Has anyone else noticed that the people who most vociferously OPPOSE a playoff are the same ones (in general) who worry about "we might not get in with two losses," which would, in fact, happen with a 16-team playoff?
If you're a two-loss team and we're going to use that whole "every game counts" nonsense, then you don't belong in the four-team playoff. Period. Besides, it all shook out last year and I don't recall anyone here complaining all that much about who got in - the complaint became a case of "well under the BCS, we would have played Florida State and probably won."
True, but irrelevant since we all knew the rules before the season began.
Heh, I suppose you could be talking about me. I try to be very consistent, I don't have your mental wizardry to aid me, but I am always honest as long as my mind doesn't fail me.
First, as you well know I would vastly prefer the BCS, yes. But, and I've said this all along, if it is to be four teams then without question it has to be the four most deserving teams! There should be nothing at all, no weird criteria, no wins are all that matters nonsense that should get in the way of selecting the best four teams.
Let me give an example. If for instance Alabama plays the #2 SoS again, and they have 2 losses. Do you believe that a team with say a 60 SoS, let's say a Big 12 team or an ACC team with one loss deserves to be in over them? I wouldn't agree with that. Every game matters, yes, but some games matter more. We all know that, we all know that there's like 0 risk of losing certain games. So it doesn't matter if you win 10 meaningless games, they are still meaningless. Now, might the BCS have done the same thing? Sure, it might have. However, the BCS had the intellectually honest computers. That choice would have been made with those factors weighing in. The playoffs have a biased committee, which already produced a silly and easily manipulated "quality wins" (something the BCS wisely ditched) statistic to favor over SoS. In short, I don't trust the committee.
I'll circle back around though. My contention, for a very long time was that the BCS essentially got the top team right all the time. I still believe that, do I think the playoff got it wrong and missed the top team? No, but it is a different process. In a playoff, I think it's much, much more important to get the other teams right because
you are operating under a process which increases the statistical probability that the best team does not win!
Now, we have a third and a fourth team right? Which, as I have long argued almost universally don't belong there in the first place. Was Ohio State one of the top two teams in the regular season? Certainly not, they got soundly beat by Virginia Tech at home in the regular season. Where they a top four team? May be... I'm not here to argue against their inclusion in a four team playoff though.
What I am saying is that when it comes to selecting teams three and four, I think record means a bit less than it did when you were trying to figure out team one and two. For instance, would a one loss FSU team have been more deserving than two loss Alabama team? Certainly not. When you reach for a fourth team, you're pulling up a team that doesn't deserve a shot anyway, that's being given a second chance. All I'm saying is it that if you are going to give them a mulligan, if you are going to say ok yeah sure you don't deserve this but sure, why not? Then it really should be the fourth most deserving team and not the fifth or sixth more deserving team.
Also, if you want to pretend only winning is what matters, then we might as well just look outside the Power 5 right?