Who Should the Fourth Team in be?

Who should the fourth team in be?

  • Ohio State

    Votes: 21 28.4%
  • Oklahoma

    Votes: 39 52.7%
  • UCF

    Votes: 7 9.5%
  • Other

    Votes: 7 9.5%

  • Total voters
    74
Personally I think ND even though they are undefeated is not one of the top four teams, but of course they will get in. It’s kinda of a moot point who the fourth team is because Alabama will win it all. I give Clemson a small shot to win it.
 

big ten vs big 12...maryland over texas, ohio state over tcu, iowa over clones, Kansas over RU, other?

big ten vs acc...penn state over pitt, purdue over bc, indiana over uva, duke over nw, other?

big ten vs sec...mizzou over purdue, other?

big ten vs pac...ohio state over beavers, asu over msu, Colorado over Nebby, other?

non power five notable...minnesota over fresno, nd over mi and nw, byu over wi, iowa over northern illinois, akron over nw, emu over purdue, usf over illini, Troy over NE, buff over Rutgers, temple over MD, MSU over Utah state, PSU over App State.
 
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No way it’s Georgia. My money is on Oklahoma, but I hope OSU sneaks in.
 

Georgia is likely a top 4 team, but in this situation they shouldn’t be selected.

No way should OSU be chosen over OK. I despise Big 12 football that plays no D, but their loss was to a higher ranked team and they avenged it. Sorry OSU, should have beat Purdue.

AL, CLEM, ND, OK

With that lineup I’m unlikely to even watch.


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This perfectly sums it up.
 

Georgia had their chance. They basically were in a 5 team playoff and they lost the play-in game. They had their chance to prove they could beat Alabama and win a national title. And for most of the game it looked like they would, but, in the end, they failed. Oklahoma will get in and get crushed by Alabama. Clemson and Notre Dame should be a good game.
 


In the BCS era the authorities endeavored to match the two best football teams in the country in a title game so that we could have an undisputed champion. That didn’t work because there was often some question about whether a legitimate contender for top-two status was being left out of the championship game. So then we got a four-team playoff, which has solved the problem of one or even two teams getting unfairly passed over by including two more top contenders. Problem solved? NOOO, because the American sporting public would rather argue and complain than accept a satisfactory solution to a problem. Now we argue and complain about whether the fifth-best team in the country is getting cheated out of a fourth-place ranking. [dead horse ain’t getting any fresher]

Short answer: I can’t pick a fourth seed because i’m sick of the whole process.

I personally liked when it was only two teams better, and actually I know this is probably a minority opinion, but I liked when the champion was just voted on. It made every week much more exciting and the sport more interesting. It made college football a unique thing. Now it is turning more like the NFL.
 

The national semis will be Alabama-Oklahoma and Clemson-Notre Dame. Oklahoma will get violated by Alabama.
 

This thread brings up an interesting question. Should the CFP be the best 4 teams? Or 4 conference champions?

My strong preference is for the latter.
 

I disagree that it should just be about getting the four best teams. If it's just going to be a beauty contest, then why even keep track of wins and losses? Who most deserves it has to be a part of the conversation.
 



I would take Ohio State, but the committee will take Oklahoma.
 

My guess is it will be what most expect with Bama, Clemson, ND and OU but I'm I the only one that thinks Georgia would beat ND by 14+ points? There is nothing about the Irish schedule and results that impress me in the slightest. Watch their game against Army for example. They'd have 3-4 losses playing in the Big 10 IMO.


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If ND played a typical Big Ten schedule, how many losses would they have this year? I say minimum of 2.
 

CFP:

Alabama
Clemson
Notre Dame
Oklahoma

This. The drubbing by Purdue is huge. This hurts tOSU.

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=Lu4DXNTaGcKYjwTJ7p9Q&q=ohio+state+vs+purdue+football+2018&oq=ohio+state+vs+purdue&gs_l=psy-ab.1.1.0l10.1301.7464..10162...0.0..0.138.2201.9j12....2..0....1..gws-wiz.....0..35i39j0i131j0i3.rhO5ucSzZMk

Oklahoma has legitimate claim. If you go by Strength of Schedule and other metrics, Oklahoma edges undefeated tOSU slightly.

CFP Team Rankings - 1. Alabama, 2. Clemson, 3. Notre Dame, 4. Georgia, 5. Oklahoma, 6. Ohio State.
https://www.google.com/search?sourc...#sie=lg;/g/11gd7078vy;6;/m/012hfxch;rn;fp;1;;

No matter how the selection committee decides, they will always be mumblings about fairness.

What if you have a conference/division with very good teams that beat up on each other? Will they be disqualified by wins and losses? Then there are teams like Notre Dame, UCF, and possibly Boise in their heyday.

Do you award the teams for their historical record, their whole body of work in a given season What about how they match up against top competitions? Do you award teams that surge in the end?

But, in the case of Ohio State this season, Purdue knocked their chances off making the playoff.

Bill Connelly of SB Nation has an interesting November 27, 2018 article that I posted separately.
 
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ESPN's playoff predictor has OSU with a 71% chance to make it. Far better percentage than OU with about 25%.
 

ESPN's playoff predictor has OSU with a 71% chance to make it. Far better percentage than OU with about 25%.

Me thinks this is ESPN just trying to drum up interest. There is no way OSU has a 50% higher chance of making it than OU.
 

Georgia lost twice to the likely #1 seed. I don't care how close they played them. Unless one subscribes to the "third times the charm" logic, I don't see why Georgia should be in the CFP.

Georgia has only played Alabama once this year, not twice, and were leading or tied with them for 58 of 60 minutes. No one has come close to that. Georgia’s schedule has been tougher. Again, I think they pick Oklahoma but Georgia is clearly one of the four best. Isn’t that what the committee is in charge of doing? Selecting the four best? If you want to exclude teams that are not conference champions I have no problem with that, but then make that the rule.


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How many of you wanting to see Georgia in the playoff saw Ohio State winning it all a few years back when they squeaked in as a four seed? The SEC is a great FB conference but non conf champs should be automatically disqualified. If you’ve got five major conferences and are only going to allow four teams in a playoff, it is plain wrong to take half the field from one conference.

If you are going to say Georgia should be in because the four selections should be the BEST four teams, why bother with a playoff? Or even bowls? Just name the #1 team national champs and have it all based on opinion. The thing is, underdogs can win and that is actually the fun part. The more you can take opinion out of it, the better. Requiring playoff teams to win their conferences is a great way to take opinion out of it. It doesn’t solve all the opinion gaps (what to do with independents and how to fill four slots when there are five power conf champions), but for me it is waaaay better than doubling up entrants from a single conference.
 

I don't think that Georgia should be in the playoff but I would love to see them matched against UCF in a New Years six bowl.
 

Since we just assume the SEC is better than everyone Georgia should probably move up to number 2
 

I don't think that Georgia should be in the playoff but I would love to see them matched against UCF in a New Years six bowl.

Yes!


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In ‘06 Ohio State was #1 and Michigan was #2 and they played a spectacular final game against each other. Using “Georgia is the only team to play Alabama tough” logic, they should have met in the NC game. They both lost their bowl games, showing yet again you just have to eliminate opinion whenever and wherever you can in this process.
 

Will we see more cross conference match ups scheduled? One way to get a barometer of how good teams from each conference stack up is to have some head to head match ups between conferences.

It is more difficult to do in football whole scale than in basketball. But, then there is the question of how good are teams at the beginning and at the end of season when the match ups occur.

Maybe, there may be some. I highly doubt it will be adopted wholesale. The SEC may decide to keep it the way it is. It may be a lot easier to expand the college football playoff to maybe eight teams. Then, you run into the money folks that control sports and scheduling. Players may think it is not worth the risk of injuries close to the NFL Draft.

I guess I have to shut up and take my pill.
 

This is the issue about how the committee decides to do the teams, deciding collectively who is "best", whatever the hell that means. It leads to gross inconsistency, particularly when you have people who have vested interests involved in the selection process.

Using what their metrics are (CCs, SOS, H2H, and results against common opponents), it really should not be a 3 team comparison.

Bama, Clemson, ND are locks as they are undefeated. SOS below is via Sagarin (OSU is much higher if you use ESPNs rankings)

Oklahoma: won championship, 31st SOS, no H2H, no like opponents
OSU: won championship, 40th SOS, no H2H, no like opponents
Georgia: no championship, 6th SOS, no H2H, no like opponents

given the committee says that CCs are supposed to mean something, GA is out based purely on that (not saying it's right or wrong).

OK vs OSU: based on the above, they appear as like teams by comparison's sake above. Given that, Oklahoma avenged their one loss in somewhat convincing fashion (and that the committee will say this matters) and it was against a top 25 opponent. They should be in. Easy as that.

Bama vs OK (I'd expect the line to be about 10-14)
Clemson vs ND (I'd guess the line is about Clemson by 4-5)
 
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Alabama
Clemson
Norte Dame
Oklahoma

Ohio St losing to a 6-6 team by 29 should not get in.
 

This is the issue about how the committee decides to do the teams, deciding collectively who is "best", whatever the hell that means. It leads to gross inconsistency, particularly when you have people who have vested interests involved in the selection process.

Using what their metrics are (CCs, SOS, H2H, and results against common opponents), it really should not be a 3 team comparison.

Bama, Clemson, ND are locks as they are undefeated.

Oklahoma: won championship, 31st SOS, no H2H, no like opponents
OSU: won championship, 40th SOS, no H2H, no like opponents
Georgia: no championship, 6th SOS, no H2H, no like opponents

given the committee says that CCs are supposed to mean something, GA is out based purely on that (not saying it's right or wrong).

OK vs OSU: based on the above, they appear as like teams by comparison's sake above. Given that, Oklahoma avenged their one loss in somewhat convincing fashion and it was against a top 25 opponent. They should be in. Easy as that.

Bama vs OK (I'd expect the line to be about 10-14)
Clemson vs ND (I'd guess the line is about Clemson by 4-5)

Nice write up. I'm curious, what do you think the line would be Bama vs. Ohio State?
 

Georgia has only played Alabama once this year, not twice, and were leading or tied with them for 58 of 60 minutes. No one has come close to that. Georgia’s schedule has been tougher. Again, I think they pick Oklahoma but Georgia is clearly one of the four best. Isn’t that what the committee is in charge of doing? Selecting the four best? If you want to exclude teams that are not conference champions I have no problem with that, but then make that the rule.


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Based on what? that they led Bama for the majority of a game? There are zero like opponents that you can use to compare. Bama was tied with the Citadel at the half. They're not invincible when they play like crap (aka the same as when they played the Citadel) and GA got blown out by LSU by 20 (in a game that could've been much worse given LSU kicked 5 FGs from under 40 yards). I thought GA played a hell of a game but they lost. They didn't win a CC, which is in the selection committees materials for comparison amongst teams deemed close, which would eliminate them even if you were considering taking a 2 loss team over a pair of one loss teams all from power 5 conferences
 

Nice write up. I'm curious, what do you think the line would be Bama vs. Ohio State?

I'd say around the same (10-14) vs OSU as the knock on both is lack of defense. I expect Oklahoma to get blown out if Brown can't play (like by 21+). I think OSU would hang around and lose by around the spread number
 

The purpose of the playoff is to find the best team.


We know Georgia is not the best team because on the field they lost to Alabama’s second best quarterback. While Georgia might be the second best team in the country, we know they aren’t the best. We do not have objective ways of saying that UCF is not the best. We do not have objective ways of saying Oklahoma is not the best. The fourth spot should go to one of those two. Putting Georgia in is a waste of a spot. Even if they are the second best team, georgia is not the best team. However unlikely, UCF might be, Oklahoma might be. (They might not be)
 

The purpose of the playoff is to find the best team.


We know Georgia is not the best team because on the field they lost to Alabama’s second best quarterback. While Georgia might be the second best team in the country, we know they aren’t the best. We do not have objective ways of saying that UCF is not the best. We do not have objective ways of saying Oklahoma is not the best. The fourth spot should go to one of those two. Putting Georgia in is a waste of a spot. Even if they are the second best team, georgia is not the best team. However unlikely, UCF might be, Oklahoma might be. (They might not be)

Just to play devil's advocate, if you're using this logic, UCF should be in as Oklahoma is clearly not the best team as they lost while 4 other teams have not, meaning only those 4 teams are still options. Just my 2 cents if we're using that reasoning (and I agree GA should not be in).
 

Just to play devil's advocate, if you're using this logic, UCF should be in as Oklahoma is clearly not the best team as they lost while 4 other teams have not, meaning only those 4 teams are still options. Just my 2 cents if we're using that reasoning (and I agree GA should not be in).

While I normally agree with you and your argument is why I didn’t include Ohio state, Oklahoma lost by 3 to a team early in the year...then later played the same team and won by 12.
If Oklahoma had beaten any team other than Texas yesterday I think UCF has a stronger argument to be in. Since Oklahoma has beaten every team they have played and played tougher teams than UCF, I favor Oklahoma.

If Oklahoma had played West Virginia or Iowa State yesterday, they wouldn’t have been able to say they had beaten every team they played this year.
 




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