Yeah, Auburn at 9 went down, too. OSU needed Michigan to stay at 2-3, and Auburn needed to win out for either to get in. This is all great news for Louisville.
I don't get why OSU needed Michigan to stay 2 or 3? OSU just needs to win out and they're going to be in, even if they don't make the Big 10 championship. What they really need now is for Penn State to lose one of their next two games so they're not behind them in the Big 10 East.
You are right, given Clemson & Washington's losses. I meant, heading into the weekend, assuming the top 4 all won, teams like Auburn and OSU were going to need that sort of scenario to be able to get in. It's moot, now!
There's a decent chance that Penn State wins out and beats Wisconsin for the championship, right? There may be more controversy in the choice between Clemson & Louisville. Maybe Florida will beat Alabama in the SEC championship game and add all sorts of craziness. Then, Washington loses to Wash State, who could beat Colorado in the Pac-12 championship. So, you could have: Alabama, one loss, not champ Florida, two losses, champ Clemson, one loss, champ Louisville, one loss, not champ, didn't play for conf champ Penn State, two losses, champ Ohio State, one loss, not champ, didn't play for conf champ Washington State, two losses, champ Who would your top 4 be then? It'd be quite the mixture of judging one loss teams against conference champ teams. Anyway, I suspect the final four will be Alabama, Louisville, Ohio State and Clemson, but I have no idea how it will all come about or whether or not that's the order. If it is, there'd be a compelling rematch of Al-Clem in the first round, and a likely Alabama-Louisville final. Plus, it will be fun to see if the sideline reporter towers more over Nick Saban or Bobby Petrino.
I can't believe how schools like Oregon and Michigan St have fallen apart. There's always down years, but what a fucking collapse. I'm of the belief that Michigan is the best team in the country after Alabama, although I'm not sure what to make of that offense. They've really struggled at times.
Penn St got snubbed. Both their losses were early in the season, they beat OSU head to head, and they won the best conference in college football. That said, I'm probably not going to watch anything other than the 4 team playoff. I barely gave a shit about the bowl games before the 'playoff' structure and I'm too demoralized from watching Wisconsin blow the conference game. Huge lead, great defense all year, and then just fell apart. They are one of the biggest teases of any team in any sport. I mean, I'm used to it by now. They're up there in the rankings every year, but consistently fall just short of a title shot.
A buddy who played for VA Tech posted this after reading ESPN's Ohio State wasn't ready to be CFP contender after all I'm so glad, after reading this article, That ESPN ALREADY knows that OSU is well on its way to becoming a National Title Contender in 2017! The ESPN love fest of Urban and the OSU brand continues even in definitive defeat, a 31-0 shalacking of the committee selected OSU, who lost close to the end of the season, FAILED to win their division and subsequently FAILED to win their conference. I love ESPN and love using them along with all their many outlets to watch all of the sports I love. I think it has been this consistent observation of ESPN for so many years that makes their love of the SEC and OSU so apparent. They better take a long hard look at their coverage of Urban, OSU, SEC and the affinity for having Urban being a guest commentator when he doesn't make it and get back to their roots. I would be willing to make the premonition that Urban will be on a pregame show somewhere for ESPN commentating on all things Championship, Saban and Dabo for ESPN after the dust is expedited to settling for the beatdown Ohio State just took. All of this in the name of being the College Football Playoff Committee's swayed decision in believing that a non-conference champion could not only be competitive with three other conference champions but also plugged in as the 3rd seed over a conference champion so the committee could actually attempt to set up the Ultimate love fest of the SEC/OSU by having them face off in the National Championship. An all RED, Saban, Meyer Championship forced down American College Football fan's throats because commentating bias and Committee swaying forced a decision for a non conference champion that lost head to head to a team that also found a way to win the Big 10 a week later. The methodology that was used in order to justify this choice is a clear denial of choosing not only the best team, nor the deserving team, BUT THE CORRECT team. There should be no bias, no opinion, no fluff AND no back dealing when choosing this bracket. Some teams work for years to get the one team that may contend in a decade and if that team gets cast aside for a perennial media darling with ties to the lead analyst then it is very easy to yell foul! It's even easier after a SHUTOUT BEATDOWN. 1994 had the same ring to it when the previous year's National Champion Nebraska (RED colored, go figure; "Look at the shiney wagon!) And an undefeated Rose Bowl Champion team was cast aside so Nebraska and then darling coach Tom Osborne could earn their 2nd consecutive national championship. I know America loves winners and dynasties in sports but when you observe this happen to multiple teams over 3 decades where a team may have one team in a decade that is legitimately competitive for a championship and they get censored it starts to wear on your conscience as well as your patience. My conclusion is this: Be fair. Stop over analyzing the stats and use common sense. I am sure that no matter how trivial, a team losing to another team head to head in the regular season WILL determine the tie breaker and if one team is a conference champion and the other is not, this WILL determine the tie breaker on selection into a playoff bracket as well as their ranking. These comparisons are common sense in almost every other sport on the face of the planet, I think they could serve the college football playoff committee well and keep their existence alive a lot longer if they are fair, consistent and use common sense instead of spending way too much time trying to broadcast to the College Football fans as to why their selection was right. All while leaving thousands of fans with weird looks on their faces like they were just robbed and fed at the same time. Oh, and a 31-0 loss should be enough to prove and keep fresh in your mind that this should never, never, EVER happen again! And lastly, to recap, you watch, Urban Meyer will guest commentate before the National Championship January 9th! Stay tuned!
I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for college football. The way it's managed is a total shit show. Sure, I'll watch a game here and there, but it's hard to stay intrigued year after year given the way they continue to fuck up. It took FOREVER to finally get a playoff. Did they go to 8 or 16 like they should have? Nope, gotta stop at 4. Then, they can't even do that right. With the way Ohio St got murdered, I doubt Penn St would have fared much better. They also just lost their bowl game to USC. Whatever, it doesn't matter. They were the champions of a conference that had 4 top ten teams. End of discussion. The bowl game results showed the big ten was a bit overrated, but the winner of the conference deserved to get in, especially considering they beat OSU head to head - and even that doesn't really matter. The fact that they won the conference and OSU didn't is enough. The way they can't properly manage what should be a simple and straight forward playoff system is just one of the many, many problems with the NCAA. People whine about the way the NFL does things,(a lot of it is different fans wanting to get their own way and not being all that reasonable) but at least they have their shit together.
Those teams became top 10 because they beat up each other, playing other inferior teams. Look at Wisconsin, who people were clamoring for inclusion in the playoff before they lost to PSU. Their best win was probably Nebraska. Nebraska who lost by SIXTY to Ohio State and just got stomped in their bowl game. Even Penn State lost by 35 to Michigan before their fluke win over OSU. It just wasn't a great conference, and polls aren't a strong metric cause they always favor "name" teams with good records.
That was a fun game to watch. Good for Clemson. Still, no college team has gone 15-0 since Penn in 1890-whatever. If you guys like college football and comedy, do yourself a favor and download hour 3 from Mike & Mike this morning when it's available. Listening to Les Miles in the first 15 minutes was just gold. His responses vacillated between experienced insight to total befuddlement. Hearing him collapse and panic in response to Greeney asking him about defensive scenarios in the final 6 seconds of last night's game was especially awesome. It was just like trying to watch him stumble and confuse himself with timeouts through the last minute of a real game. On another question, he lost his own point about 2 sentences in and finally just wrapped up by saying, "I don't know." LSU fans, I feel your frustration over the last several years.