The 12-team format turned out to be the loser. All of the top 4 seeds lost. All of the bottom 4 seeds lost. The winners, seeds 5-8, were those ordered by their national ranking rather than the results of a specific day in a specific conference. All four were favored in round one. All four were favored in round two, although they had to play the four highest-rated conference champions. Because of a system that protects the winners of weaker conferences, Penn State and Texas almost got a gimme into the semis, although the Longhorns did their best to blow it.
The Big 10 and the SEC were the only conferences to advance into the final four. (Notre Dame, as you probably know, is an independent.) In theory, it could be an all-Big-10 final, and that’s not so far-fetched. THE Ohio State University will be favored by about a TD over Texas, and Penn State will be only a slight ‘dog against Notre Dame.
THIS week:
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I always root against THE Ohio State University, but good is good. They went ahead 34-0 in the first half against the #1 team in the nation, a team that came into the game undefeated. There isn’t much to add to that sentence. One of our commenters is an Oregon fan who pointed out, with typical Charlie Brown fatalism, that the Ducks always blow it in the end. Sorry, dude. I hoped you were wrong, but Lucy pulled the football on you again. Rushing game? Oregon finished the game with minus 23 yards!
I’m afraid the free ride is over for my Longhorns, who were lucky to get past Arizona State. ASU had 510 yards from scrimmage in that game, compared to 375 for Texas.
Boise State had more yards from scrimmage than Penn State, but they were killed by three interceptions. A linear regression model for football shows that the turnover edge is worth about five points per turnover. Therefore, if you lose the turnover battle by three, it’s like spotting the bad guys a two-touchdown lead. (Yardage from scrimmage is worth about one point for every 14 yards, so you need more than 200 yards from scrimmage to offset a deficit of three net turnovers.)
Georgia lost their own turnover battle by two. Notre Dame took the score from 3-3 to 20-3 in less than a minute of game time, thanks to a Georgia fumble and a kickoff return. The Irish didn’t move the ball well (only 240 yards from scrimmage in the entire game), but their D and special teams gave them a lead, then hung on to it.
“the Ducks always blow it in the end” the Buckeyes, as a general rule, always choke as the favorite ie 1968/2002/2014 they were the underdog.
Stay tuned …
Any system which allows the The to have a typical November debacle with Up There and still be in position for a championship works for this NE OH expat.
Maybe they should hire a guest coach for the game at Ann Arbor next year and give Day a bye week or something.
If you told me at the beginning of the year that Michigan would finish their season with wins over Ohio State and Alabama, I would have guessed that they defended their national championship, not that they hobbled through five losses.
O-H…
Call me when OSU beats Michigan….
1st time was 1919 in Ann Arbor.
btw Fig, I don’t have your phone # …
“The Ducks always blow it at the end.” Is exactly what I thought too (Class of ‘93). They just won’t NOT choke. This loss moves them from #1 to, what? 8th? Good grief.
The top four seeds in the CFP went 0-4 after getting a bye week. I predict a change in the plan for next year, like no more top seeds just for winning a conference.
The North will rise again! Love it.
Georgia looked as bad against ND as IU did (and lost by a wider margin). ESPN analysts told me IU didn’t belong in the CFP, so I guess this means the entire SEC didn’t belong, given their Champion performed so poorly?
Two quick notes on IU’s dream season: First, IU lost two games this season; both of those teams are still alive in the Final Four. And second, of all those nobodies that IU padded their win total against this year, one was Michigan, who ended their season by beating OSU and Alabama.
After the SECs embarrassing performance in this season’s CFP and bowl games, I’m thinking maybe the SEC should be a one-bid league next year in the CFP.
Sagarin has consistently said Oregon was not the number 1 team and I believed it. They play well but they spend way too much time re-inventing their uniforms and not enough winning when it matters. Ohio State should have beat them in the first matchup and then came back to prove it in the second.
I never believed in Oregon or Texas as #1. On the other hand, every team looked vulnerable at one time or another this year, so I guess #1 was an open question.