Board 8 > College Football Stats and Discussion

(+) Yeah! (+)

I mean we have seen non champions get in before.

ShatteredElysium posted...

I mean we have seen non champions get in before.

Not without clearly superior resumes (3 top 10 wins) or the #5 team having clear major flaws (a 31-point loss to Iowa). Neither of those would be close to true in this case.
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I love the idea that there were some people out there who were tricked into thinking LSU had a chance because they have a defense
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I just looked at the ACC teams' schedules. Looks like NC State is more likely than Syracuse to get that last spot; they managed to produce a 12th game and have a fairly soft schedule to get to 10-2, whereas Syracuse has a game against Notre Dame and also has a road game against Boston College, who also has only two losses right now but wasn't even considered as a potential 10-2 team because I already knew they hadn't played Clemson yet.
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I am sort of bullish on Washington State - I think they could potentially crack this top 4 if they manage to beat who they need to beat. They need some help for sure but...
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Also did a mockup of bowl projections. Two weeks ago, I was barely predicting enough teams to fill out all the bowls, but now, I foresee 3 teams bowl-eligible but missing out. Based on which conferences have conditional bids to which bowls, the unlucky teams should be two Sun Belt teams and a Mountain West team, but there are certain concerns--namely, that Hawaii is traditionally automatic for the bowl they host when they're bowl-eligible, but by all rights they should be an odd team out. So it's quite possible that Hawaii will go there and Nevada (probably) will be sent to the Quick Lane or the Independence, knocking out a MAC or C-USA team, respectively.

SEC and ACC are the two conferences that come up shortest of their allotments. BYU has an agreement guaranteeing them an at-large if they're bowl-eligible, and Army should be an at-large as well; the remaining non-conditional at-large spots (including the other team for the Independence Bowl) should go to Pac-12 teams as the rampant mediocrity in the conference means they should easily exceed their allotment. The conference only has six non-NY6 tie-ins and seems unlikely to get multiple NY6 teams; they're already guaranteed a minimum of 6 bowl-eligible teams and likely even more. (4 already there, plus winners of Arizona-Arizona State, Cal-Stanford, Cal-USC, and Cal-Colorado; I'm projecting Cal to lose those first two and also for Arizona State to beat UCLA for their sixth win and lose to Arizona, producing a total of 9.)

Eddv posted...

I am sort of bullish on Washington State - I think they could potentially crack this top 4 if they manage to beat who they need to beat. They need some help for sure but...

Oh, they're definitely still a contender if they finish 12-1, but they need quite a bit of help. I'd put them behind a 1-loss champion from any other Power 5 conference, as well as behind Alabama if their first loss is to Georgia. So they would need the Big Ten Champion to come from the West, probably the ACC Champion to come from the Coastal, and the winner of the regular-season OU-WVU game to lose the Big 12 Championship Game, preferably not to the loser. (This is actually more likely than you think. If OU beats WVU and ISU runs the table, the Cyclones' win over West Virginia carries them in. Conversely, if WVU beats OU and Texas runs the table, their win over OU carries the Longhorns to the title game. Texas and Iowa State haven't played yet, so there aren't any 3-way tiebreaker scenarios to worry about.)
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...I may have understated the Pac-12's rampant mediocrity. I thought that the most teams they'd be able to get into bowls was 10, only one more than I'd predicted they would. But it's not.

Utah loses their next two games to fall to 6-5, 4-5 in-conference. The finale with BYU is irrelevant since they already have 6 wins.
USC secures bowl eligibility next week with a win over Cal, but loses their last two, to UCLA and Notre Dame. They're 6-6, 5-4 in conference.
Arizona, as expected, loses to Washington State, but salvages bowl eligibility with a win over Arizona State. 6-6, 5-4.
Arizona State, however, was already bowl eligible by this point after upsetting Oregon. They're 6-6, 4-5.
Colorado also lost to Washington State, but as noted before, reached bowl eligibility with a win over Utah. They're 6-5, 3-5 entering their finale against Cal, which may not be relevant because Cal might've already secured bowl eligibility against Stanford, since Stanford can easily get there next week against Oregon State...

And with both Utah and Colorado having 5 conference losses, UCLA, having swept through ASU, USC, and Stanford to finish at 5-4 in-conference with wins over all other 5-4 teams in their division, is against all odds your Pac-12 South Champion, and somehow upsets the Apple Cup winner to wind up in the Rose Bowl with a record of 6-7. Yep. The Pac-12 South is so bad that the Rose Bowl is actually the only bowl UCLA can still go to, because the rule about not penalizing teams for losing their conference championship games only applies if you'd be 6-7 after the loss.

Obviously, the scenario for that isn't quite as precise; I just wanted to set it up so that all of the Pac-12 teams that have a chance at bowl eligibility get there. But yeah, UCLA needs to win out, for Utah to lose to both Oregon and Colorado, for Colorado to lose to either Cal or Wazzu, and for Arizona to lose to either Wazzu or Arizona State. Actually they might be able to get away with Utah only losing once or Colorado winning out, but it's probably safest if they have a full sweep of all tied teams.

UCLA is...NOT the only 2-7 team that can still theoretically win their division, because the Sun Belt has divisions now (South Alabama needs to win out and for neither Louisiana-Monroe nor Arkansas State to win multiple games, a daunting task considering those two still have to play each other. Actually, USA might only need to win their first two if everything goes perfectly; ULM losing all three, combined with both ASU and ULL losing both games other than their games against ULM, would have all four in a tie if USA lost to CCU. In that particular case, ULM is 0-3 and the other three are all 2-1 in the tie, which...maybe favors Arkansas State due to raw record, or maybe already favors USA due to ASU having the worst division record and USA's win over ULL. But if Texas State won exactly one of its other two games besides the one against Arkansas State, it would legitimately be a 5-way tie, with ULL and USA the two 3-1 teams.)

But there are others that can wind up getting their seventh loss in a conference championship game. Miami-OH is 3-6, but can still win their division by winning out if Buffalo goes 0-3. Wait...actually, there's another in a Power 5. 5-4 Northwestern doesn't have to win another game to win their division with a clean sweep of all tied teams, provided that the win against them is Iowa's only remaining win, the Purdue-Wisconsin winner wins no other games and the loser wins no more than one, and Nebraska beats Illinois.
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Wazzu will be the last one-loss team in the committee's pecking order, due to no ranked wins (max two) and the worst nonconference schedule in the country.
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I wonder... if WVU only loses to OU, but ISU wins out to steal the bid in the conference championship game, does WVU try to quickly scramble to schedule a 12th game rather than gambling that 9-2 will be sufficient to make the NY6?
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they should be good, they just have to stay ahead of bad Pac 12 runner up. not great 3rd place Big 10 team, lol ACC runner up, and overrated 5th place SEC team
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