This fall season did not go as planned, as far as this blog is concerned. The blog is lower on my priority list than family life, my job, graduate school, and charity work, which together sucked up almost all my time. On the other hand, the football season went much better than I expected, with Notre Dame going undefeated, and Texas A&M being ranked in the top 10 and having defeated then #1 (in the polls) Alabama. Both teams have viable Heisman Trophy candidates as well.
The FBS college football rankings faired about the same as in years past. Some teams ranked near the top at the beginning of the season stayed near the top with only one or two losses. Using the AP poll as an example, Alabama was ranked #2 in the preseason and is #2 right now with an 11-1 record, prior to today's SEC Championship matchup with Georgia. Other teams that fall into this category are Georgia (#6, #3, 11-1), Oregon (#5, #6, 11-1), and LSU (#3, #9, 10-2). Other teams low or unranked in the top-25 at the beginning of the season moved into the top ten with better-than-expected seasons [Notre Dame (#26, #1, 12-0), Florida (#23, #5, 11-1), and Texas A&M(#36, #10, 10-2)].
Unfortunately for some teams, they were ranked near the top at the start of the season, but underperformed. Examples include USC (#1, #34, 7-5), West Virginia (#11, unranked, 6-5), and Arkansas (#10, unranked, 4-8). It's hard to know which team to feel more sorry for - the one that was rated #1 in the preseason but lost 5 close games? The one that won its first 5 games with awesome offensive power, but then lost the next 5 (three blowouts, and two by 1 point)? Or the one that just never got anything going, and became the whipping boy of the SEC?
I close with three points to ponder. First, an illustration of the weakness of the current human poll system when choosing teams to participate in a national championship (whether 2 teams or 4 teams). In week 10, the top 4 teams in the AP poll, were (in order): Alabama (8-0), Oregon (8-0), Kansas St (8-0), and Notre Dame (8-0). In the preseason, these same teams were ranked, respectively: #2, #5, #22, #26. In the BCS computer rankings for that week (which factor in strength of schedule), they were: Notre Dame and Kansas St (tied at #1), Alabama (#3), and Oregon (#5). This illustrates only too well my thesis at the beginning of the season, that where you are ranked at the beginning of the season is a huge factor in where you end up at the end of the season. If all four teams had continued to win out, there is no doubt that Notre Dame would have been left at #4 in the BCS rankings, while #1 in the computer rankings. In a 4-team playoff, no big deal; but in the 2-team playoff system that will be used this season, well, that's just controversy waiting to happen.
Still not convinced? What about the next four teams in week 10: LSU (7-1), Ohio St (9-0), Georgia (7-1), and Florida (7-1)? Setting Ohio St aside because there is obvious bias against them due to being on probation for the season, the other three teams in the preseason were ranked #3, #6, and #23. Okay, you might argue that Georgia beat Florida and should be ranked ahead of them. But what about LSU - they were beaten by Florida? And note that the computer rankings for those three teams were: Florida (#4), LSU (#6), and Georgia (#7).
Second point: In the 2014 4-team playoff, what are they going to do about teams in the same conference? Prior to conference championship weekend, there are 6 teams from the SEC in the top 10 of the BCS rankings, two from the PAC-12, one from the BIG-12, and one independent. Seems to me that it is unfair in principle to let a team that hasn't won its own conference into a 4-team playoff, but consider Florida, which is #2 in the computer rankings and will probably move up to #3 after Alabama and Georgia play today for the SEC championship. Fate chose the wrong team for them to lose to this season.
Final point: It's always interesting to me how "vicious circles" work in football, (i.e., Team A beats Team B, which beats Team C, which beats Team A). This season, the SEC participated in a doozy. Alabama beat LSU, which beat South Carolina, which beat Georgia, which beat Florida, which beat Texas A&M, which beat Alabama. Considering that these are the 6 SEC teams currently in the top 10 of the BCS, and that their only losses all season are to one or two of the other six (LSU and South Carolina also lost to Florida, and Texas A&M also lost to LSU), maybe the SEC needs to reconsider how it sets up its schedule to prevent one team after another from knocking their "friends" off the playoff perch.
