in the country? The Michigan Wolverines. ...

In particular, when looking at a team that could match up best with top-seeded Alabama, the Wolverines appear to be one of the best candidates. They rank third in PFF’s run-defense grades, second in pass-rush and 12th in coverage – giving them a defense that could go toe-to-toe with Alabama’s and perhaps put enough pressure on Crimson Tide’s freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts (more on him in a bit) to spark an upset.

They seem to think that Clemson should be favored over OSU, with two bullets talking up Deshaun Watson and talking down OSU's pass protection. We've got that going for us, too.

Peppers stock. Also in PFF things, Jabrill Peppers took a tumble in their latest mock draft:

When targeted in coverage this season, he has yielded receptions on 20 of 26 targets and does not have a single pass defended when he is the primary defender (his lone interception against Ohio State was a case of him being in the right place at the right time off a pass tipped in front). He also lacks the size to consistently take on and shed blocks going forward, as the majority of his impact plays this year have come when he has been unblocked.

PFF has always had him in the 10-15 range right next to Lewis and not a top 5 pick, so this isn't a huge tumble. I'm still confused by those pass completion numbers. Namely where any of them came from. I'm sure Peppers has been targeted more than the two times I remember, but 26? I don't know where that comes from.

On the postseason. I've been saying this for ten years and will say it until they destroy the dream by going to 8 teams: a 6-team playoff is the best one available most of the time. Six teams emphasizes the regular season since there are home games and byes up for grabs; it keeps the field sufficiently constricted so that make-weights are extremely unlikely.

This year, I assume that the committee made some changes to the rankings to give the appearance of deliberative thought when there was none. That makes the six-team playoff deeply weird:

1. Alabama vs 4. Washington / 5. Penn State
2. Clemson vs 3. OSU / 6. Michigan

Clemson jumped OSU, and that did not matter. PSU jumped Michigan, and that did not matter. The former was a meaningless admonishment to win your conference; the latter was a meaningless admonishment to win your conference. If Clemson or Washington did not win their title games I wonder if they would have had the cojones to put PSU in over a team with the same record who beat it 49-10.

Anyway, in a six-team world I bet a dollar the committee finagles it such that there is not an immediate rematch of M/OSU—or leaves a third Big Ten team out entirely.

This is bunk. There is an enormous Bloomberg article on officiating out there that I keep seeing, because it purports to show that there is a class of "protected blue bloods" that get favorable calls. Oddly, it leads with Florida State getting hosed against Clemson—which one is the blue blood?—and then hits their thesis statement:

“This is an incestuous situation,” says Rhett Brymer, a business management professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He spent more than a year parsing almost 39,000 fouls called in games involving NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision teams in the 2012-2015 seasons. His research finds “ample evidence of biases among conference officials,” including “conference officials showing partiality towards teams with the highest potential to generate revenue for their conference.”

Refs are partial towards teams "with the highest potential to generate revenue." In other words, good teams. They throw fractionally fewer flags on those teams:

Brymer’s data suggest something more insidious. Across the 3,000-odd regular-season and bowl games he studied, a bit less than half of the fouls called were what he terms “discretionary”—holding, pass interference, unsportsmanlike conduct, and personal fouls like roughing the passer. Refs were on average 10 percent less likely to throw discretionary flags on teams that enjoy both strong playoff prospects and winning traditions. Brymer calls these teams “protected flagships.”

There is a less than insidious explanation: avoiding penalties is a skill. Flagship teams are more likely to have firebreathing truckzillas; Purdue is more likely to have a peasant wielding a pitchfork. In such situations the penalty scales are naturally out of balance; news that Purdue gets 14% fewer "discretionary" calls than OSU fails to move hte needle. That seems about right. This is immediately proposed by the NCAA's national coordinator for officiating and then largely ignored.

About 3/4ths of the way through the thing we get the big reveal:

While earning his Ph.D. at Texas A&M, he came to sympathize with Aggie fans who believed that all close calls favored the University of Texas. “I reached a breaking point,” Brymer says. Weary of fans whining about refs without empirical evidence, he decided to see if he could find any. “At least I’m bringing myself peace,” he says.

Yes, but think of all the bloggers you're forcing to write skeptical items in their link roundup pieces.

Prepare to be asked whether you went to Michigan. The Ringer's Kaite Baker got into Michigan football this year, which was fun until it wasn't.

Harbaugh isn’t for everyone, but to me, he’s like a combustible acquaintance: As long as you never get tooclose, you can sit back and just let the theatrics endlessly entertain you.

But it’s possible I’m getting too close. The past few weeks have been a rougher ride, a mere glimpse into the tumultuousness of a typical college football season. Winning the national championship seems like an impossibility: Just getting the chance to try requires a constantly evolving team of near-children remaining close to perfect over the course of a 12- or 13-game season. (NFL teams, meanwhile, can barely squeak past .500 and still win Super Bowls.) Even in a post-BCS world, the scope and sprawl of FBS football means that it will forever be hostage to subjective decisions by conflicted parties.

Having been kicked in all available places, Baker is probably hooked. Welcome! Here is your pillow to scream into.

Maybe he is Mark Ingram except fast. Thomas Rawls blew up:

He carried 15 times for 106 yards (7.1 yards per carry) and two touchdowns as the offense exploded, scoring on eight of 11 possessions. In the first quarter, Rawls found a cutback lane and hurdled into the end zone for an 8-yard score. In the second, he showed his big-play ability by outrunning defenders for a 45-yard touchdown.

On the one hand, Fred Jackson recruited the guy. On the other, he got three carries as a junior and transferred. Mike Cox getting drafted and having a cup of coffee was one thing; Rawls turning into Marshawn Lynch 2.0 is quite another. He's the most successful Michigan NFL running back since at least Tim Biakabutuka and he'll pass the effective but constantly injured Biakabutuka in a year or two if he remains hale.

Etc.: Purdue has apparently hired WKU coach Jeff Brohm, which isn't the worst idea. Here's this Pat Forde article on how Jim Harbaugh fits right in there I forgot to link two weeks ago. ND Nation never stops winning even if the team does. Punt John Punt on the Wilson firing.

Previously: hockey, soccer, basketball.

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[Bryan Fuller]

This is about college football. The NFL list is "why are you the way you are" ten times.

10. Fumbles out of the endzone are treated like other fumbles.

Nonsense that a fumble that goes out at the one stays with the team that fumbled but one that brushes the pylon is a game-changing turnover. Way to emphasize the essentially arbitrary nature of both football and life, rule. You suck!

9. Count intentional grounding as a sack, and count sacks against pass yardage

This doesn't do anything to help on-field things but hoooooo boy do I want to throttle whoever came up with these inane statistical quirks that I shake my fist at every week during the season. If I was a defensive end and saw the QB fling the ball moments before I engulfed him and then I didn't get credit for a sack I would send a sternly-worded letter to someone. You better believe that.

8. Actually enforce illegal man downfield rules.

vlcsnap-2012-09-10-20h32m02s57

that's two count-em two Air Force OL seven yards downfield on a pass

It's three yards in college and one in the NFL, except it's more like infinity yards in college since refs don't bother calling it*. The lack of enforcement here has created an indefensible subset of run/pass option plays. Those are fine, as long as they stay within the rules. If OL are allowed to go downfield and cut block linebackers, which I have seen multiple times in UFR, you might as well bury defensive coordinators alive. They'll enjoy it more than defending RPOs.

*[Except once when Taylor Lewan engaged a guy on a pass block and blocked him so dang good they ended up a few yards downfield. In the aftermath the announcers admonished him for not being aware enough of where he was on the field; I swore so hard at these gentlemen that an iceberg shaped like a middle finger broke off of Greenland.]

7. College overtime starts at the 35.

The 25 is so close that even a three-and-out gives the offense a reasonably makeable field goal. Moving the start back to the 35 would make each overtime period more likely to be decisive and help prevent 6 OT marathons.

6. Adopt NFL punt coverage rules.

Spread punting and its seven gunners have made the punt return an increasingly boring exercise in watching several people surround a ball until it ceases moving.

That percentage doesn't include balls that aren't fielded at all.

The NFL prohibits all but two people from leaving until the ball is gone; adopting similar rules in CFB would restore some of the drama when man kicks ball to Jabrill Peppers-type object.

6. Adopt MGoPlayoff and never change it.

In a nutshell: 6 team playoff with home games the first two rounds and the championship at the Rose Bowl. Six teams allows all reasonable contenders in almost every year without much if any filler. Byes for the top two and home games help preserve the importance of the regular season despite the slight expansion of the field. Having things at the Rose Bowl is just obvious man. All things should be at the Rose Bowl.

5. Change the scholarship cap to an annual one.

I'm ignoring Title IX and the absurd ways it funnels money from poor to rich here, so that objection is noted.

Virtually all of the problems with oversigning and medical redshirts and not-so-voluntary transfers go away if the incentives change. With an annual cap of new scholarship players instead of an overall one, schools are incentivized to keep everyone around in case they work out. I'd set it at 25 since there would be attrition still; you could tweak it if that ended up being insufficient.

4. Allow players to sign an early, non-binding LOI.

Moving Signing Day up is a dumb idea, but it's one that gets pushed on the regular because some people think the current "offer" environment is bad for player and program. They might have a point, but allowing people to sign mostly-binding LOIs before hiring and firing gets done just increases the chances that bad fits get locked in.

Instead, create a system where recruits can sign an early LOI. Parameters:

  • The team must offer a scholarship on Signing Day.
  • Team and recruit can have unlimited contact; other teams can have none.
  • Recruit cannot take officials to other campuses; gets second to team he signs with.
  • Recruit can withdraw NBLOI at any time until Signing Day.

A NBLOI offers more certainty for both player and program without the deleterious effects of locking players in early.

3. Add an FCS exhibition before the season. Other FCS games don't count.

Doesn't count against redshirts. Doesn't require players who are actually going to see the field to play. Adds another chunk of revenue with which schools can play more meaningful nonconference games. Prevents that week where everyone in the SEC plays Chattanooga at the same time.

2. Kickoffs that go through the uprights are worth a point.

Yeah buddy. Put some bite in those personal fouls after touchdowns.

1. Multiball allows you to score as many touchdowns as you need.

In the last two minutes you can snap as many balls as you please as long as they're all snapped at the same time. You get the outcome of the worst ball, but if you score with both you get two touchdowns.