A group of Indiana loggers has felled the mightiest redwood in the forest, THE Ohio State University.
And my other wish also came true: lowly, unranked, five-loss Duke won the ACC championship, clearing the way for my sentimental rooting favorite, James Madison, to get the 12th seed. Of course I don’t expect them to beat Oregon, but stranger things have happened. I hope they at least make a good showing. Oregon is favored by 22!
So here is how things fall out for the tournament seeds:
1 Indiana.
2 Ohio State
3 Georgia
If it were my call, I would have dropped Ohio State to 3, because Georgia has now defeated every opponent they faced. (Their one loss was to Alabama, and they got their revenge with a three-touchdown victory.) That said, the difference between 2 and 3 is not really meaningful. There is a big difference between 4 and 5 (only one gets a first-round bye)
4. Texas Tech
5. Oregon
This year, the difference between 6 and 7 is aiso very important, because #6 Ole Miss is a 17-point favorite against Tulane (and they already beat them by 35 earlier this year), but #7 A&M has a tough opponent in Miami. (The Aggies are favored by just four in the opening line.)
6. Mississippi
7. Texas A&M
8. Oklahoma
Major controversy: the committee leapfrogged Miami over Notre Dame! Tough call. That’s hard to justify because the Irish were rated higher by the same committee last week – and both teams were idle, so nothing could have changed.
9. Alabama
10. Miami
Well, nothing objective.
I’ll take a guess: Duke’s victory left the ACC without a team in the tournament, so the committee promoted Miami to remedy that. If that is the rationale, and I can’t see any other possible justification, that makes it more of a political decision than an objective evaluation. That’s a tough beat for the Irish. Notre Dame is rated #3 in the nation by the computers, but will watch the tournament on TV like the rest of us, as the best team excluded from the tournament.
For what it’s worth, the AP poll kept both Notre Dame and Miami, and booted Alabama.
Meanwhile, the 11 and 12 seeds allow some weaker conference champions into the tournament.
11. Tulane
12. James Madison
They could just take the top twelve teams, but holding at least one place for the Group of Five teams is something that the executives feel to be a necessary compromise. Is it ideal that Tulane and James Madison are in while teams like Texas and Notre Dame are out? Nah. If Notre Dame played Tulane on neutral turf, they would be favored by three touchdowns. It would be more if they played at home.
But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
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I don’t care about college sports at all (even my alma mater), but I always enjoy reading your recaps. So thanks for doing them!
That “THE” Ohio State garbage is so annoying, only exceeded in nonsensical smugness by realtors insisting everybody capitalize the R in their humdrum profession.
Buckeyes lost because their kicker couldn’t make a 30 yard FG. Other than that, it was an evenly matched game between two very good teams. But you’ve gotta step it up if you’re #1. One mistake can cost you the game. For that reason, Indiana deserved the win. They didn’t make that kind of late game costly mistake, even though they missed an easy FG too. They looked sharper, hungrier, better. That’s a great team, and they deserve the #1 spot.
HEAD TO HEAD MATTERS LIKE I TOLD YOU. MIAMI IN NOTRE DAME OUT> FAITH IN SYSTEM AGAIN THEY FOUND THEIR BRAINS
I think Miami over Notre Dame is the correct call, but probably for the wrong reasons. I’m pretty sure it would have gone the other way if Virginia had won, but let’s just be charitable and say the committee wisely corrected last week’s mistake.
But Alabama over Notre Dame? Maybe not the right call.
Agree, Ala should be out ND in but this committee is SEC driven
IU’s prize for being #1 overall is playing the winner of arguably the 2nd and 4th best SEC teams. Meanwhile, OSU drops to #2 and gets the winner of the Last Team In (Miami) and the Worst SEC Team In the Field (Tex A&M). I think IU, OSU, and UGA are probably 1a, 1b, and 1c this year, so having OSU and UGa on the same side of the bracket is nice. Should be interesting to see how this plays out. GO HOOSIERS!
You really think that UT is the second best not voted in? Sorry they really didnt live up to expectations in any way and dont deserve in matter the scenario
Their biggest problem was being ranked first in the pre-season!
But they did play five teams ranked in the top ten at the time, including four teams in the tournament, and they beat two of the teams in the tournament, so they weren’t so bad.
Because the game was so long ago, people have forgotten that they held Ohio State to just 200 yards from scrimmage. I don’t think anyone else came close to that, not even Indiana. Ohio State had to punt six times in that game! The D was excellent. Unfortunately, the kid wasn’t ready.
But the Horns already lost to #2 and #3, and Georgia crushed them, so we already know they aren’t really championship material.
As I said, maybe next year.
It wasn’t hard to justify Miami over Notre Dame, because Miami beat Notre Dame. Also, Notre Dame’s best win was over a pretty pedestrian USC team. The only controversy was the committee anchored Notre Dame to the top when the rankings came out for no good reason other than their name, and then were put in a bind when all the teams between Notre Dame and Miami cleared out to the point they were compared directly.
Basically, if another independent like UCONN had Notre Dame’s resume, no one would have given a shit. They just got the benefit by their historical name brand after losing their first two games, and then beat USC and a bunch of absolutely atrocious teams like Purdue, Arkansas, Boston College, Syracuse, and Stanford. The committee made the mistake of anchoring them based on name, that set them up for the obvious egregious failure it would have been to take them over the team they lost to with nearly the same resume.
I think the committee ended up with the right decision re Miami and Notre Dame.
The thing impossible to justify is how the teams could have swapped places when they were both idle. Let’s just say charitably that the committee wisely corrected their previous mistake, but I think they would have made a different decision if Virginia had defeated Duke.
Personally, I think I would have gone with the AP rankings – Notre Dame and Miami both in, Alabama out. The SEC has several other teams in the hunt – all seeded higher – and Alabama made a poor showing this week.
The rankings are pointless early in the season, and they should probably get rid of them. Honestly, rankings are pointless period, outside of aggregate opinions by the AP on how good teams are.
College football should take a page from College Basketball, say they’re going to use tools like NET rankings, KenPom, whatever and not decide the field until the decision comes out. It avoids things like this, where humans make logical mistakes by anchoring teams. ESPN wants to pay to create content on everything though, so it’s just another tool to sell sponsorships and ads for a pointless show weekly.
They tried that a long time ago, but people were mad that the computers did it “wrong”. So they reduced computer input.
Regardless, any kind of algorithm will have the bias from the people who programed it, intentional or not.
They’ve never went the the college basketball route. They can have computer rankings used as a tool, but not unveil the bracket until the last Sunday season of the year. It’s not that difficult and March Madness does it every season.
*Alabama gets their asses kicked*
The committee – “#9 No move obv”
They get matched up with the team in the first round that kicked their ass 3 weeks ago. Probably won’t be pretty since Bama hasn’t fixed the problems with the run game and O line that lost it to OK and Jawja.
Alabama didn’t even look like one of the top 24 teams last night. Disgraceful no-shows. And I am so pissed I don’t get to see Jamayah (sp?) Love again.
Yup. I have no problem with Miami over Notre Dame. Ultimately, that was the right call for the wrong reasons. But Alabama over Notre Dame is one I would change if I had magical powers.