The Daily Player 12: The Charade Continues

Published on 3-Dec-2017 by Alan Adamsson

Football - NCAA    NCAA Football Daily Update

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The Daily Player 12: The Charade Continues

Maybe the issue at hand here is just too ingrained.

When the USA's Founding Fathers wrote the rules that determined how the nation's leaders would be selected, they were apprehensive about the feasibility of conducting direct elections by the citizenry.

So, they came up with the Electoral College, a sorta filter manned by society's elites that included a few pretty funky rules, some of which were insultingly egregious.

Times change, fortunately, but there's still a lingering notion that a self-appointed set of elites knows better than the great unwashed.

This clearly extends to that money-spinning juggernaut that was the Bowl Championship Series and is now the College Football Playoff.

Here's what the elites who comprise the CFP Selection Committee we're supposed to trust has bestowed upon us as this season's ultimate Featured Four:

1. Clemson   3. Georgia
2. Oklahoma   4. Alabama
   
5. Ohio State   9. Penn State
6. Wisconsin 10. Miami
7. Auburn 11. Washington
8. USC 12. UCF

Thus, the Crimson Tide have made the bracket for the fourth straight year, which is as long as the CFP has existed. Suffice to say, the Committee likes Nick Saban and his program.

Bless his little $65million heart, the Alabama coach is sympathetic to the system's inequities, such as:

  • Non-con schedules that feature pay-to-play games with FCS opponents, and
  • Teams with 9-game conference schedules not being able to feast upon them as much as, say, SEC members with 8-game schedules.

And who knew that margin of loss weighed as heavily in the Committee's mind as more influential than margin of victory?

Committee chairman Kirby Hocutt -- AD at Texas Tech -- actually gave that as a reason why Alabama edged Ohio State for that final bracket spot:

More damaging was the 31-point loss to Iowa. The Selection Committee just favored the full body of work from Alabama.

Remember last season, when Louisville coach Bobby Petrino was incredulous at this totally rationalized comment by the Committee chairman:

As we've said as a Selection Committee before, we do not incent margin of victory.

We look at performance on the field, but we do not incent the margin of victory. We do not talk about that in our committee room.

Yeah. Right. Whatever's convenient at the time, dudes.

 

It's despicable that grown, educated adults can't dedictate their expense accounts to reconciling the bowls to a more equitable, extended playoff where conference champions who proved themselves empirically by prevailing over the course of a season have a shot at the national title.

Hell, if Mike Leach can lucidly expound on a logical system, how hard can it be?

The Daily Player 12 is based on taking the Selection Committee's objective criteria literally. More than literally, in fact. No opinions, just data.

It considered all FBS teams with two losses or less after Week 9:

  • Until a conference title is clinched, division leaders will be considered as first-place teams.
  • Power Five scores in non-conference games will be measured on a win-loss basis.
  • Head-to-head results will be measured separately on a win-loss basis.
  • Bookies are the only evaluators who put their dosh where their conclusions are. Bovada championship odds will be factored into the rankings.
  • Geeks have an unbiased place in this process; Anderson-Hester computer rankings are easily understandable and will be included.

 

We'll try, because that's just who we are.

Objective facts have a way of aligning the stars the way nature intended.

  • Standings matter. The Big XII has ten teams; no other conference has a division that large, so a first-place team will get 10 points, a second-place team will get 9 points, and so forth. If a team is tied for a position, it will be considered to hold the higher position. A conference champion will be awarded 5 bonus points.
  • Non-con Power Five wins will be worth 3 points; those losses will be worth 1 point.
  • Notre Dame's schedule will be measured against ACC teams.
  • If BYU ever becomes a factor, we'll figure it out then.
  • Head-to-head conference wins will be worth 3 points; those losses will be worth -1 point.
  • Bovada and Geek rankings will be based on a 25-point scale and factored down by a constant of 0.3; thus, a first-place position will be worth (25 x 0.3) = 7.5 points, second place for either will be worth (24 x 0.3) = 7.2 points, and so on. If a team is tied for a position, it will be considered to hold the higher position.

This produces The Daily Player 12.

In our final calculations, there should be no surprise whatsoever that conference champions would fill a bracket, and that includes those undefeated, talented, well-coached UCF Golden Knights:

daily player 12 standings

Right now, you're probably asking yourself ...

  • UCF? Featured Four? ... OK, at this stage, prove that they shouldn't be there. New Nebraska coach Scott Frost gets to lead them in the Peach Bowl against Auburn, which will at least give the Knights a shot at rising or falling by their own efforts.
  • Should Ohio State be upset? ... Double-edged sword. They won the Big Ten title this year and got bumped after bumping the Big Ten champions Penn State last year. Wacko.
  • The Geeks? ... Here's the Anderson-Hester top ten:

anderson hester rankings

UCF got hosed worse than Ohio State. What with the entitled elites who run this farce, an undefeated AAC champion never even had a chance.

That's just not the American way.