College Football Week 9 thread

[CrescentMoonie]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

Yeah, a 2-6 Rutgers team with wins over New Mexico and some guy named Howard is totally the same as a 3-5 UCLA team who just lost two close games to a ranked and a nearly ranked team without their top 5 QB

And that's coming from an SC fan

Their "top 5 QB" was only completing 59% of his passes. With him they lost to ASU that is 2-4 in conference and the worst Stanford team in nearly 10 years. Their wins are 2-6 Arizona, 3-6 UNLV, and 4-4 BYU. UCLA isn't a quality win.

Throw in New Mexico St, Prairie View, and UTSA and aTm's OOC schedule is just as bad as Washington's.

[dawgfan]

I'm having a hard time getting too worked-up over the initial rankings, though I'm amused that aTm is the team ahead of the Huskies. Ohio State, Louisville and Auburn have better cases.

Ultimately it doesn't matter that much though. As it turns out, the schedule for Washington is back-loaded with Utah just completed and USC & WSU to come (and likely either Colorado or Utah again in the P12 Championship Game). Who would have figured at the start of the season that big wins over Stanford and Oregon would be considered ho-hum? But if Washington wins out, they'll be in.

And while it's easy to take shots at Washington's OOC sched, they added Rutgers to the slate back when they were winning between 8 and 11 games on a regular basis. Yeah, Idaho is a pushover as-is Portland State (though the Vikings did knock off WSU last year), but tell me most Power-5 conference teams don't have a couple creampuffs on their OOC schedule. Hell, it's pretty much mandated in the SEC.

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by digamma

I'm in the "this is the committee trying to be cute" camp and if we get to week 15 with 4 undefeateds, those are the 4 that are going to be in the playoff.

Yup. This is TV theater. It literally means nothing until December 4th.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

OOC is one thing, but I don't see how you take an undefeated major-conference team and say -- nope. You can only beat who is in front of you. If they both had one loss I'd take Texas A&M every day of the week and twice on Sunday(though I'd take Louisville first without really thinking about it too long, and Ohio State and Florida would also have a credible argument).

And I think I'd take every one of those one loss teams ahead of Louisville, with the possible exception of Florida. {shrug}

[JonInMiddleGA]

CFP rankings made me curious, so I matched 'em against my own current T25.

We agree on #1, my 2-5 is Michigan, Washington, Clemson, and A&M.
Same, five different order for most.

6/7/8 are exactly the same.

8 thru 11 I have:
Nebraska / Florida/ Auburn
CFP has:
Auburn / Nebraska / Florida

Biggest discrepancy looks to be Penn State, their #12, my #23
I'm also 13 vs 17 on Baylor

[tarcone]

This year seems more cut and dried than previous seasons.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

And while it's easy to take shots at Washington's OOC sched, they added Rutgers to the slate back when they were winning between 8 and 11 games on a regular basis. Yeah, Idaho is a pushover as-is Portland State (though the Vikings did knock off WSU last year), but tell me most Power-5 conference teams don't have a couple creampuffs on their OOC schedule. Hell, it's pretty much mandated in the SEC.

Point of order...the Rutgers/UW deal was agreed to in 2014. And I wish we ever won more than 9 games on a regular basis.

I think UW is absolutely deserving of being in the playoff, FWIW.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Logan

And I wish we ever won more than 9 games on a regular basis.

Right there with you as an IU fan.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Logan

Point of order...the Rutgers/UW deal was agreed to in 2014. And I wish we ever won more than 9 games on a regular basis.

I think UW is absolutely deserving of being in the playoff, FWIW.

Point being, Rutgers had won at least 8 games in seven of the previous nine seasons. It wasn't exactly clear that they would be a program undergoing a very rocky transition when they faced each other when the series was agreed to.

At this point I'm not totally certain the Huskies deserve to be in - you can make an argument for a number of programs to fill the slots behind Alabama - but if they win out, there's no argument. They should be in. I'm just happy they're in this position where folks are arguing about them and the CFP.

With Petersen at the helm, I expect they'll be in the discussion often in the coming years.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by bronconick

Yup. This is TV theater. It literally means nothing until December 4th.

Yep. Throw Washington at #4 and everyone just looks once and says "Sounds good" Throw in A&M instead and you generate a buzz.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Point being, Rutgers had won at least 8 games in seven of the previous nine seasons. It wasn't exactly clear that they would be a program undergoing a very rocky transition when they faced each other when the series was agreed to.

Which is an incredibly fair point. The deal was agreed to in 2014, when Rutgers went 8-5 and won their bowl game over UNC (that was also the year Rutgers beat Michigan). It'd be hard to predict they'd be this bad 2 years later.