College football playoffs

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

I would disagree somewhat. Georgia being a 1 point underdog was primarily due to their starting QB being out, and to a lesser extent because of ND's first-game dominance--not because those teams were incorrectly seeded. Ohio State would never have been a favorite over Oregon at all if it were not for their first game dominance over Tennessee, so seeding wasn't the issue there either-- no one was going to take away the #1 spot from Oregon when they were the only undefeated team. As for ASU and Boise State, I mentioned in my prior post, if you eliminate the byes and give conference champs an initial home game, the seeding can return to "normal". But it remains that three of the four teams that received byes got off to very poor starts, and the fourth--Georgia- at best played even early.

Sorry if I wasn't clearer in my post. My comment about seeding was in reference to Boise State and ASU only. I wasn't saying Oregon shouldn't be the number one seed. However, because of the other seedings, Ohio State and Oregon, 2 teams many people thought would win the championship, ended up playing each other in the quarterfinals which shouldn't have happened.

[nolemmings]

Originally Posted by jayshum

Sorry if I wasn't clearer in my post. My comment about seeding was in reference to Boise State and ASU only. I wasn't saying Oregon shouldn't be the number one seed. However, because of the other seedings, Ohio State and Oregon, 2 teams many people thought would win the championship, ended up playing each other in the quarterfinals which shouldn't have happened.

I guess so but how big a deal is that? Looking at the above 16 team scenario I posted, assuming all of the games were decided according to chalk, Ohio State would have won its first-round game (which it did) and lost in the second round to Georgia, playing the number 2 seed instead of the number 1.
Again, if the higher seeds all held serve, the final four would be:
Oregon
Georgia
Notre Dame
Texas

Seems pretty close to where we are, no?

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

I guess so but how big a deal is that? Looking at the above 16 team scenario I posted, assuming all of the games were decided according to chalk, Ohio State would have won its first-round game (which it did) and lost in the second round to Georgia, playing the number 2 seed instead of the number 1.
Again, if the higher seeds all held serve, the final four would be:
Oregon
Georgia
Notre Dame
Texas

Seems pretty close to where we are, no?

I'm not sure what ranking you used to come up with your hypothetical 16 team match ups so it's hard to respond, but if you're saying the top 4 teams were Oregon, Georgia, Notre Dame and Texas, then we're only half there which I wouldn't consider pretty close to being there.

[nolemmings]

Let's just use the final rankings used to pick the 12 team field, and re-seed them 1-12, giving the top 4 seeds a bye.
1 Oregon
2 Georgia
3 Texas
4 Penn State
5 Notre Dame
6 Ohio State
7 Tennessee
8 Indiana
9 Boise State
10 SMU
11
12 Arizona State
13
14
15
16 Clemson

After the bye, and assuming all the better seeded teams won, you would have seen:
5 Notre Dame beats Clemson
6 Ohio State beats ASU
7 Tennessee beats SMU
8 Indiana beats Boise St.

That means this past weekend's games would have shown us:
Oregon vs. Indiana
Georgia vs. Tennessee
Texas v. Ohio State
Penn St v. Notre Dame

with the Final four:
Oregon vs. Indiana
Georgia vs. Tennessee
Texas v. Ohio State
Penn St v. Notre Dame

I agree that Indiana would have been an easier foe than OSU, but don't forget the Buckeyes limped into the playoffs after being beaten at home by Michigan-- the regard for them was at a season low, so it's all fine and good to now say they are some sort of juggernaut but that was far from foreseeable.
But anyway, that leaves us with a final four of Oregon, Georgia, Texas and Penn State if we give credence to the higher seeds. Having watched the actual games and seeing how the teams played, would it be better to have Georgia or Tennessee in the final Four instead of Notre Dame or Ohio State? Did Oregon get screwed, given the way they played? Personally, I'm not convinced they would have beaten any of the other 7 teams seeded below them, other than maybe Indiana.
If the Oregon/OSU game had ended up a double-OT thriller like ASU-Texas, then maybe I could get a little worked up about how unfair the seeding played out to eliminate one of those two. But to suggest that it's somehow a shame that Oregon and Georgia aren't around for the final four because of seeding and some team that made it is undeserving or the beneficiary of seeding doesn't wash with me.