Also, Big Ten is a crap weather conference for the majority of their conference schedule...weird stuff is going to happen there. Ohio State has been one of the four best teams each of the last three seasons and could only make the playoffs once due to an overemphasis on how a regional alliance determines their champion? The only fair criterion at a national level is full resume review and a subjective value-based judgement. Until things are standardized - and we shouldn't want that because we'll lose a ton in the process - I see no way to make it work.
Even with 8-teams, we're still in an asymmetrical confederacy of rules. We're never going to fix this...just live with the subjective resume review and don't put a ton of weight in a conference title.
I agree that we don't need to go to a straight jacket of rules and blow up conferences to make "super conferences". It would ruin college football.
However, I don't think you can just ignore conference titles just because a team passes the "eye test". As they say, the game isn't played on paper.
So looking at OSU-PSU this year. If PSU wins the B1G they are 11-2 with a win over OSU and loses to Michigan and Pitt. OSU is 11-1 with the loss to PSU. Now PSU blocked a FG to beat Ohio State. Everyone wants to give OSU a mulligan on that because really, how often are FGs blocked to win a game. Also, PSU got spanked by Michigan, who Ohio state just beat, and Pitt was only a decent team. Everyone seems cool with those hypotheticals because on paper, OSU is the better team.
But if we are going to play around in hypothetical rationalizing land, let me throw out this Devil's advocate. Frankly, Michigan should have beat Ohio State. They gifted them two dumb interceptions for 14pts and had their last, game tying drive stopped on 3rd and 10 but got called for a questionable PI call that kept OSU alive. Then it took OSU two overtimes with a 4th down conversion to win the game. Hardly dominant. OSU also just escaped with a win over Mich State, who PSU just annihilated. Penn State may have lost to Michigan, but that was early in the season. Penn State is playing completely different ball now. The loss to Pitt was also early in the season, and was by only 3pts. PSU committed more than a quarter of their season's turnovers in that game. Not characteristic. And that was a loss to the same team that also beat Playoff and ACC title probable Clemson. Not exactly chopped liver at 8-4. Same as the rest of the best SEC teams really.
Point being, you can't just play hypothetical "this team is better than that team" games one way and not the other in order to throw out the head to head. If PSU wins the conference, they deserve the playoff spot because they have a real, tangible victory over Ohio State. Lose, and it's fair game for OSU. They have the head to head over Wisconsin after all. Even if they did have to get a stop on the goal line in overtime.
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