mat1397

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Date	Title	Body
1 week 1 day ago	So what about the other bowl games? Will they be empty too?	Or only the most important bowl games (i.e., the playoff games) will be empty?
1 week 1 day ago	You are generally correct that the past decade...	has been bad for the Rose Bowl.  To me, that's a big part of the reason the current system sucks.  But the new system can and should be crafted in a way that improve things.  First, the Title Game itself should be a predetermined, rotating neutral site (like the SuperBowl).  Second, the BCS bowls host the first round of the playoffs, and you assign playoff teams to BCS bowls in a way that preserves traditional matchups.  Frankly, I'd like to see the Rose Bowl always be Pac12 vs B1G (even if not always conference champs).  If both conference champs are in the playoffs, they should play each other and the Rose Bowl should host the game.  If not, I'd rather not see the Rose Bowl host a playoff game.  That will sometimes mean you have to replace a conference champ that made the playoffs with the next best conference team, but you still at least have Pac12 vs B1G with at least one conference champ in the game.
11 weeks 1 day ago	double post*	*
11 weeks 1 day ago	That's a very good question but it involves more than	just certain advantages/biases that a recruit who goes to a big program may have over a recruit at a smaller program (frankly, I think the NFL generally does too good a job scouting to let talented guys slip through the cracks just because they are at a small school). The bigger and more interesting question is whether the lower ranked players who go to big programs actually then to be better recruits than their similarly ranked counterparts.  If Nick Saban is hot after a 3-star player, I suspect that kid may well be more talented than his ranking suggests, and perhaps Rivals just missed the boat. In other words, are all 3-stars created equal, or are some more likely to succeed than other?  Would be really interesting to compare, for example, whether a RIvals 5.7 3-star who is an otherwise highly ranked class is more likely to be drafted than a Rivals 5.7 3-star who is in a middling class, based on the theory that a lower ranked guy in a highly ranked class is much more likely to be a guy the coaches really wanted, rather than a guy the coaches merely had to settle for.  On the other hand, a lower ranked guy in a highly ranked class might be LESS likely to succeed because the competition for playing time is greater.  Either way, it would be interesting to know if there is any correlation between the overall ranking of a recruiting class and the likelihood of a lower ranked player in that class getting drafted.
11 weeks 1 day ago	These statistics are great but are easily misused/misinterpreted	They suggest the odds for a RANDOMLY selected 5, 4 or 3 star player.  However, it doesn't, for example, tell you that a particular 4 star player that your coaches just signed has a better likelihood of success than the 3 star player they just signed.  It doesn't mean they necessarily make a mistake (even putting needs aside) when they go hard after a lower ranked guy and ignore a higher ranked guy.  Because at that point you are no longer dealing with a random sampling from the pool--you are dealing with players that were specifically selected because the coaches saw something they wanted.  You cannot forget that end of the day the rankings are just some guy's opinion, and opinions--even qualified opinions--vary.  One person's three star maybe another person's five star.  On the other hand, while you expect some variation in opinions, you also expect a good deal of overlap.  If your coaches are consistently pulling in ALL lower ranked players, it's POSSIBLE they are seeing something everyone else is missing, but it is far more likely they just aren't doing a very good job getting or identifying the best players available.
15 weeks 2 days ago	Seth, not sure how difficult it would be	but it would be interesting to see what these graphs look like centered in the middle of the 5.7 group, rather than using the line between 5.7 and 5.8 as the mid-point.  Reason being is I seem to recall that there's a significant statistical difference between the 5.7 group and the rest of the 3-stars, and that they tend to perform pretty close to their 5.8 4-star counterparts.  As presented, the graphs tend to reflect the 5.7 group as a negative (closer to all other 3 and 2-stars), where relatively they are probably better reflected closer to a neutral.  These borderline 4-star guys are often highly sought after by good teams, and probably deserve more of the benefit of the doubt than the rest of the 3 and 2 stars.
23 weeks 2 days ago	The question isn't whether	the first team out HAS a shot at winning, the question is whether they DESERVE a shot at winning.  You want to try and include everyone that has a legitimate argument that they are the #1 team.  Okie State, for example, has a legitimate argument that they are #1 and deserve a shot.  This year's Michigan team, in comparison, theoretically could win a tournament, but they don't currently have any legitimate argument for being #1.  If Michigan gets left out, they can't rightfully complain.  Now if Michigan lucks out and gets in anyway (because your system errs on the side of inclusiveness so that no one with a legitimate argument for being #1 gets left out) that doesn't mean Michigan State all of sudden has a legitimate complaint since they beat Michigan.  One team getting something they don't deserve doesn't all of a suddent entitle another team to something they don't deserve.
23 weeks 2 days ago	But that's where the "Georgia problem" comes in.	Say Georgia manages to beat LSU in the conference championship game but still isn't good enough to be considered one of the top 6 conference champions.  Now the SEC, with arguably the #1 and #2 teams in the country, has NO TEAMS in the playoffs.  This system basically tells conferences they stand to be punished in the National Championship picture if they have a conference championship game. I'd be happy to have a system that only allows one team per conference and that favors conference champions if they are viable.  But if the conference champion isn't viable but another member of the conference is, the conference shouldn't be excluded from the playoffs altogether.  You could even limit this exclusively to conference championship game situations.  Allow the loser of the game to potentially make the playoff, but only if the winner doesn't make it.
23 weeks 2 days ago	I have no problem with do-or-die situations	and I agree that ideally you want the path to a National Championship to be as clear as possible from Day 1. But you are arguing for a Playoff of ONLY conference champions because that makes the rules clear and eliminates subjectivity.  But which conference champions?  You could say all of them, but that means a 3-loss Big East and ACC and Mid-Amercian Champion gets in but a 1-loss Alabama team stays home.  There's no way the SEC, e.g., is going to agree to that kind of inequity of opportunity at a National Championship, and rightfully so.  It also means you've got to move to an 11 team playoff system (and yet the team everyone thinks is the 2nd best in the country isn't in it).  If all conference champs don't get in, you have to have a system for excluding some over others.  Now you are back to the uncertainty you despise.  And now you have the possibility of the Georgia example above.  Say Georgia as a 4-loss conference champion doesn't make the cut, and Alabama and LSU with only one loss aren't eligible because they didn't win the conference.  So now the SEC, who has arguably the two best teams in the country, has NO representation whatsoever in your playoff system.  That possibility also isn't going to fly.  I suppose you could say just BCS conference champions, and the two highest ranked champions of the non-BCS conferences for an 8 team playoff.  That's at least feasible.  But I still don't like that, for example, a 3-loss Big East or ACC team automatically gets in...that is hard to justify.  As much as I don't like untested assumptions about conference superiority, I also don't like just totally assuming away conference inferiority.  The idea that, for example, 3-loss Clemson could beat a previously unbeaten LSU in the National Championship game and would be crowned National Champion isn't a system I care for very much.
23 weeks 2 days ago	I'm saying it isn't politically viable...	at least right now.  Partly because of the extra games, and partly because it undermines the bowl system too much.   It wasn't long ago, e.g., that Michigan would play 12 games a year max (11 game regular season and a bowl).  With the conference championship game we've jumped up to 14.  Now we want to potentially jump to as many as 16.  But even that isn't nearly as big of an obstacle as what a multi-round playoff does to undermine the relevance and tradition of the bowls.

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