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You may have missed something I put on here earlier. OSWho only dropped from #2 to #5 after losing to an unranked team. Do you believe that would have happened if they hadn't already been given a tag as a high-ranked team? Going all the way back to the Preseason? The results on Saturday speak for themselves. They could barely stand on the same field with at team that was ranked right next to them. Michigan didn't prove to be worthy of their bloated ranking either. Look at what's happening to the other Big Ten teams as well. It would be ironic if their actual Conference Champion delivers a message to the Selection Committee tonight. Or, maybe the culmination of this season for all of these teams will tell us something else entirely. Not only do all the preseason and season-long rankings Lock In people's impressions about some teams. But I don't see why the CFP has to come out with anything before the end of the season either.

So what do you guys think about the Cotton Bowl results? I'm at least thankful that the Wisconsin TE fell down intentionally instead of going into the end zone for another TD at the end. I think it's a nice outcome for US, as a MAC school, to see an 8 point margin. I just wonder if it has any impact beyond that. I'm not thinking that the rest of the college football world sees anything exciting in a "at least the MAC team didn't get blown out" scenario.

This is good stuff. I had to read it again. The results on Saturday clearly showed what happens when you take these early season and pre-season polls and results, and just keep those teams hovering at the top all season because of it, despite the obvious flaws. That's why I pointed out Marla's article. Even though Michigan and Ohio State were both playing terribly in that game (and had been doing so for a week or two leading up to that game), they BOTH benefited from that game, win or lose, because of the "labels" that had already been put on them. Since we've spent so much time talking about the Suckeyes, lets talk about Michigan too. Lost to Iowa, followed by an unimpressive win over Indiana, followed by the loss to OSWho, and there was still talk about putting them into the playoff??? All because of people's preconceived label that was put on them? Then poor Penn State, who had just won 9 straight conference game, including OSWho, and was getting better and better every week was on the outside looking in.....all because they never had the lofty preseason or early season "label", which gave them way too much ground to make up.

I hadn't thought about this previously, but you can't come up with a better comparison that this. Yes, can you imagine if the NFL selected their playoff teams with a criteria that resembled anything like some of the arguments we are seeing here? Like, "Well, X beat Y, and Y beat Z...so we think X should be in the playoff" Or "We still think that A is better than B, even though B beat A, and won A's Conference". It would seem absurd to everyone who follows the NFL. Division champions AUTOMATICALLY get priority in playoff spots over everyone else, regardless of the OOC/OOD schedule they played, and regardless of anyone's opinions on how strong their division/conference might have been that particular year. And even the other teams who qualify for the LOWER spots are certainly not handed playoff spots by a person or group of people in a room who vote based on who they think might be better than another. Hey, just look at the NCAA Basketball Tournament (even thought their seeding process is 100% subjective). Who are the only teams that are GUARANTEED a spot in that tournament? That's right. Conference Tournament Champions.

Good Post. Thanks for the information. I suppose that something like swimming and track/field, where there's times that make it easier to compare competitors, makes it more difficult for selection committees to ignore athletes from "smaller" D-1 schools. When there are not direct ways to compare teams, their subjective judgement and motives are much more difficult to challenge. I love that last sentence. Made me laugh.

Here's a few more things to consider that should have been an indicator of OSWho's impending collapse. In fact, in Marla's ABJ Front Page article, she headlines these facts with, "Warning signs where all over, but we didn't want to look". She might be referring to the press and the fans? But obviously, the selection committee chose not to look also. 1) They threw for 200 yards, COMBINED, over the last two games of the regular season, and one of those games went to double overtime. 2) From Mid-October until the end of the season, they allowed the 3rd most sacks (20) in the entire nation. 3) Their kicker missed his last 4 field goal attempts of the season (including last night).

I wonder if he still feels that way today after Villanova beat Creighton by double-digits on Creighton's home floor?

I know that the poster may have specifically discredited her. I only responded to indicate that she was at least qualified enough to do what I believe other committee member do....pick their favorites because of other motives. I actually really like her, going all the way back to when she served our country under President Bush. And I understand that she's a pretty big sports fan.

Be careful. The Suckeye Faithful are already quite testy this morning. You're likely to get several more posts because of this. September 24th is Midseason? If we're debating whether teams should have been in or out of the playoffs, that's one thing. When you're distorting facts all for the purpose of defending ONE particular team, who is not even the Fanbase represented by this board, that tells me your motive. I won't respond to you baiting us on the "Akron doesn't compete against Ohio State" crap, because it doesn't belong in this thread. I'd gladly take that somewhere else. But, since our LOCAL media outlet put a Special 5-Page insert in the newspaper yesterday celebrating OSWho's (very brief) playoff run while they give us a "staff reporter" for their own Hometown D-1 team, that should give you just one element of what we are competing against as Zips Fans vs. Ohio State.

If someone beating someone else, who beat someone else was solid Logic, Akron was the national champ in 2014. Akron beat Pitt, who beat Virginia Tech, who beat the Suckeyes. And since this Thread is about Playoffs, and not about defending OSWho on an Akron board, I'll stick with the point that a "certain team" was dropped only 3 spots in the standings with a head-to-head loss to an unranked team. Nobody can explain that, other than the desire for $$$$$$. That made their "appearance" in the playoff last night possible. If you want to keep posting for the purpose of defending the Suckeyes, I'm sure there's other sites created by the people 2 hours south of here that would join you in your despair this morning. And you can argue SOS, etc., all you want, but nobody can deny that there were certainly plenty of other candidates that would have done much, more than just show up and stand on the field last night.

And two years ago, the Suckeyes lost to Virginia Tech. And that year, they didn't have a head-to-head game against Baylor or TCU later in the season that would have reinforced which team was better, like they did this year with Penn State. it demonstrates the complete hypocricy of the committee, which will use any excuse they want to justify money over accuracy.

But she surely was capable of sitting on the committee and making sure that the "popular", money-making choices get in the playoff. What a joke. Clemson would have beaten the Suckeyes by 50 last night, if their offense hadn't made so many mistakes. I wonder if any Suckeye Honks want to contend that Penn State would not have performed much, much better? Last night showed us that the committee should have seen far more from the OSU/Penn State game and the 1-point OSU/Michigan State game, and dropped them appropriately in the standings. Instead, the committee clearly showed that they'd rather stand behind a slim, comeback, double OT win, at home, against a Michigan team that had just lost to frickin Iowa. And then allow them to sit out their conference championship game in order to not expose any further weaknesses (Oh, sorry they dropped them from #2 to #3 ). Results speak for themselves. I feel worse for Penn State than I felt a few weeks ago.

You're right, they will say that their "criteria" means one thing one year, and one thing another year. But like I said, this year in particular, when unranked Penn State beat them, and they only dropped from #2 to #5, you knew what was going on. Two years ago, they said that early season losses didn't matter (Ohio State losing to a bad Virginia Tech school). But this year, Penn State's early losses mattered. It's really a joke. Regardless of what anyone says, this Committee set-up is far more subjective than it's predecessor. They think that made it better by adding the "human element" instead of stats and number. This has done nothing more than add people's biases to the process, not ensure more objectivity.

After OSWho lost in late October (to an unranked team at the time), but only dropped a few spots, I told everyone that this was setting the table to make sure that they would be in the playoff.

I saw your edit. I just wanted to refute any thought that the CFP people could come in and make everything right in November, after the polls have already determined who's going to be in contention. I see that your stats analysis shows that they follow basically the same line. The Penn State situation is interesting. Yes, they made some big surprising jumps out of nowhere. But, they also had the types of opponents in October and November that allowed that. The G5 schools aren't playing those kinds of teams in Oct. and Nov.

And how much does that almost mirror the other rankings that had been coming out since Preseason? I hope you're not implying that maybe these Committee people would be the ones we could count on to shun the team at #4 in the AP, and replace them with the undefeated team at #25 in the AP. Not gonna happen.

Here's where I think the whole thing goes wrong. You take a team like WMU (or any team that is the best of the G5). Nobody is going to put them anywhere close enough on a radar at the beginning of the year. This leaves them playing catch-up all year long with every team of any good caliber in all of the P5 conferences combined, who are all going to be ranked ahead of them. So, by the time Week 6 or 7 rolls around, and a team like WMU is just maybe cracking the Top-25, it's already too late. They can't get high enough to matter, unless there was a massive losing streak among everyone at 20 or higher. Then everyone on that committee has an excuse to ignore them. Maybe the biggest thing that makes this rigged, vs. basketball, is that a team coming into the picture at mid-season still has 15 more games to make up ground. In football, that's limited to maybe 5 or 6 more games. This leads us back to something we talk about often on here: Why do they take the same list of teams every year and put them in the Top 25? Preseason rankings are what make this happen.

A lot of this is really good thinking. We could all definitely band together to get this done. But let me just correct you on one thing here. The "payday" games might not balance out the costs, but without those games the losses from football surely increase dramatically. I know. It's sad. All we appear to be doing is just decreasing a big loss by playing these games. But as long as a school can say that they lost...for example...One million from football for a year, instead of Two million, that justifies putting the games on our schedule.

16 ounce.....in the Can ?

Absolutely. The fact that the system is already pre-rigged against that happening is what needs to be fixed. Look back at the 1979 Indiana State Sycamores basketball team. They were undefeated and Ranked #1 in the AP poll and got a #1 seed in the tournament, and got a legitimate shot at the title, despite competing in a lower level conference. You would never see anything close to this ever happening to a similar D-1 football program.

I'm not concerned whether Kent suddenly became a great team. I don't think that's the case. I'm just taking notice of the fact that they just showed they can win a high profile road game. On the "will the nation or Joe Akron take notice" discussion, I can tell you this: My wife came home from work yesterday, and the first thing she said to me was, "Did you hear that Kent beat Texas?". So please, some of you need to stop being in denial and realize that average sports fans and media outlets take far more notice of these kinds of wins. Even those who might never follow Kent Basketball. And it doesn't matter if Texas is a national powerhouse this year or not.

Whatever anyone's thoughts are about competing in the NIT, I'm sure you'd probably feel the same about this.

Nobody "missed" on Edwards when he went to DePaul after his Sophomore year in JC. Akron was actively pursuing him also. Thanks for bringing up DePaul's powerhouse standing in the 1980s, because I wanted to illustrate how much a player's ability and status can change just between the ages of 17 and 19.

Umm. We've been D-I since 1980.

Ok, I get it. Akron and another 350-some other D-I programs didn't see it. So, we'd be admitting what exactly? That we saw the same thing that everyone else was seeing at the time? I knew a Junior College kid in the 80s from this area who couldn't get off the bench in high school. After an average freshman year, he became a JC All-American and earned a scholarship for his last two years at DePaul. He was then a 1st round NBA draft pick and had a long career. Nobody had a crystal ball when this kid was 17 years old. The entire nation missed on this kid. I don't recall anyone, including the area D-I schools in this area making excuses, or being asked to accept any blame. It happens.