Valpo Football Team Should Be Considered for the BCS College Football Playoff

[covufan]

Here you go :

http://realtimerpi.com/college_football/ncaaf_conf_Men.html

The Big 10 played the Big 12 in one bowl game.  One in which Baylor blew a 20 point lead.  The regular season RPI is a much better indicator of conference strength...

Massey uses 124 different rating systems and averages them for this comparison ranking:

http://www.masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm

If you go to the bottom, it also has the Big 10 in 5th place.  This comparison was before all of the bowl games.  It will be interesting to see if there is much difference on 13 January. 

I tend to agree that the Big 10, football wise, has been trending down the last few years.  They have teams in the top 25-30, but after that it drops quickly.  I think things will trend up, but it will be a tough road.  I also think Harbaugh will do well at Michigan.  Within three years he'll have them in the top 8, with a chance for a national championship. 

[LaPorteAveApostle]

I also think Harbaugh will do well at Michigan.  Within three years he'll have them in the top 8, with a chance for a national championship. 

+3 to your O/U score

[vu72]

OK, I've had enough.  I'll have to add a few facts to this very avoidable mess by simply taking the playoffs to 8 teams.  Sure, the 9th and 10th place teams will bitch (particularly if they are TCU and Baylor  ), but no one will take them seriously. In hind sight, TCU probably should have been in and FSU out, but how do you not include a conference champion, defending champ who is undefeated?

In the meantime, comparing the entire conference to another to somehow penalize a team like OSU, seems really dangerous.  Consider these few comparisons:  The Big 12's worse teams are Iowa State (0-9) and Kansas, (1-8).  The Big 10's worst are Indiana (4-8) and Purdue at 3-9.  Indiana beat Missouri who played for the SEC championship (and we all know the SEC is the strongest conference  )

In other news, Auburn beat K State, who finished 3rd in the Big 12, yet lost to Texas A & M, who lost to Alabama, 59-0 who lost to Ohio State.  TCU lost to Baylor who lost to 3rd place Wisconsin who lost to Ohio State 59-0.

Valpo beat  Butler ( ), who beat...oh wait, that's a different story...    I rest my case Your Honors.

[a3uge]

What I think you guys are driving at is that both conferences are inferior to the PCL, which reinforces my opinion that Valpo should have gotten a shot at the title game.

[valpotx]

The system is imperfect. In general, I think bowl game performance has more weight in evaluating a team or conference that single games in the regular season.  I am not an OSU or a Big 10 supporter. But OSU in the last few games has played outstanding.  TCU got ripped off, and now looking at it maybe FSU was not as good as we thought. Again, how do you leave a team out that went undefeated in a power conference? Baylor can whine all they want, they need to prove they can win a significant bowl game. Then there are many who think Oregon should not be in the playoff with their perception that the Pac12 is soft.

In football, the Big 10 has been weak for awhile but give them credit in their bowl performances this year.  As for the SEC, I really dislike their incredibly wimpy out of conference schedules and they are wusses for only playing 8 conference games. I talked to a Miss. St. fan who thought it was important that they face soft non conference teams in their schedule to ensure a bowl bid and keep their national title hopes alive. Well, at the end as we know, Miss St. was a hoax - imagine if they were in the playoffs!

The last few games you are speaking about total 2 games, against Wisconsin and Alabama.  Before these 2 games, they barely escaped Minnesota, Michigan, and Indiana (Penn State in double OT a few games before this).  If it is like basketball and how you finish matters, then one game against Wisconsin should not have trumped TCU's body of work.  Also, the only reason that OSU was ahead of TCU in the final rankings, was because the Committee didn't want to tackle the co-champion issue of the Big 12.  So yes, the conference screwed up there, but TCU is better than OSU, FSU, and Alabama, but I am not sure about Oregon.  This would have been proven in an 8 team playoff, which needs to happen.  We don't ever need to go above 8 teams, as the quality drops quite a bit at 9 and below (see TCU's absolute @$$ kicking of Ole Miss). 

72, OSU is not the top team in the nation regardless of how they do against Oregon.  If you look at their full body of work, they are a 5-6 seed, and just got hot in their Big 10 Championship and against Alabama.  I am very much hoping that they get their butt kicked on 1/12, so I don't have to put up with OSU fans saying that they are the best team in the land, when you look at their full body of work.  You can't make comparisons of this team beat this team who beat this team to solve conference vs. conference, so you use the RPI system as the best determinant.  We do the same in basketball, when we are always talking about the HL being 1-2 spots below the MVC, and similar in quality.

[vu72]

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this.  On the one hand you point to a body of work (Ohio State lost one game) and on the other you look to how you finished.  Nobody would argue with the way Ohio State finished, would you?  Wins are wins and the quality of the team has been proven via wins against the MSU's, Wisconsin's and Alabama's, when it counted most.

If "barely escaping" should be the final word, then Valpo's 3 point win over Ball State (at home) should clearly be overshadowed by James Madison's 20 point win (on the road), which would clearly indicate who had the better team.  I don't really think anybody would think JMU has a better team than Valpo.  More likely, it is a team "playing down" to its competition.  Hard to give a full effort against Indiana, Purdue or Minnesota for that matter.

[valpotx]

Yep, we will have to disagree.  OSU lost to an unranked VT team, while TCU lost to a top 10 team.  The Big 12 is ranked higher than the Big 10 in RPI and overall quality, with OSU having the 4th easiest conference schedule among the 60+ Power 5 teams.  The facts speak for themselves, which the Committee completely ignored .

[valporun]

tx, like you said, the committee completely ignored TCU and Baylor because they were co-champs. The Big 12 kicked themselves in the foot here by not having enough teams in the conference to hold a conference championship game. What we've seen here is exactly what we see in late February/early March when a team that shouldn't gets on a hot streak and upsets the apple cart. OSU did exactly this. Their schedule might have been "easy", but they got hot where it counted, and the committee when championship game over best record. OSU may also have received a bump because they were doing all of this having been led to the Playoff Championship game with a 3rd string QB. This would be like Valpo winning the HL basketball title having lost Alec Peters to injury, and having Nick Davidson take up the lost production. (Yes, you're going to say bad comparison, but I couldn't name the 3rd string QB at TCU or Baylor.) Anyway, the committee is going to go with the hot hand and money, not a team from a conference with no title game or money to grease the palm.

[usc4valpo]

all I can say is go Ducks and give the Pac12 some respect.

[covufan]

For Oregon:

# Date             Winner               Scr Loser          Scr
1 2014-11-08 @ Valparaiso (4-8) 17 Butler (4-7) 3 
2 2014-10-04 Butler(4-7)            49 @ Stetson (5-7) 41 
3 2014-11-08 @ Stetson (5-7)     22 Marist (4-7) 14 
4 2014-11-01 @ Marist (4-7)       17 Jacksonville (9-2) 16 
5 2014-09-13 @ Jacksonville(9-2)35 San Diego (9-3) 18 
6 2014-09-06 @ San Diego (9-3) 23 W New Mexico (5-6)17 
7 2014-10-04 @ W New Mexico (5-6)  24 Ft Lewis (3-8)  17 
8 2014-10-11 @ Ft Lewis (3-8) 23 CSU-Pueblo (14-1)  22 
9 2014-09-13 CSU-Pueblo  (14-1)  47 @ Sam Houston St (11-5)  21 
10 2014-10-11 @ Sam Houston St (11-5)  38 McNeese St (6-5)  22 
11 2014-11-01 McNeese St (6-5)  35 @ Northwestern LA (6-6)  28 
12 2014-09-20 Northwestern LA(6-6) 30 @ Louisiana Tech(9-5) 27 
13 2014-12-26 Louisiana Tech(9-5) 35 Illinois(6-7) 18 
14 2014-11-22 @ Illinois(6-7) 16 Penn St(7-6) 14 
15 2014-12-27 Penn St(7-6) 31 Boston College(7-6) 30 
16 2014-09-13 @ Boston College(7-6) 37 USC(9-4) 31 
17 2014-10-11 USC (9-4) 28 @ Arizona (10-4) 26 
18 2014-10-02 Arizona (10-4) 31 @ Oregon  (13-1) 24

And Ohio State:


# Date            Winner          Scr  Loser Scr

1 2014-11-08 @ Valparaiso (4-8)  17 Butler (4-7)  3 
2 2014-10-04 Butler (4-7)  49 @ Stetson (5-7)  41 
3 2014-11-08 @ Stetson (5-7)  22 Marist (4-7)  14 
4 2014-11-01 @ Marist (4-7)  17 Jacksonville (9-2)  16 
5 2014-09-13 @ Jacksonville (9-2)  35 San Diego (9-3)  18 
6 2014-09-06 @ San Diego (9-3)  23 W New Mexico (5-6)  17 
7 2014-10-04 @ W New Mexico(5-6) 24 Ft Lewis(3-8) 17 
8 2014-10-11 @ Ft Lewis(3-8) 23 CSU-Pueblo(14-1) 22 
9 2014-09-13 CSU-Pueblo(14-1) 47 @ Sam Houston St (11-5) 21 
10 2014-12-13 Sam Houston St(11-5) 34 @ Villanova (11-3) 31 
11 2014-12-06 @ Villanova(11-3) 29 Liberty(9-5) 22 
12 2014-10-11 Liberty(9-5) 55 @ Appalachian St(7-5) 48 
13 2014-11-08 @ Appalachian St(7-5) 31 ULM(4-8) 29 
14 2014-08-28 @ ULM(4-8) 17 Wake Forest(3-9) 10 
15 2014-11-22 @ Wake Forest(3-9) 6 Virginia Tech(7-6) 3 
16 2014-09-06 Virginia Tech(7-6) 35 @ Ohio St(13-1) 21

For those of you in Ohio and Oregon, you now have bragging rights!

[valpotx]

Time on your hands?

[vu72]

Yep, we will have to disagree.  OSU lost to an unranked VT team, while TCU lost to a top 10 team.  The Big 12 is ranked higher than the Big 10 in RPI and overall quality, with OSU having the 4th easiest conference schedule among the 60+ Power 5 teams.  The facts speak for themselves, which the Committee completely ignored .

Well, we'll let this one rest.  Ohio State gave up 3 tos in the redzone and won easily.  This, with a very young team and  third string quarterback.  Put TCU in place of Oregon and you'd expect something different?  Midwest, shove it down your throat offense prevailed.

GO BUCKEYES!!!!!!!!!!

[bbtds]

Yep, we will have to disagree.  OSU lost to an unranked VT team, while TCU lost to a top 10 team.  The Big 12 is ranked higher than the Big 10 in RPI and overall quality, with OSU having the 4th easiest conference schedule among the 60+ Power 5 teams.  The facts speak for themselves, which the Committee completely ignored .

So it should have been TCU against Ohio State in the national championship game? You really think the Horned Frogs would have beaten tOSU tonight?

[usc4valpo]

Congrats to Ohio St. - well deserved win

I wonder if Phyllis from Mulga is doing OK.

[valpotx]

Congrats to Ohio State as well, they won the games that they were allowed to play, and got hot over the 3 most important games of their season.

Yes, bbtds, TCU would have beaten both Oregon and OSU in that game.  It's a shame that they weren't allowed to play it out on the field.  It's as I said, even if OSU ends up winning the title, TCU should have been out there, however their opponent would have played out.  Anyone watching TCU play this season could attest to it.  Btw, I am just a casual TCU fan, even though that is my grad school and I coached baseball there one season as a Volunteer Assistant during my MBA program.  I don't support them like I do teams I get behind each season, but rather watch the games with indifference most of the time.  Since I didn't experience being a true TCU student, going to school most of the time at night after work, I don't feel the same about TCU, that I do Valpo.  My avid support on this board simply has to do with the injustice that played out. 

[historyman]

TCU would have beaten both Oregon and OSU in that game.

I don't believe you would find many NCAA football fans agreeing with that statement. You can have your own opinion but you must realize that it is very much a minority opinion.

[valpotx]

Not really, I believe that there is a sizeable chunk of individuals that believe TCU would beat both teams.  All of the turnovers from Ohio State would have doomed them against TCU.  Oregon didn't take advantage of the many chances that they were given to win that game.

Also, I don't care about the majority opinion, when we end up with Obama for 8 years .

[KL31NY]

If something like this hasn't been posted already, here's a link to "My Team is Better Than Your Team," proving that Valpo is better than CFP National Champion Ohio State: http://bit.ly/1y7Ym3j

[LaPorteAveApostle]

KL31NY!  where you BEEN man!  good to see you!

(covufan beat you to it at 4:06 on Jan 6, above, btw. 
that's just my friendly way of saying you should hang out here more ; )