News Article: Putting The Penn State Non-Selection Into Historical Perspective

selmaborntidefan

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(I've asked Tide-HSV to pin this for a few days because I think we can have an interesting discussion. I realize we'll be moving on to the Washington discussion, but since the selection is still fresh I wanted to post one of my articles, which I haven't done in awhile now. Thanks to all, and I hope you enjoy it even if you disagree).

Twenty years ago this week, college football was confronted with yet another controversy regarding the hopes of determining their national champion. So distressing was this controversy that two decades later virtually nobody remembers it. Keep that in mind as you consider the alleged snub of Penn State in the greater context of history.
In 1996, the arbiter of the eventual national champion fell mostly under the banner of the Bowl Alliance, an association of most major college teams save those in either the Big Ten or Pac Ten conference. The schools in the Bowl Alliance agreed to set their match-ups in line with old conference traditional ties (e.g. the SEC champion in the Sugar Bowl) but with the caveat of permitting a matchup between the top two ranked teams in college football just so long as those teams were not members of either the Big Ten or Pac Ten, whose conference champions were contractually obligated to play in the Rose Bowl. Thus, there would be a national championship game between the two top ranked teams unless number one or two (or both) were in the Pac Ten or Big Ten conferences. After two-time defending national champion Nebraska went down in a stunning upset in September, the polls were divided between three teams as potential number ones: Florida State, Florida, and Ohio State with the Gators by far receiving the most votes. When Ohio State went down to Michigan, 13-9, everyone breathed a sigh of relief if only momentarily. And then all hell broke loose in the rankings.

Nebraska’s conqueror was the Arizona State Sun Devils, a team that quietly but efficiently rose from unranked in the polls all the way to number three. Because of their Pac Ten membership, Arizona State threatened to upset the apple cart. When Florida State edged the Gators, 24-21, the polls suddenly had two unbeatens at the top, Florida State and Arizona State. Further complicating the matter was the fact that Nebraska had quietly risen back up to third while the Gators only fell to number four. College football appeared to be facing another major controversy if not another split championship. The confusion got worse when Texas shocked Nebraska in the inaugural Big 12 title game. After Florida beat a solid nine-win Alabama team in the SEC title game, the Bowl Alliance was left with a rematch of the Florida-Florida State game played only a week earlier. Further complicating the issue was the fact that Ohio State had one loss against their arch-rival – by four points - just as Florida had one against theirs by three. Ohio State then beat Arizona State in a Rose Bowl classic and watched Florida claim the championship with a trouncing of the Seminoles in the Sugar Bowl, 52-20. When the year was over, the Gators were recognized as the undisputed champions of college football despite going 1-1 against their toughest foe. Circumstances dictated that despite having already beaten Florida, the first time didn’t ‘really’ count. Florida won the rematch and the championship, and the game survived without controversy.

The argument for Penn State in the college football playoff overlooks a critical component of the history of college football: precedent determines outcome. Precedent is a cherished asset in the legal community and while college football is nowhere near the importance of the judicial system, the fact remains that voting precedent determines the outcome. And this is far from the first time a team that lost the head-to-head battle won the championship (or in this case the right to play for it).

HEAD TO HEAD ANOMALIES: A BRIEF HISTORY

When Alabama lost a controversial finish to Texas in the 1965 Orange Bowl – a team that Arkansas had beaten during the regular season - the national outcry over the Tide’s receiving the 1964 Associated Press (AP) national championship caused one of the first changes in poll taking. The next year, the AP agreed to take their final poll after the bowl games. It was a knee-jerk reaction that unwittingly gave Alabama a second straight championship. The key game clearing the way for the Tide to win the title was UCLA’s stunning upset of Michigan State in the Rose Bowl. What was even more surprising is the fact that Michigan State had already beaten UCLA, 13-3, in the season opener for both teams. The AP did not care that the two teams had split two games, Alabama won the national championship despite a controversial loss to Georgia and a tie with Tennessee. The AP responded by rescinding the awarding of the national title after the bowls until 1968.

Alabama was involved in yet another controversy in 1973, when the UPI awarded their championship upon the completion of the regular season. Notre Dame beat Alabama, 24-23, in a Sugar Bowl classic, and the AP awarded their title to the Irish. This led the UPI to also withhold their recognition until after the bowl games.

The Crimson Tide figured prominently in another controversy in 1978. Alabama lost one game, 24-14 on their home field, to USC. The Trojans then dropped a game to Arizona State, and the two teams arrived in separate bowl games on January1. The Sugar Bowl gave a (then) rare 1 vs 2 matchup of unbeaten Penn State against Alabama, and the Tide prevailed, 14-7. USC then won the Rose Bowl over Michigan, 17-10. According to head to head logic, USC should have been the national champion. But the voters were caught with another precedent they had invoked in both 1973 and 1977 to the benefit of the Irish (and detriment of Alabama): the team that beats the top ranked team becomes the top ranked team. Since Alabama was ahead of USC in the AP poll and beat Penn State, the AP voters used the same logic they had applied in 1977 when they jumped the Irish over Alabama due to a 38-10 destruction of #1 Texas. Furthermore, USC was seen by some as an undeserved winner given that running back Charles White’s fumble in the field of play was recovered by Michigan yet the Trojans were awarded the touchdown that wound up being the margin of victory. USC got the UPI vote, and the nation had another split national championship. But the important lesson is that the voters valued precedent over head to head, plus they took other factors into account. Whether they should have or not is open to debate, but it cannot be denied that they did so.

Controversy reigned throughout the 1980s, but they rarely involved head-to-head matchups. While there was murmuring and complaint regarding Penn State’s one-loss national champions ahead of unbeaten Southern Methodist (1982) or the somewhat controversial selection of Miami over Auburn (1983), the voters invoked precedent in both instances. Penn State was number two and beat undefeated #1 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl while #5 Miami edged top-ranked Nebraska in the Orange Bowl and leapfrogged Auburn in the process. Fairly or unfairly, precedent was used to determine the champion.

A forgotten controversy occurred in 1985. Penn State quietly ran the table and was sitting 11-0 at the end of the regular season. Below them were three one-loss potential contenders: Oklahoma, Miami, and Iowa. Jimmy Johnson, then the Hurricanes coach, began complaining about the fact Oklahoma was ranked number two and Miami third despite the fact Miami had beaten the Sooners, 27-14, in Norman and injured two of their stars, Troy Aikman and Tony Casillas. Miami, in fact, was ranked fourth in the November 25 poll behind Penn State, Iowa, and Oklahoma. To get everyone’s attention, Johnson had his team intentionally run the score up and humiliate Notre Dame, 58-7, on national television. Miami jumped to number two in the AP poll while Iowa, whose season was already over, dropped to fourth. Fans in Iowa screamed in anger at the result, and Johnson did himself no favors by hinting he would run the score up on the Tennessee Volunteers if the opportunity presented itself. The only reason this controversy is forgotten is because Tennessee gave Miami a dose of its own medicine, 35-7, in the Sugar Bowl while Oklahoma was beating Penn State and winning the championship.

In fact, the only time the head to head argument was really used to justify a selection, it came at Notre Dame’s expense in 1989. The Irish had lost to Miami, 27-10, in November, but they trounced Colorado, 21-6, in the Orange Bowl and left the field thinking they were national champions by virtue of the precedents used in 1973, 1977, 1978, 1982, 1983, and 1985. Lou Holtz awakened to learn that Miami had been awarded the title on the basis of their head to head win. Holtz would remember this when 1993 reverted to form.

That year the Florida State Seminoles were declared national champions by most publications before summer practice even began. That year’s “Game of the Century” saw the Seminoles go into South Bend and lose a great game to Notre Dame, who rose to number one. The very next week, Notre Dame stunningly lost to an above average ranked team from Boston College on a last second field goal. When the Irish won out and Florida State knocked off Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, Holtz was disappointed to find out that his head to head victory over the Seminoles did not mean anything at all, and Florida State was declared national champions.

And despite the assumptions of opinion writers who should know better, this very same occurrence has happened numerous times in the nearly 25 years since the Florida State-Notre Dame controversy. Some of these were loud controversies while some are not even remembered, but they involved teams who lost out opportunities for championships despite winning head to head. One of the better remembered episodes occurred in 2000, when Florida State (again!) got a BCS national title shot against Oklahoma despite having the same record as Miami and losing to the Hurricanes head to head in yet another game involving a botched Seminoles field goal. The outcry from Miami was long and loud – they had beaten Florida State and had the same record, so they should get the opportunity. Lost in that argument were the fact that Florida State played a tougher schedule in a tougher conference (ACC vs Big East). While the AP and coach’s polls did not figure these concepts, the BCS did. FSU played BYU, 9-3 Louisville, and SEC champion Florida in their out of conference schedule while Miami played I-AA McNeese State, 3-9 Louisiana Tech, and Pac Ten champion Washington, who beat the Hurricanes in Miami. In fact, one might well ask why Miami deserved a title shot ahead of one-loss Washington, whose only loss was to two-loss Oregon, no shame by any stretch. Miami, like Penn State, wanted head to head to count but only on favorable terms. Of course, Oklahoma made the entire point moot by destroying the Seminoles in the national title game.

The very next year, the BCS had yet another controversy when it selected Nebraska to meet Miami in the Rose Bowl. The BCS, however, can hardly be blamed for this situation. Objections were raised in Colorado, where the two-loss Buffaloes had steamrolled the Cornhuskers, 62-36, and won the conference championship while Oregon had won the Pac Ten and lost only to nine-win Stanford by a touchdown. Note that this case is a curious parallel to the Ohio State-Penn State argument. A team with two losses that won the conference is rejected while a team that did not even win its division but only had one loss is rewarded with a title game. Of course, the context was different because the only reason this happened was because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. When the Colorado-Washington State game was cancelled, it ruined the strength of schedule argument for both Colorado (who would have faced Miami had they beaten the Cougars) and Oregon (who would have been in the Rose Bowl if Washington State had knocked off the Buffs).

Or maybe you should consider the Big 12 of 2007. The team with the best record in the conference, Kansas, did not even win a division. Despite having the best record of any AQ school, the BCS chose two-loss LSU over one-loss Kansas. The Jayhawks played a soft touch schedule that had only three major teams with winning records and went 1-2 while LSU played seven teams that won at least eight games. Kansas had the better record, but there were other factors.

In 2008, a bigger earthquake hit the Big 12 when Texas beat Oklahoma, 45-35, and then watched the Sooners parlay the Longhorns’ later one-point loss on the final play to Texas Tech into a Big 12 title shot and national championship appearance against Florida. Once again, the team that won the game head to head wound up the loser in the long run due to other factors.

In both 2011 and 2012, South Carolina beat Georgia head to head and watched the Bulldogs play for the SEC title because the Gamecocks lost to other teams. In 2011, in fact, South Carolina went unbeaten against the East (unlike Georgia) but lost two games to West foes Auburn and Arkansas. Despite not being the better team (at least where South Carolina was concerned), Georgia made the SEC title game. The following year, South Carolina beat Georgia early and dropped the next two, one to LSU and one to Florida. One might be inclined to wonder why Georgia beating Florida somehow undid South Carolina’s win over the Bulldogs. But that’s just the way it is.

Note another important point: the margin of victory does not seem to matter very much. In other words, Penn State’s three-point win over Ohio State in Happy Valley is nowhere near as impressive as USC beating Alabama by ten in Birmingham (and the game wasn’t that close), Miami beating Oklahoma by 13 in Norman, or Texas upending OU by ten points in Dallas. And that brings us back to precedent.

Penn State was not selected for two very simple reasons, both of their own doing: 1) they lost to Pittsburgh; and 2) they were mauled by Michigan. But ample precedent has already been set on this issue. Colorado thumped Nebraska in 2001, but the fact they had two losses was enough to keep them out of the game. Colorado, like Penn State, had two losses and had beaten the other foe head to head at home, culminating in a conference championship. Precedent had been set when Texas beat Oklahoma head to head but somehow didn’t even make their conference championship game. I would note that the Longhorns had much more to complain about in light of the fact they played four straight ranked teams and – unlike Penn State – they only had one loss. Furthermore, how can Penn State apologists imply an injustice occurred when the same Michigan team that massacred the Nittany Lions head to head watched Penn State take the same record into the conference championship game solely because Penn State lost to Pitt rather than Ohio State. In fact, if Michigan had beaten Ohio State in the last game of the season, the entire discussion would be moot because Penn State would have been watching the Wisconsin game on TV with everyone else.

This is not a grave injustice ‘done to these kids.’ Indeed, those words ring hollow given the school in question. But that’s not the issue here, either. There was simply no injustice done, either presently or historically. College football operated according to precedent (like it always has) and rated a one-loss team ahead of a two-loss team despite the fact that the two-loss team beat the one-loss team head to head. Ratings, in fact, have always operated under this principle in college sports. The numbers could be multiplied almost endlessly. The selection committee got this one right.
 
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Tide1986

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Great analysis and history lesson, but it seems to ignore why we have a 4-team playoff today: two teams from the same conference and the inclusion of a non-conference, nom-division winner. If Alabama had not been in the 2012 BCS National Championship Game, we might not have a 4-team playoff today.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Great analysis and history lesson, but it seems to ignore why we have a 4-team playoff today: two teams from the same conference and the inclusion of a non-conference, nom-division winner. If Alabama had not been in the 2012 BCS National Championship Game, we might not have a 4-team playoff today.
Thank you for your response but...I fail to see how having four teams alters the reality of one loss versus two.

Furthermore, maybe folks here need to reconsider the evidence that they MIGHT in fact be WRONG in their theories regarding the four-team playoff, too. The criteria NEVER mandated a conference champion.

Thank you both for reading and for your input.
 

BayouBama75

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Good stroll down memory lane. I agree with your points but it also seems the eye test came into play many times. The problem with head2head if they have the same record is that the winning team also lost to someone else that may have been a worst loss than the H2H. No matter how it is done people are not going to like it if their team doesn't get in.
 

Tide1986

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Thank you for your response but...I fail to see how having four teams alters the reality of one loss versus two.

Furthermore, maybe folks here need to reconsider the evidence that they MIGHT in fact be WRONG in their theories regarding the four-team playoff, too. The criteria NEVER mandated a conference champion.

Thank you both for reading and for your input.
I agree regarding the final criteria...just not the raison d'etre.
 

CoachJeff

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Had Arkansas not beaten Ole Miss in 2015 Bama would have been 11-1 and you may have had a 11-2 Ole Miss team that was also the SEC champ. I think it would have been obvious that Bama deserved to be in more.
 

Ole Man Dan

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Say what ever they will... Money folks and TV Talking Heads wanted TOSU in the playoff. They have been clamoring for an Alabama VS Ohio Re-match all year.
Penn State never had a chance.
 

DrollTide

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Magisterial summary.

The bottom line is, there was a semi-objective method (BCS = avg of human and computer rankings), and it was not liked. It was replaced by "The Committee", which sounds like something out of an Ayn Rand novel or a foreign affairs conspiracy, and is intentionally purely subjective.

There are lots of possible alternatives, such as "win your division", "win your conference", but I very much doubt the subjective evaluation will be withdrawn now that we have it. This is politics, and politicians love it any time they can get their hands directly on a decision. The Committee now exists and it has great power in cherry-picking teams for the benefit of their patrons, whether TV deals or NCAA or bowl sponsor etc.

As Bama fans, we are the bluest of the blue chip programs, and probably benefit as much as anybody from a cherry-picking Committee. People want to see us win or lose, our fans would travel to the moon, we are stadium fillers, and we are tv watchers, beer drinkers and chip eaters. Go Committee!
 

RWBTide

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Great post Selma, informative as always.

tOSU by virtue of failing to win their division have the advantage over the remaining 3 teams of having played one less game and therefore had less exposure to injury and/or penalty.

I see that as in effect rewarding failure. Is that a genuine issue or does my lack of experience contribute to me viewing it as a bigger issue than it actually is?
 

selmaborntidefan

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Great post Selma, informative as always.

tOSU by virtue of failing to win their division have the advantage over the remaining 3 teams of having played one less game and therefore had less exposure to injury and/or penalty.

I see that as in effect rewarding failure. Is that a genuine issue or does my lack of experience contribute to me viewing it as a bigger issue than it actually is?
The injury factor is obviously a potential, yes. But it's not as though Ohio St could have planned it that way, either. The same thing happened in 2011 when we didn't play an SECCG and LSU did. However, by game time we'd been off for 44 days but.....they'd been off for 37, which is plenty of time to heal injuries that permit healing that rapidly.

Ten years ago, there were concerns about how Ohio State's long layoff - over seven weeks - would affect their performance against Florida in the national title game.

They promptly ran the opening kickoff back for a touchdown. Of course, they only scored one more touchdown the rest of the game, but I doubt the layoff was the problem. So any perceived 'advantage' Ohio State might have only comes in to play if one (or two) of the other three teams had major players go down for the season in that game. Personally, I doubt it's much different than thirty years ago when Midwestern teams (Notre Dame, Michigan, et al) would finish their seasons a week earlier than everyone else and then play a bowl game. I never saw any difference in the results.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Magisterial summary.

The bottom line is, there was a semi-objective method (BCS = avg of human and computer rankings), and it was not liked. It was replaced by "The Committee", which sounds like something out of an Ayn Rand novel or a foreign affairs conspiracy, and is intentionally purely subjective.
And yet the BCS would have given us the same thing save Ohio State would have been number two so....

There are lots of possible alternatives, such as "win your division", "win your conference", but I very much doubt the subjective evaluation will be withdrawn now that we have it. This is politics, and politicians love it any time they can get their hands directly on a decision. The Committee now exists and it has great power in cherry-picking teams for the benefit of their patrons, whether TV deals or NCAA or bowl sponsor etc.

As Bama fans, we are the bluest of the blue chip programs, and probably benefit as much as anybody from a cherry-picking Committee. People want to see us win or lose, our fans would travel to the moon, we are stadium fillers, and we are tv watchers, beer drinkers and chip eaters. Go Committee!
Well, that's also true.
 

RWBTide

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Thanks Selma, the historical bowls comparrison I should have thought about.

tOSU is clearly the better team and I'm glad they're in the playoff, but if I don't know the answers I have to ask.

I only discovered on Saturday that returning a PAT only got you 2pts I was thinking it was a TD for the Gators. 😂

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 

Crimson1967

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College sports playoffs are interesting in that teams are chosen based on the opinions of a group of people rather than by some predetermined criteria as is done in professional sports. So there will always be controversy over who is chosen.


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teamplayer

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Had Arkansas not beaten Ole Miss in 2015 Bama would have been 11-1 and you may have had a 11-2 Ole Miss team that was also the SEC champ. I think it would have been obvious that Bama deserved to be in more.
While I agree with you here, I really wonder if they would have included Bama or used the conference championship and head to head argument even though Ole Miss had two losses. It would have been almost the exact same scenario since Ole Miss lost fairly handily to UF if I remember, and they had a very weak out of conference loss to Memphis. The only difference is that they would have been able to avenge one of their losses by beating UF in the SECCG. If they would have selected Bama last year, many people, including reps from the Big 10, would have cried foul and said OSU was just as deserving. As others have said, no matter what selection criteria is used, there will always be moaning and bellyaching by those on the outside looking in. However, this is why I do like as many components of on the field results as possible, and more often than not I will side with conference champions and feel that more often than not it will be conference champions. We have had eleven of the twelve teams so far in the three year history of the selection process that were conference champions. Frankly, even though part of me wants to play OSU again for a little payback, I really hope Clemson whips them and eliminates the non-conference champion from contention.
 

B1GTide

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Memphis was very good last year. If Ole Miss wins out, they get in. Not sure if Alabama also sneaks in, but I think that Ole Miss would have been in.
 

edwd58

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Wow, from the length of the article one would think Krazy had hacked into Selma's account. :)
 

B1GTide

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Decent, not very good.
I probably overstated things with "very" good, but they were a lot better that "very weak" as suggested in the post to which I was replying. They won 9 games. Very weak teams do not win 9 games.
 

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