College Football

[sardis]

Pitt is Shitt

[innocentbystander]

I dont think I said anything remotely controversial. Its so obvious as to be evident in the AP rankings you yourself were commenting on.

Pittsburgh has played Kent State, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Youngstown State, North Carolina, and Cal. None of these teams received a single vote for being in the AP top 25, and Pitt is barely squeaking by most of them, arguably they are one of the luckiest teams in college football so far, rather than one of the best.

Alabama beat #2 Georgia. Their two losses are to #7 Tennessee and #25 Vanderbilt. They beat another team that is receiving votes (South Carolina). They also demolished Wisconsin 42-10 which is a comparable team to the best team that Pitt barely beat (Cincinnati).

Alabama has only played 7 games and Pitt only 6, so w'ere talking about the majority of games on each teams schedule just not being comparable competition AT ALL. This is an egregious comparison where one team has played almost all their games against good teams and the other is barely beating shit teams. Counting losses doesnt work. Alabama would be 6-0 with Pitt's schedule. Pitt would be 3-4 or 4-3 against Alabama's schedule.

Ok.

Tell me, if just 60 hours from now, Pitt squeaks by a 5-1 Syracuse by a point or two and goes to 7-0, does any of this analysis on your part, change? Does your impression of Pitt change? I would say, no. I would say, you would still feel the same way about Pitt, that they still deserve to be ranked behind a two loss team.

It is better to be good rather than lucky since you can always be good but not always lucky. But at a certain point (I would argue we are already at that point), if a team keeps winning and not losing, its not just being lucky anymore aTm.

In the grand scheme of things (maybe for the first time ever) none of this really matters. None of it. If Pitt keeps winning, eventually they will mathematically be guaranteed a spot in the ACC championship to play Miami no matter where they are ranked. And if they beat Miami, they will be in the playoffs and they will be given a first round bye, whether you or I or any of the shamefully ignorant pollsters think they deserve it or not.

[aTm]

If Pitt barely beats Syracuse its just more of the same. Sure its another good data point, but no its not an impression changing game. If Pitt played and beat Georgia loke Alabama has yeah thatd be something

[Dave23]

Thank you…

[aTm]

All of this is part of the problem with the traditional polls. Using them to determine bowls was always stupid. It's not how they do it in any other sports which have similar schedule imbalance. Who your wins are against is infinitely more informative than how many losses you have. The problem with polls is that the journalists and coaches that vote arent trying to re-evaluate based on all of the information every week. Instead there is an assumption inherent in the vote that what a voter submitted last week was correct. So lets say someone at the start of this year has #1 Team A and #2 Team B and both remain undefeated for 5 weeks. That pollster in the vast majority of the cases will still have the same top 2. But those two wont be ranked based on what they did in the first 5 weeks of the season, they are just ranked based on what the pollster thought before any games were even played. If Team A loses, then they will drop a certain number of spots and only then will Team B move up, even if Team B looked better the entire season before that.

This kind of bias is rampant in the voter polls, and leads to a mentality that you dont drop until you lose, and teams that dont lose move up as teams lose in front of them. This "ranking" by losses, has always been totally wrong.

The College Football Playoff is not decided by a poll, it is decided by a selection committee who discuss every team and make a decision collectively, like basketball. Its not a hundred votes that have idiotic opinions averaged into it like a poll. Most of the "surprises" that we've seen the committee make are because the committee is actually trying to evaluate who is better based on the results. So teams with better wins and harder schedules are getting ranked above teams with fewer losses. There will be multiple teams that make the playoffs with 2 and even 3 losses this year and going forward.

For example, unless someone gets totally blown out, I predict that you wont see a team being penalized in the playoff selection for losing a conference championship game. In the past teams have dropped because other teams that won their conference moved up in front of them, but you haven't and won't see like an SEC team that is sitting at home jump in front of the SEC runner up just because they lost a game the other team didn't even have to play in. You won't get an advantage just based on having one less loss than a conference runner up, and you shouldn't. It'd be dumb.

[DooKSucks]

Syracuse isn't good either. So, beating them shouldn't do that much for Pitt.

It's basketball season.

[hedge]

Why did you lie, IB?

[Dave23]

He’s not lying on purpose…he just doesn’t comprehend…

[Jungle Rat]

All this nonsense over Pitt? PITT?

[innocentbystander]

I am no Pitt fan. My stake in this is purely ACC related. The ACC had it's undefeated champion last year left out of the playoffs, maybe for good reason. But that was disgusting none the less. The way the new system is set up, the power 4 champs getting automatic byes the first week, that will never happen again (as well it shouldn't.)

I'm a math guy. I like math. And I like data. And "losses" are a perfectly good mathematical datapoint to use to determine who does NOT belong in the playoffs. We have to use something objective. The most valuable player of the team getting injured and out for the rest of the season (or in FSU's case last year, the playoffs they didn't get to play in) is a subjective measurement. A bunch of pro-SEC guys on a college football message board with sour grapes that their conference is the only conference without an undefeated team in it and telling me not to use losses as any kind of measurement, is also subjective. There is nothing more objective than a loss.

[hedge]

"The ACC had it's undefeated champion last year left out of the playoffs, maybe for good reason. But that was disgusting none the less."

Something done for good reason is disgusting? That's like saying murdering you would be disgusting. You say you like math, the only disgusting that happened to FSU last year was getting beaten 63-3 by Georgia, yet you think they should've been in the playoff? You want objective? You are objectively a moron...

[innocentbystander]

"The ACC had it's undefeated champion last year left out of the playoffs, maybe for good reason. But that was disgusting none the less."

Something done for good reason is disgusting? That's like saying murdering you would be disgusting. You say you like math, the only disgusting that happened to FSU last year was getting beaten 63-3 by Georgia, yet you think they should've been in the playoff? You want objective? You are objectively a moron...

That FSU team that played Georgia was not the team that played the regular season in 2023. That is the team that is playing THIS year. That game was all FSU freshmen playing Georgia.

[eCat]

Texas bring a bad rep to the SEC

you're doing something when the SEC is like "WTF is wrong with these guys?"

[innocentbystander]

Syracuse head coach Ben Schwartzwalder said it best:

In Texas, football is a religion.

That IS their faith.

[innocentbystander]

alright Pitt

I don't think many (any?) people here will be watching your game but prove it tonight even if winning apparently will not move the needle for some of these posters. It will move it for me.

[Jungle Rat]

They can't hear you.

[hedge]

alright Pitt

I don't think many (any?) people here will be watching your game but prove it tonight even if winning apparently will not move the needle for some of these posters. It will move it for me.

I'd like to move a needle filled with Zyklon-B into your jugular vein...

[Dave23]

A

[innocentbystander]

alright Pitt

I don't think many (any?) people here will be watching your game but prove it tonight even if winning apparently will not move the needle for some of these posters. It will move it for me.

I'd like to move a needle filled with Zyklon-B into your jugular vein...

You breathe that, not shoot it.