(12-17-2020 12:01 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  Notre Dame destroys Clemson
Bama beats Florida
Northwestern beats Ohio St.
Oregon beats USC.
Oklahoma beats Iowa St.
Tennessee beats ATM.

Playoff
1. Bamer
2. Norte Dame
3. Cincinnati
4. Clemson

Off week Georgia gets the snub.

FWIW, I don't think Clemson gets in if they lose to Notre Dame, by any margin.

But we shall see.

(12-17-2020 03:55 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(12-17-2020 12:01 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  Notre Dame destroys Clemson
Bama beats Florida
Northwestern beats Ohio St.
Oregon beats USC.
Oklahoma beats Iowa St.
Tennessee beats ATM.

Playoff
1. Bamer
2. Norte Dame
3. Cincinnati
4. Clemson

Off week Georgia gets the snub.

FWIW, I don't think Clemson gets in if they lose to Notre Dame, by any margin.

But we shall see.

That’s even better for Cincinnati:
1. Bamer
2. Notre Dame
3. Cincinnati
4. Georgia

(12-17-2020 12:04 PM)domer1978 Wrote:  

(12-17-2020 12:01 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  Notre Dame destroys Clemson
Bama beats Florida
Northwestern beats Ohio St.
Oregon beats USC.
Oklahoma beats Iowa St.
Tennessee beats ATM.

Playoff
1. Bamer
2. Norte Dame
3. Cincinnati
4. Clemson

Off week Georgia gets the snub.

Say it again in Bawb Dayvee's voice.

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using CSNbbs mobile app

(12-17-2020 02:02 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  

(12-17-2020 01:56 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  I don’t think a 2 loss Flerida gets in if they beat Bamer.

If Ohio St loses and especially if Texas A&M or Clemson lose as well, Florida could be in with a win over Alabama.

Florida is likely in with a win over Alabama. That would jump them over anyone but the top 4. Conference championship and win over Alabama probably outweighs A&M's head to head. It will jump them over Big 12 champ and Cincinnati.

Assuming Ohio St. wins, then Florida is competing for the #3 and #4 slot with Alabama and the Clemson/ND loser.

(12-17-2020 02:49 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(12-17-2020 02:43 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  As a Cincy fan, I would like to see this considering UC is almost certainly going to fail to make the playoff ...

* Assuming an undefeated Notre Dame does not win it all (which I would like to see the Irish run the table so that I can play Dropkick Murphys music for a week to celebrate), a team with one loss (say Clemson) barely beats whoever it plays in the title game and it's an ugly and sloppy win.

* Cincy (after hypothetically drilling a solid Tulsa team in the AAC title tilt) manhandles, say, Texas AM, in a NY6 Bowl game to finish undefeated.

* Bill Dazzle, with an arrogant and defiant tone, posts multiple times on this board that the Bearcats are the true national champs, causing an uproar with various posters (much like we saw after UCF beat Auburn). Unfazed and militant in my posts, I continue to antagonize these posters and eventually am banned from the board. I then paint my man buttocks in UC black, red and white, scale the Carew Tower in downtown Cincinnati and skydive into the Ohio River in protest.

Bill is about to become a handful.

(12-17-2020 03:23 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(12-17-2020 02:32 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  Cincinnati will get in if they top 10 programs all fall apart due to virus issues and are literally unable to show up.

I'm sure the CFP will be happy to have UC among the 4 at that point.

This. It's the only way Cincinnati gets in this year.

Cincy alleges early in the season that, if it doesn't get a shot at the championship series, the system is rigged. The school holds crowded rallies open only to diehard, unmasked UC fans, Tweets incessantly about perceived inequities in the selection process and its victimhood, demands committee re-counts, and files scores of mindless lawsuits, one of which makes it all the way to the Supreme Court. After mulling the matter over for less than a minute, the Supreme Court reaches a unanimous decision: Cincy lacks standing because it isn't a member of the vaunted P5. The Court goes on to add that, if you ain't on a par with Kansas, Mississippi State, Syracuse, Illinois, or Oregon State, you'll never have a shot at national glory.

(12-17-2020 12:04 PM)domer1978 Wrote:  

(12-17-2020 12:01 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  ...Norte Dame

It's the Latino chick from up North: Norte Dame!

(12-17-2020 12:04 PM)domer1978 Wrote:  

(12-17-2020 12:01 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  Notre Dame destroys Clemson
Bama beats Florida
Northwestern beats Ohio St.
Oregon beats USC.
Oklahoma beats Iowa St.
Tennessee beats ATM.

Playoff
1. Bamer
2. Norte Dame
3. Cincinnati
4. Clemson

Off week Georgia gets the snub.

I don’t think the Bearcats need an Ohio State loss. This season (along with the entire year) is too screwed up. I don’t see any Power 5 conference getting two playoff spots. The Big 12 is out. It may come down to UC vs. an undefeated USC.

If Florida beats Alabama and Notre Dame beats Clemson and Ohio State loses to NW, we could get three SEC teams:

Alabama
Notre Dame
Florida
TAMU

.

Time to ask ourselves:

.

Q: What is the definition of a national champion in team sports?

A: The champion, by definition, is supposed to be the best team in the nation.

.

Q: Can a team that has lost a game rightfully be considered a national champion?

A: Only if there are no highly-ranked undefeated teams in the nation.

.

Q: Why?

A: Because a highly-ranked (top 6 or top 8) team that is undefeated may well be the best team in the nation.

.

Q: If so, then what would be the most appropriate remedy?

A: Highly-ranked (top 6 or top 8) teams that are undefeated should automatically qualify for the CFP playoffs each year. Teams with one loss should be selected next, in accordance with their rankings.

.

Q: Is this simply a matter of fair treatment, regardless of conference?

A: No. It is a matter of credibility.

.

Q: In what respect does the present system lack credibility?

A: It fails to examine whether a highly-ranked (top 6 or top 8) team that has gone undefeated may be the best team in the nation, and thus, the true national champion.

.

Q: Why does "credibility" matter, when the bottom line is $$$?

A: Because fan interest and viewership can be adversely affected if FBS followers believe that the selection process is tainted/rigged, and that, as a result, the CFP isn't a true championship series in the strict sense.

.

Q: Why should fans care if a highly-ranked undefeated team doesn't make the playoffs, simply because it's not from a "power" conference?

A: Because most ordinary Americans love to see an underdog or a dark horse advance in the playoffs. This has been one of the keys to the overwhelming popularity of the NCAA.

.

Q: But wouldn't TV ratings suffer if an undefeated non-P5 team like Cincinnati were to play in the CFP playoffs?

A: Not necessarily. Quite possibly, the ratings might be spectacular, because a lot of fans like to root for the underdog and due to the drama that would be associated with seeing a non-P5 team getting a chance to play for the national championship.

.

Q: Isn't that just wishful thinking? Have there been any examples of stellar ratings for such a football championship game?

A: There is a perfect example: The Super Bowl (especially the first few games).

.

Q: The Super Bowl??? In what respect is it relevant to this discussion?

A: Although not all fans realize it, the first few Super Bowl games matched the champion of the top-ranked pro fb league (the NFL) against the much younger and less heralded AFL, which was considered by some to be comparable to the Canadian Football League or a semi-pro league.

Many NFL fans expected the early AFL teams to be blown off the field in the early Super Bowl games, but the opposite happened: AFL teams won 7 of the first 10 Super Bowl games.

.

Q: How about viewership?

A: Super Bowl I had the highest viewership of any game in the history of professional football (with a stratospheric viewership share of 79), helped along by the fact that it was broadcast on both NBC and CBS.

Super Bowl II, broadcast by CBS, had a 76 share and a total viewership of 70 million.

.

Q: Does this one example prove that having an undefeated non-P5 team like Cincinnati play in the CFP series would generate such astonishing viewership?

A: No, but it does suggest that viewership might get a boost, due to the novelty and the attendant drama of such a game, if there were an undefeated non-P5 team in the college football playoffs.

(12-18-2020 12:37 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  A: No. It is a matter of credibility.

You emphasize ranking. as in we shouldn't leave out a "highly-ranked" unbeaten, say between 6-8. But if rankings are what matter, I think one should go strictly by rankings.

Imagine if Clemson beats Notre Dame tomorrow and is ranked #3 in the final CFP poll. What would cost the CFP more credibility, leaving unbeaten #8 Cincy out, or once-beaten #3 Clemson out? Everyone would think that Clemson is far more likely to be the "best team", so the credibility hit would be much larger if the CFP did not place Clemson.

Bottom line is, leaving out an unbeaten #7 is likely to cause *less* of a credibility gap than leaving out a once-beaten team in the top-4. That's because people understand that "unbeaten" is of limited heuristic value. It depends heavily on who you play. Play Alabama 12 times and the typical fifth-best team in the country might go 4-8. Play USF 12 times and the will be 12-0. Massive difference in record, based on schedule. "Unbeaten" just doesn't mean the same thing in CFB (or college basketball, for that matter) as it does in pro leagues, because in pro leagues everyone plays very comparable schedules. In the NFL, the difference between the champion and the worst team might be a 15-point spread. In college football, it might be 50 points.

So most realize some accounting for SOS must be made. Of course this year is crazy, and it is hard to compare anything. But this is a unique year, so not one we want to make rules off of, IMO.

(12-18-2020 12:50 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 12:37 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  A: No. It is a matter of credibility.

You emphasize ranking. as in we shouldn't leave out a "highly-ranked" unbeaten, say between 6-8. But if rankings are what matter, I think one should go strictly by rankings.

The reason why I disagree is that rankings are far from being perfect. If they were, there would be no upsets, and there would be much less doubt than there actually is about which team will win or lose any particular game.

The argument isn't that rankings are uninformative. They do have a useful function, by preventing any undefeated team with a very weak strength of schedule from making it onto a list of the 6 or 8 ranked teams.

However, a team that has gone undefeated despite playing a rigorous schedule, clearly, can make its way onto a top 6 or top 8 list such as the AP Top 25 or the CFP ratings.

If rankings were sufficient to determine a national championship, then there would be no need for a college football championship series.

The question is this: Is it justifiable to place so much faith in the rankings that highly-ranked (e.g., top 6), undefeated teams should be excluded if they're not ranked among the top four teams?

I would subscribe that the answer to this question is no.

......................................................................................................

Think of it along these lines:

In a jury trial, would a reasonable juror vote to convict a defendant of a capital crime without having enough evidence to convince him beyond a reasonable doubt of his or her guilt?

The answer, according to the law, is no.

What we need, in order to justify the decision to do harm to colleges and their teams by excluding them from the CFP series despite going undefeated and being highly-ranked, is the kind of evidence that would convince us beyond a reasonable doubt.

......................................................................................................


Unfortunately, we have no hard scientific data on this matter, because this is a research question that has never been tested.

Fortunately, however, this is a topic that could be subjected to scientific investigation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But we do have some data that are at least obliquely relevant:

Q: How have non-P5 teams, not including Notre Dame (ACC affiliate) performed in the NY6 bowls, to date?

A: The current NY6 record of the non-P5 teams is 3-3 (.500)

.

Q: How does that compare with the NY6 Bowl records of the P5 conferences?

A: They have been broadly comparable.

ACC (including Notre Dame): (.471)

Big Ten: (.556)

Big 12: (.300)

PAC-12: (.400)

SEC: (.609)

P5 Average: (.513)

.

Q: Do such data lend credence to the proposition that undefeated non-P5 teams that end the season in the top 6 or top 8 should be granted the opportunity to play in the college football championship series, if not permanently, then at least for a trial period, to evaluate the data?

A: Definitely.

Q: Is there any other evidence that provides indirect support for this proposition?

A: Aye. Additional support has been provided by data indicating that the number of ranked teams from non-P5 conferences has been increasing steadily since the P5/G5 split, and has nearly doubled since 2014.

=============================================

PROPOSAL:

CHANGE THE FORMAT OF THE CFP FOR A TRIAL PERIOD (e.g., ONE DECADE, OR LONGER, IF NEEDED, IF THERE AREN'T ENOUGH QUALIFYING CASES WITHIN 10 YEARS), TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS THAT HIGHLY-RANKED (TOP 6 OR TOP 8) TEAMS WITH ZERO LOSSES MERIT INCLUSION IN THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS AS AUTOMATIC QUALIFIERS.

IF THE RESULTS INDICATE THAT SUCH TEAMS TEND TO UNDERPERFORM, THEN THE CFP SYSTEM WOULD REVERT BACK TO ITS CURRENT FORMAT.

(12-18-2020 01:34 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 12:50 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 12:37 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  A: No. It is a matter of credibility.

You emphasize ranking. as in we shouldn't leave out a "highly-ranked" unbeaten, say between 6-8. But if rankings are what matter, I think one should go strictly by rankings.

The reason why I disagree is that rankings are far from being perfect. If they were, there would be no upsets, and there would be much less doubt than there actually is about which team will win or lose any particular game.

The argument isn't that rankings are uninformative. They do have a useful function, by preventing any undefeated team with a very weak strength of schedule from making it onto a list of the 6 or 8 ranked teams.

However, a team that has gone undefeated despite playing a rigorous schedule, clearly, can make its way onto a top 6 or top 8 list such as the AP Top 25 or the CFP ratings.

If rankings were sufficient to determine a national championship, then there would be no need for a college football championship series.

The question is this: Is it justifiable to place so much faith in the rankings that highly-ranked (e.g., top 6), undefeated teams should be excluded if they're not ranked among the top four teams?

I would subscribe that the answer to this question is no.

......................................................................................................

Think of it along these lines:

In a jury trial, would a reasonable juror vote to convict a defendant of a capital crime without having enough evidence to convince him beyond a reasonable doubt of his or her guilt?

The answer, according to the law, is no.

What we need, in order to justify the decision to do harm to colleges and their teams by excluding them from the CFP series despite going undefeated and being highly-ranked, is the kind of evidence that would convince us beyond a reasonable doubt.

......................................................................................................


Unfortunately, we have no hard scientific data on this matter, because this is a research question that has never been tested.

Fortunately, however, this is a topic that could be subjected to scientific investigation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But we do have some data that are at least obliquely relevant:

Q: How have non-P5 teams, not including Notre Dame (ACC affiliate) performed in the NY6 bowls, to date?

A: The current NY6 record of the non-P5 teams is 3-3 (.500)

.

Q: How does that compare with the NY6 Bowl records of the P5 conferences?

A: They have been broadly comparable.

ACC (including Notre Dame): (.471)

Big Ten: (.556)

Big 12: (.300)

PAC-12: (.400)

SEC: (.609)

P5 Average: (.513)

.

Q: Do such data lend credence to the proposition that undefeated non-P5 teams that end the season in the top 6 or top 8 should be granted the opportunity to play in the college football championship series, if not permanently, then at least for a trial period, to evaluate the data?

A: Definitely.

Q: Is there any other evidence that provides indirect support for this proposition?

A: Aye. Additional support has been provided by data indicating that the number of ranked teams from non-P5 conferences has been increasing steadily since the P5/G5 split, and has nearly doubled since 2014.

=============================================

PROPOSAL:

CHANGE THE FORMAT OF THE CFP FOR A TRIAL PERIOD (e.g., ONE DECADE, OR LONGER, IF NEEDED, IF THERE AREN'T ENOUGH QUALIFYING CASES WITHIN 10 YEARS), TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS THAT HIGHLY-RANKED (TOP 6 OR TOP 8) TEAMS WITH ZERO LOSSES MERIT INCLUSION IN THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS AS AUTOMATIC QUALIFIERS.

IF THE RESULTS INDICATE THAT SUCH TEAMS CONSISTENTLY UNDERPERFORM, THEN THE OPTION MIGHT BE EXERCISED FOR THE CFP SYSTEM TO REVERT BACK TO ITS CURRENT FORMAT.

Suddenly those top 6-8 G5 teams will max out at a ranking of 9-10

(12-17-2020 09:49 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  If Florida beats Alabama and Notre Dame beats Clemson and Ohio State loses to NW, we could get three SEC teams:

Alabama
Notre Dame
Florida
TAMU

I don't think they'll do that. The uproar would be huge and the ratings will tank.

If Florida wins then they probably get in. Alabama would be in too. Norte Dame obviously.

If USC beats Oregon this week then they'll be 6-0. If the CFP is willing to take a 6-0 Ohio State team then don't sleep on USC. Also, if Oklahoma avenges the loss to Iowa State then they might get the nod.

However, in the above scenario, I almost think Cincinnati would have a shot.

(12-18-2020 01:34 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 12:50 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 12:37 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  A: No. It is a matter of credibility.

You emphasize ranking. as in we shouldn't leave out a "highly-ranked" unbeaten, say between 6-8. But if rankings are what matter, I think one should go strictly by rankings.

The reason why I disagree is that rankings are far from being perfect. If they were, there would be no upsets, and there would be much less doubt than there actually is about which team will win or lose any particular game.

The argument isn't that rankings are uninformative. They do have a useful function, by preventing any undefeated team with a very weak strength of schedule from making it onto a list of the 6 or 8 ranked teams.

However, a team that has gone undefeated despite playing a rigorous schedule, clearly, can make its way onto a top 6 or top 8 list such as the AP Top 25 or the CFP ratings.

This seems like your method would "screen in" a team like Cincy, but "screen out" a team like Coastal. But the rankings might be biased worse against a team like Coastal that has less status and pedigree than Cincy. Personally, I see Coastal and Cincy as having basically identical worthiness for NY6, or whatever. They have very similar overall profiles, as of now.

If it all comes down to credibility though, as I said, removing a top-4 ranked team to put in an unbeaten #7 is likely to cause public credibility to fall, not rise.

[quote='quo vadis' pid='17169477' dateline='1608323089']
[quote='jedclampett' pid='17169150' dateline='1608316485']
[quote='quo vadis' pid='17169023' dateline='1608313842']
[quote='jedclampett' pid='17168984' dateline='1608313020']

A: No. It is a matter of credibility.

[/quote]

You emphasize ranking. as in we shouldn't leave out a "highly-ranked" unbeaten, say between 6-8. But if rankings are what matter, I think one should go strictly by rankings.

[/quote]

The reason why I disagree is that rankings are far from being perfect. If they were, there would be no upsets, and there would be much less doubt than there actually is about which team will win or lose any particular game.

The argument isn't that rankings are uninformative. They do have a useful function, by preventing any undefeated team with a very weak strength of schedule from making it onto a list of the 6 or 8 ranked teams.

However, a team that has gone undefeated despite playing a rigorous schedule, clearly, can make its way onto a top 6 or top 8 list such as the AP Top 25 or the CFP ratings.
[/quote]

This seems like your method would "screen in" a team like Cincy, but "screen out" a team like Coastal. But the rankings might be biased worse against a team like Coastal that has less status and pedigree than Cincy. Personally, I see Coastal and Cincy as having basically identical worthiness for NY6, or whatever. They have very similar overall profiles, as of now.
[quote]

You may be right, and we have no way of knowing which is better.

I used Cincy in my example because the Bearcats are ranked above Coastal, have been ranked in the top 10 for most of the season, and are the only team that would qualify if only undefeated teams that that are in the top 6 or top 8 could get AQ status for the CFP.

If Coastal should remain undefeated were ranked ahead of Cincy and were ranked in the top 6 or top 8, I would hope that they would qualify for the CFP.

[quote='quo vadis' pid='17169477' dateline='1608323089']

If it all comes down to credibility though, as I said, removing a top-4 ranked team to put in an unbeaten #7 is likely to cause public credibility to fall, not rise.
[/quote]

To me, that just seems like the "conventional wisdom" on the topic, and it's generally the view of those fans who are either ardent fans of P5 teams or who have convinced themselves that "P5 is better."

I'm a researcher, and one thing that trail-blazing researchers have in common is that they tend to pay little or no heed to conventional wisdom. To do that type of work, one has to think outside the box all the time. Otherwise, it's hard to come up with new discoveries.

Another thing that gives me a sort of unique view on this topic is that I actually remember the days of the old American Football League and as a kid was one of its early fans, back when their teams were considered almost as obscure as, for example, the Saskatchewan Roughriders or the Toronto Argonauts. I became a KC Chiefs fan during their rivalry with the Raiders, and remember watching AFL teams playing on NBC with Curt Gowdy announcing. It was a wilder brand of football, and it was rough around the edges, so it was more exciting and more dramatic.

That's how I feel about the non-P5 conferences today. It's very much a deja vu kind of experience. I just feel it in my guts, exactly the same sensation, actually more of an intuition that there's something exciting going on here that I can't quite describe. The P5 are the NFL of college football, the old guard with a sense of superiority. The G5 are the AFL, the up-and-comers, the hungry ones with something to prove.

So, having lived through it before, and seeing what appears to be a very similar phenomenon today, and judging by the markedly improved quality of the G5 conference games, I've got to say that I think that the conventional wisdom about the way things have always been done before may be about to give way to something very new and different.

If I had to give a "year equivalent," I would say that the G5's situation is probably most similar to the AFL's situation in about 1964 (Super Bowl I was played after the 1966 season -- in January, 1967). The AFL had really struggled in he early 1960's, and came close to collapsing, with attendance averaging below 20,000 per game (ring any bells?).

But something changed in 1964 - - the AFL teams that survived the crisis years suddenly started to catch on with the fans. They were the underdogs, the everyman, the kind of guys that most kids and a lot of adults could identify with, and they started to capture our imagination.

Suddenly, the NFL began to seem incredibly stodgy, boring and predictable by comparison. Then, viewership started to notch higher, and it became a more and more discernable trend. Teams like Houston, Kansas City, Oakland, and NY (Jets) emerged from the pack and began to generate legions of fans.

By 1965, the NFL started to notice what was happening, and there were reports that some of the owners were starting to worry about losing viewers to the competition. Not coincidentally, the first Super Bowl was announced before the 1966 season. By 1969 or 1970, the AFL era was over, when it was announced that the AFL teams would transition to the NFL, to form the core of what became the AFC.

So you had, in the AFL, a league that went from barely managing to pay its bills as late as 1963, to a league with such high viewership that it threatened the strongest professional league in the nation just three years later and was promptly "bought up" to end the competitive threat that it had posed.

The parallel today is that, in a similar number of years, the G5 conferences have gone from barely having 1 or 2 teams in the top 25 shortly after the P5/G5 split to having 5, 6, 7, or 8 teams in the top 25 in 2019 and 2020.

The situation is very much like it was with the AFL in 1964, which was just a couple of years before they really "took off."

I can't predict the future, and the potential upside for the G5 may not be quite as brilliant as it was for the old AFL, but I just can't buy the conventional wisdom, because it's getting harder and harder to make the case that P5 football is head and shoulders above G5 football and is bound to remain that way for the next 10 or 20 years.

If anything, all that money that the P5s have been raking in may well have resulted in making them fatter, happier, and more complacent, while the hungry ones have all the drive and motivation that they may need to overtake them.

Cincinnati makes playoffs if ...

Notre Dame pulls out of the playoffs because families aren't allowed to attend.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/st...ll-playoff

Hey, Brian Kelly helps Cincinnati after all!

Yeah, does anyone believe this is going to happen? Me neither.

(12-18-2020 01:58 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 01:34 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 12:50 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 12:37 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  A: No. It is a matter of credibility.

You emphasize ranking. as in we shouldn't leave out a "highly-ranked" unbeaten, say between 6-8. But if rankings are what matter, I think one should go strictly by rankings.

The reason why I disagree is that rankings are far from being perfect. If they were, there would be no upsets, and there would be much less doubt than there actually is about which team will win or lose any particular game.

The argument isn't that rankings are uninformative. They do have a useful function, by preventing any undefeated team with a very weak strength of schedule from making it onto a list of the 6 or 8 ranked teams.

However, a team that has gone undefeated despite playing a rigorous schedule, clearly, can make its way onto a top 6 or top 8 list such as the AP Top 25 or the CFP ratings.

If rankings were sufficient to determine a national championship, then there would be no need for a college football championship series.

The question is this: Is it justifiable to place so much faith in the rankings that highly-ranked (e.g., top 6), undefeated teams should be excluded if they're not ranked among the top four teams?

I would subscribe that the answer to this question is no.

......................................................................................................

Think of it along these lines:

In a jury trial, would a reasonable juror vote to convict a defendant of a capital crime without having enough evidence to convince him beyond a reasonable doubt of his or her guilt?

The answer, according to the law, is no.

What we need, in order to justify the decision to do harm to colleges and their teams by excluding them from the CFP series despite going undefeated and being highly-ranked, is the kind of evidence that would convince us beyond a reasonable doubt.

......................................................................................................


Unfortunately, we have no hard scientific data on this matter, because this is a research question that has never been tested.

Fortunately, however, this is a topic that could be subjected to scientific investigation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But we do have some data that are at least obliquely relevant:

Q: How have non-P5 teams, not including Notre Dame (ACC affiliate) performed in the NY6 bowls, to date?

A: The current NY6 record of the non-P5 teams is 3-3 (.500)

.

Q: How does that compare with the NY6 Bowl records of the P5 conferences?

A: They have been broadly comparable.

ACC (including Notre Dame): (.471)

Big Ten: (.556)

Big 12: (.300)

PAC-12: (.400)

SEC: (.609)

P5 Average: (.513)

.

Q: Do such data lend credence to the proposition that undefeated non-P5 teams that end the season in the top 6 or top 8 should be granted the opportunity to play in the college football championship series, if not permanently, then at least for a trial period, to evaluate the data?

A: Definitely.

Q: Is there any other evidence that provides indirect support for this proposition?

A: Aye. Additional support has been provided by data indicating that the number of ranked teams from non-P5 conferences has been increasing steadily since the P5/G5 split, and has nearly doubled since 2014.

=============================================

PROPOSAL:

CHANGE THE FORMAT OF THE CFP FOR A TRIAL PERIOD (e.g., ONE DECADE, OR LONGER, IF NEEDED, IF THERE AREN'T ENOUGH QUALIFYING CASES WITHIN 10 YEARS), TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS THAT HIGHLY-RANKED (TOP 6 OR TOP 8) TEAMS WITH ZERO LOSSES MERIT INCLUSION IN THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS AS AUTOMATIC QUALIFIERS.

IF THE RESULTS INDICATE THAT SUCH TEAMS CONSISTENTLY UNDERPERFORM, THEN THE OPTION MIGHT BE EXERCISED FOR THE CFP SYSTEM TO REVERT BACK TO ITS CURRENT FORMAT.

If you have a trial, data on crimes that may have been committed by his brother are clearly inadmissable.