While I don't think this is the paramount issue, one of my main issues with the idea of a +1 is the fourth team. I have a very hard time just finding a fourth team that had any sort of a case for playing for the NC and certainly lacked the credentials for a NC.
Makes as much sense than #5 jumping all the way to #1 when the teams ahead of it won:
1977 Notre Dame
1983 Miami
That's the old system - so in one system #5 DOES quality but #4 does NOT?
Keep in mind I'm going by pre-bowl BCS rankings.
1998 - #4 Ohio State finished 11-1 (Tennessee went 13-0)
1999 - #4 Alabama finished 10-3 (Florida St. went 12-0)
2000 - #4 Washington finished 11-1 (Oklahoma went 13-0)
2001 - #4 Oregon finished 11-1 (Miami went 12-0)
2002 - #4 USC finished 11-2 (Ohio St. went 14-0)
2003 - #4 Michigan finished 10-3 (LSU went 13-1)
2004 - #4 Texas finished 11-1 (USC went 13-0)
2005 - #4 Ohio St. finished 10-2 (Texas went 13-0)
2006 - #4 LSU finished 11-2 (Florida went 13-1)
2007 - #4 Oklahoma finished 11-3 (LSU went 12-2)
2008 - #4 Alabama finished 12-2 (Florida went 13-1)
2009 - #4 TCU finished 12-1 (Alabama went 14-0)
2010 - #4 Stanford finished 12-1 (Auburn went 14-0)
2011 - #4 Stanford finished 11-2 (Alabama went 12-1)
But your argument is flawed by the simple fact that if we were ranking for a PLUS ONE then MANY of the rankings
would have been different. (Not your fault - you can only go off the data - but I'm saying let's not even
pretend the rankings would have been the same if 4 gets in).
Your argument is also flawed by the fact you bring up "hey, #4 lost here" when you know full well that an
unbeaten #4 in a Plus One would have played a different foe.
There you have it, every single year of the BCS. The thing is, I've already alluded to the two cases in which #3 had an argument. #4 never had an argument!
There were FIVE unbeatens on December 5, 2009. If the refs don't put that extra second on the clock
for Texas, there were four. Alabama was admittedly a given. But seriously - can you say ANY of the
three unbeatens (Cincinnati, Boise State, TCU) should have been there or should NOT have been there?
Why Cincinnati over TCU? Or Boise?
Keep in mind that's just one year.
Now, just for comparison purposes I selected the champion, but I think everyone can get the point. #4, in the history of the BCS, has never had a persuasive argument for being #1. I
Only because your method was flawed - they had a case for PLAYING for number one.
Remember - this issue is NOT "it turned out OK," the issue is HOW you get there.
It's open and shut, it's as simple as that.
It most certainly is - you used a flawed argument. Next?
The fact of the matter is this: you CANNOT say
a) Florida State was any more deserving than Ohio State in 1998
b) Florida State was any more deserving than Washington in 2000
c) Nebraska was more deserving than Oregon in 2001.
d) You know full well that Utah would have been ranked #4 in a Plus One, so your citation
of Texas in 2004 is meaningless
e) OU was any less deserving than LSU in 2007 (both had two losses)
f) Utah would have been #4 in 2008, so this point is also incorrect
g) OK State was more deserving to even be number three than Stanford
(I realize on g you're going to try to say, "But they beat them head-to-head." Problem is you didn't
know that at the time, so you can't use that argument).
On several occasions #4 playing for the NC would have been a travesty. And yes, I include one Alabama team in that list. There's no way that 1999 Alabama deserved to have a shot at a championship.
And yet if Stallworth doesn't hit Cangelosi in the end zone, a one-loss Bama team plays FSU for the title.
So, here's where I am stuck. I can't find a single #4 team in the history of the BCS that could make the argument they deserved to be #1.
Because you used "facts" that would not be true under that scenario, and you counted in records
of losses (TCU 2009) the team would not have had at the end of the regular season.
I gave you SEVEN EXAMPLES where you cannot argue that #2 was necessarily a better opponent than #4 was.
Not one... yet, we are supposed to make a system that gives them an annual shot at #1.
No, it's about getting the SECOND TEAM right. There's usually one real good team nobody disputes should be there.
What would that say to the regular season results? .
Well, you'd pretty much have to have 0, 1, or - in an unusual case like 2007 - certainly no MORE than
two losses. Seems to me that would make the regular season quite meaningful.
So, we have the pro... we have USC in 2003 and Auburn in 2004.
Along with other examples you mis-stated.
And we have the con, which is pretty much every other #3 and #4 team in the BCS standings.
No, the con is the "facts" you're using would not be true under a PLUS ONE, and you know this.
In all seriousness, it is posts with "facts" like these that make me hate the BCS even more. Is
there a school where they teach this kind of "fact finding" mission that isn't?
People complained that LSU's win over Alabama didn't mean anything.
Well, it did.
The team that won that game:
a) had an extra game against a ranked foe
b) ran the risk of injury in that extra game
c) had seven fewer days to prepare for the game than the other one who now had
an extra game to scout.
Oh, I see... so to fix that they should have had to play another one loss team that didn't win their conference?
Bad argument. Nobody but Roy Kramer and some "we hate the SEC" folks in other conferences is talking like this.
Really? Or, we have complaints that teams that didn't win their conference would be in, oh ok... so let's do that more often then! Rematches? Yup, got those to! So every single thing people complained about this year, would be much more common in a +1.
This is a valid point. But I never complained about a rematch, either.
In point of fact it was BCS PROPONENTS who kept trying to tell us about how EVERY GAME IS A PLAYOFF. Yet what we
found out is this: it is more beneficial to LOSE a PLAYOFF GAME in the BCS than it is to WIN one.
And that's the clincher, there. For all the negative you can say about baseball's nutty system and the NFL - at least
in those sports when a team loses a playoff game, it doesn't go to the championship.
Let's not even get into the travesty that a 1 vs 7 and 3 vs 5 plus one would be, l
Let's not because it's irrelevant.
Let's not even dig into how much that would scar the postseason if you put the conference champ qualifier on things.
Again - most folks arguing PLUS ONE are NOT saying this.
Then, as if that's not enough let's consider things further. I saw it suggested here, that for example Utah in 2008 would have been placed ahead of Alabama if there had been a plus one. Oh really, so the suggestion is that the polls would have intentionally rigged things so that the team they felt was inferior would jump another team so they could be in a plus one?
You mean like they're rigged now? With people voting in it in games that affect themselves?
I hope that's not true, but it's possible.
Not only that, it happened in the last regular season poll.
We've seen the polls try to move things around a bit in the past, the problem is they have limited space in which to work. If they knew the importance of #4, they could use the position strategically and unfortunately I do think you'd see it used (not just by coaches, by writers primarily) to try and position the team they wanted into a plus one.
Like they do now with number two?
The idea that we could, as though we tolerate the notion, suggest that the polls would unethically promote a team for the sake of gaining entry into a plus one is horrid.
Sure, there's never been any BCS controversy over #4 (cough! Texas 2004 over Cal).
This, slippery slope aside, is what I can not stomach about a plus one. I'd rather see us go back to the old bowl system than implement a conference champs only +1.
You and I actually agree on this.
I said before the only plus one I could stomach was a 2 (at home) vs 3 with 1 having a bye.
And after 15 straight years when one wins the game, they'll go ahead and add the fourth team anyway.
But, ultimately a plus one is a very bad idea because of #4.
Not true.
It pushed LSU into a Stanford game, which if the Alabama game was an insult, that one would have been a slap in the face.
Not if the season BEGAN with that system it would not.
It would put undeserving team after undeserving team into it, and why?
2000 Florida State over Miami over Washington
2001 Nebraska over Colorado over Oregon
2003 Oklahoma over USC
2004 you admit the blunder so let's press on
2007 2-loss Oklahoma was somehow less deserving than two-loss LSU (despte both of those losses
being in November for Pete's sake)
2008 - OU over Texas
Your move.
So the media could stop bashing the process?
Don't really care about this.
In the hope that we'd sate their need for inclusion? Unfortunately, we'll see a +1 long before we see a #4 that actually deserves to be in it.
An opinion but nothing more.
RTR