I really didn't expect Alabama to be ahead of Ole Sis. I guess the Barn were put ahead of us because of their win at Kansas State. We'll take care of the Barn at the Iron Bowl. I'm not that concerned right now. It's the last poll by these 12 interests me a whole lot more
To me, the two big surprises would have to be how high Ole Miss was, and how low Notre Dame was. But all in all that's good for the SEC. I think they set a fairly good precedent, that quality wins matter. I can live with that, and Alabama's potential quality wins mainly lie ahead of them.
If he were alive, he would want to play for an SEC Championship vs sitting at home.
You can't know that, we don't even know what he'd think of the SEC championship game (was that sort of thing ever even raised when he was around?). It's easy to say he'd like it, but why should he? May be he'd see it as a disadvantage since not every conference has one, it's all speculation. You can however go find some Nick Saban quotes and probably deduce how he feels about the matter.
I don't really care what either think about it though (neither would publicly state they don't want to play in the SECCG, but go ask Nick Saban if that was a major issue in 2011), I'm just going with statistical probabilities which is what I've gone with the whole time. Don't get me wrong, if you could guarantee Alabama a spot in the SECCG I'd take that this instant, but only because that would mean getting past LSU/Miss. State/Auburn.
If you wanna see true melt down go read Irish Envy
I kind of feel bad for them, but who have they beaten? The funny thing is the committee is probably thinking more like we've wanted the polls think for years. They're not just ranking a team high because of hype. I still don't like 'em, but it's possible I learn to live with them.
So, bottom line, the team that Las Vegas has favored on a neutral field over every other team in CFB , and ESPN statistical metrics and Sagarins computer ranks #1 , is ranked 6th by the committee. My only concern really is if they came to that conclusion honestly. If so, no problem. Wonder if the fact that one fourth of the committee is PAC12 kept Oregon where they were.
I do think there is committee bias, and I do think (and I stated as much) that the committee is a bit slanted towards the Pac-12. I think that helped Oregon certainly, but I don't mind the precedent that appeared to do it. Quality wins. That's what it looks like to all observers, so as long as that's the criteria then it all makes sense. Alabama has one quality win, but three potential quality wins upcoming, which should be all they need.
I will confess that it bothers me a bit that total SoS isn't as much of a factor. But... I debated an exhaustive SoS breakdown once, in which a big part of my argument would be that SoS actually didn't matter much beyond a top 30 team. Essentially, that no championship contender loses to a team below that anyway. The main hiccup here is that the committee's top 30 is different than say Sagarin's (which actually has Alabama as 3-1 against the top 30). So, I'd like to see things lean a bit more towards recognizing that the record of your opponent isn't all that matters and if that was the case, Alabama would already be ahead of Oregon.
Also, let me point out that since LSU is considered a quality win, if Alabama beats them, they might very well jump Oregon and Ole Miss, we don't know yet how that might be viewed. If they go with the hardcore BCS quality win stuff, beating a team can keep it from being a quality win, kind of like Alabama beating Texas A&M.
