Here’s what is about to happen in college football, recast with a baseball analogy.
Imagine that a team in the weakest division in the majors – we’ll call it the “NL Menstrual” – was able to set its own schedule. They decided to play 108 games within their cupcake division. Then they added 40 games against teams from the International League (that’s AAA for you non-baseball fans). Then, just to be good sports, they decided to add 14 games against the second-worst team from another major-league division, one that’s better than their own. And, of course, they rack up a pretty strong record against that competition.
So now imagine that, due to the fact that everyone recognizes that the NL Menstrual isn’t playing the same caliber of ball as the other divisions, our mystery team is told on October 1st that their services won’t really be required for the rest of the year. Several other teams playing tougher schedules go into the postseason and beat the crap out of each other for two weeks, at the end of which, it’s not really clear who the best team is. (The fact that someone knocked off the “best” team – and that this has happened twice – doesn’t matter.) So the powers that be – we’ll call them the Network for Cheating Amateur Athletes – decide to call up our mystery team before the World Series starts and ask them to participate. Our mystery team hasn’t won or even played a game in several weeks, so how could they be better now than they were when their season ended?
This is what’s about to happen with Ohio State. Playing the 43rd-strongest schedule in Division I-A – excuse me, the Football Bowl Subdivision – they beat the snot out of several weak opponents, beat an unranked Michigan State team by one score, and lost to Illinois. They never played a team ranked in the top 20 in the country. Their nonconference games were a joke: Washington, the last-place team in the Pac 10; Akron and Kent State, the bottom two teams in the Mid-American Conference’s East Division; and Youngstown State, which I can’t even find on the Division I-A Football Bowl Subdivision standings page … oh, wait, they’re not in that division at all! They’re the 16th-ranked team in the next division down! Isn’t that like a big-league club playing a team from the Midwest League?
I don’t like college football and I don’t follow it, so maybe everything I wrote above is wrong. Maybe Ohio State actually is one of the two best teams in the country, even if they’re too scared to try to prove it by scheduling a halfway decent opponent every now and then. But tell me this: If playing a weak-assed schedule isn’t that big of a problem, why not just put Hawai’i – who played an even weaker schedule, ranked 118th in the country, but who always have scheduling problems due to cost and distance – in the damn championship game? At least they had the courtesy to not lose.
Keith, At first when I was reading, I thought you were talking about Hawaii the whole time, and I had my little argument built up for them–specifically that their location, finances, and strength leave them unable to schedule the quality teams, all afraid to lose to a WAC team AND pay them, leaving them stuck with an awfully easy schedule. But you talked about Ohio State, and that’s the exact reason that I soured on NCAA football last night: Ohio State didn’t earn a birth in the championship. Rather, they pretended they were Hawaii–playing creampuffs and feasting on an uber-down Big 10 a lot closer to WAC football that analysts want to believe–and rode that wave to #1! If voters are going to penalize Hawaii for their schedule’s shortcomings–a situation Hawaii is stuck with–then why does Ohio State get this freebie? Great analogy on your part, too.
I can’t say that Ohio State played a tough schedule this year. They didn’t. But you are making the mistake of assuming that Ohio State plays this type of schedule every year, which is incorrect.
The past two years, Ohio State played Texas in its out of conference schedule, and the next two years they will play USC. After that, they will play Virginia Tech and Miami in home-and-away series’. Of course, they still do have cupcakes on their out of conference schedule, but so does EVERY major team. Just look at the out of conference schedules of SEC teams. Western Kentucky and Eastern Carolina might as well be the 13th and 14th teams in the conference.
And, yes, the Big Ten was weak this year. But Ohio State can’t help that — generally the Big Ten is a strong conference. But the SEC is not exactly the NFL this year, either…take note of the fact that Alabama got embarrassed by Louisiana-Monroe (who?).
Also note the fact that Kansas beat one team that was over .500, and mighty USC beat just two.
I share your disdain for the system, but you’re being unfair when you blame Ohio State because the bad system picked them. Every superpower schedules cupcakes and there really aren’t many good alternatives this year.
Keith I can’t argue with a lot of what you say, except for this; “even if they’re too scared to try to prove it by scheduling a halfway decent opponent every now and then”.
Ohio State had a home and home with Texas the last two years. Starting next year they do the same with USC. They have Miami on the radar after that. The Big Ten is certainly having a bad year, but it isn’t always like this. So you are right about their weak schedule for this year, but wrong in how you explained it. OSU has no control over how good their conference is, nor control of who they play within their conference. They can only control who they play out of conference. This year their supposed big time game was Washington, who sucked. However, when that game was scheduled they didn’t suck, and OSU HAS scheduled arguably 3 of the top ten programs of all time to play 6 games against in about a 8 year period.
This season was a wierd confluence of events in which Ohio State wasn’t tested, not some evil strategy by OSU to just walk into the title game.
The only sport that truly decides its champion on the field is soccer. They take 20 teams, have each play the other 19 teams twice(home and away) and the team with the most points wins.
Isn’t there a bit of an incentives problem here, then? The BCS just rewarded a team that had a cupcake schedule. If I’m a football coach/AD at another school thinking about winning the BCS title, I get a clear message that it’s better to schedule lightweight opponents than tough ones, because tougher schedules don’t seem to gain enough of an advantage, and we’ve always known that the sheer number of losses, regardless of quality of opponent, matters.
Justin, I’m not sure how far back the Washington game was scheduled, but they haven’t had a winning season in at least three years, and they haven’t been to a bowl game since 2002, according to the always-reliable Wikipedia.
Well, the cupcake schedule is risky. In 2004, Auburn, undefeated, was left out of the title game largely because their schedule was inferior to those of two other undefeated teams. Often, teams with one loss are differentiated by their schedule when determining which plays for the title. This year, it worked out, but it often doesn’t.
Amen brother! The BCS is a joke.
By the way, are you planning on posting a review of the MiLB.com’s top 50 Prospects anytime soon? http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/news/top50/y2008/
P.S. Going to try out your pork loin recipe out this week.
Ah, but a quality schedule does matter. LSU gets a third shot at #1 basically by beating Virginia Tech earlier this year. If they had played Virginia instead, I don’t think they get the push they did and we’re talking Hokies-Buckeyes in the BCS Bowl.
As for Washington, that was second part of a home and away that started back when the big matchup was between Lawyer Milloy and Terry Glenn.
The Big Ten is always overrated. This year they were just SO bad the rest of the country realized it. Midwestern football is always overrated. Notre Dame, Purdue, Ohio State, Michigan, etc. These teams are constantly ranked higher than they should be.
Ohio State wouldn’t have finished in the top 3 in the SEC. When you play in the Big Ten out of conference games matter much more, because your conference games aren’t against great teams. When you play in the SEC, your conference games are a murderous schedule, so who you play outside of that isn’t as important.
I thought the BCS computer system was supposed to fix this exact problem? Wasn’t it supposed to add statistics and analyze everything beyond the weekly highlights (which is what most voters just see)?
Also,
Keith for someone who doesn’t watch or like college football, you nailed it right on the head. College Football has the same problems Baseball has with all these “traditionalists” aka fat white sports writers who claim they see things the average fan doesnt cause they know the game and we dont.
It’s hard to blame a team for their conference schedule; Ohio State can’t help that the Big Ten hasn’t been very good (apart from – maybe – Michigan) for a couple years now. They did have a particularly bad OOC schedule this year, but as already noted, that’s more of an anomaly for them, not that it matters. The real problem with college football – D-I major college sports in general – is that too much emphasis is placed on human polling and team selection. Your example might have been more interesting if you posited a comparison in which human voters determined the order in which teams should be ranked going into the playoffs, leading to a scenario in which the Red Sox, say, lost on the last day of the season by ten runs and were dropped out of the #1 spot in the playoffs despite still having the best record.
I’m a lot more offended by what happened to Missouri, which was ranked #1 on the last day of the season, lost, and was subsequently passed over for a Kansas team that (a) lost to Missouri and (b) played a schedule significantly worse than Ohio State’s (#73 or 74 in the country, I believe). The BCS computer selection process is flawed, but the process by which the lower BCS bowls choose – based almost exclusively on monetary considerations – is worse.
My real question would be, do you think there was a workable solution this year? It was too much of a mess; some team would always have been able to make an argument that it should have been them in the title game instead. It’s just a compelling argument to settle things on the field, but even though it seems to me that a playoff would generate tons of revenue, the college presidents must not be convinced and aren’t willing to risk it. That’s the part that’s most annoying.
First of all, I’m in favor of a playoff system so this argument doesn’t happen every year.
But you’re selectively picking your facts on this one. Sure, the Big 10 doesn’t have the best non-conference schedules this year….but if you’re going to use that SOS ranking on sportsline, you might want to look at some of the other teams up for consideration for the BCS title game. LSU? A scary 26. Oklahoma? One spot lower than OSU at 44. USC is at 73.
Calling out Ohio State for not playing anyone is fine, but then also call out the rest of the teams that have a bad SOS.
Keith,
Great analogy. My brain asks me, “How does Ohio St get rewarded and UGA get penalized for doing the same thing in the same week (that is NOT playing)?”
When Georgia plays in the SEC (arguably the toughest conference) and they draw Oklahoma St (not the best Big12 team mind you) and Georgia Tech as part of their “out of conference fun” how are they passed by for doing nothing? I mean, come on, Akron and Kent State? At no point in the last decade would anyone have the illusion that scheduling either of these teams would be beneficial to the strength of schedule of a major college program. This is not to speak of themighty Penguins of Youngstown St. If you’re looking for these teams to push you through into the big game on strength of schedule then you’re name can only be Ohio St it seems.
Or we can look at this another way….how was Ohio St given the pass, when those three teams (LSU, VT, & OU) could have easily all been pushed ahead of the idle Buckeyes? The answer is that the pollsters are flawed. It’s human judgement that places a team in its destiny more often that wins and losses, which in the sports world creates more arguement than it settles. While the world of college football will NEVER fully rid itself of that human element, a playoff system will inevitably give more clout to a national title.
FYI, this arguement comes from an FSU fan who will admit first that Florida St was given these types of considerations in the early stages of the BCS (see also the years 1998 and 2000), but that did not make it right then as we saw from the shellackings given by Tennessee and Oklahoma.
College football is a terrific sport for invested fans…as a Florida alum, I love it. But the BCS is clearly a mess, and a playoff would be a huge improvement.
John Saunders often argues that the great thing about the current system is that every game really counts, and that the playoffs basically start in week one. He’s probably right–if the NCAA were to institute a true playoff system, it’s probably true that one or two losses wouldn’t eliminate teams from the national title hunt like they usually do, and every game wouldn’t seem like life or death, like they do now. That’s the one great thing that makes college football unique among sports–the importance of EVERY game. Unfortunately, it’s the result of the one lousy thing that makes college football unique among sports–the lack of a playoff system. I just can decide if that great thing is greater than the lousy thing is lousy.
Although if Florida didn’t have two championships in the past 11 years, I’d probably be able to…
Ohio St. might have had a weak schedule but in all honesty. You have to put them in, they might not be the best team in football but they have earned there way into the game.
College football is great IMO. UGA got shafted though. they were 4 and dropped 1…..tOSU was 3 and moved up 2???? bs
Yoder….what did Ohio St do to “earn” their way in? If it’s play someone out of conference worthwhile, they didn’t (see again Akron, Kent, St, Youngstown St). If it’s play a tough conference, they didn’t (see also Michigan losing to AppSt, and the second best record in the conference is Illinois….Zook that).
So how did they earn their spot over everyone else? Looking up Strength of schedule CBS Sportsline lists #s 2,3,4,5,&7 on the BCS standings as having a tougher schedule thatn OSU. So that includes Missourri (left out), Georgia (left out), and Virginia Tech (left out despite winning their conference and boasting a SOS of 5!)
There is only one answer I can come up with, and it isn’t pretty. Like soilent green, these rankings are made entirely by, for, and of people. Have a playoff, and take the decision out of a bunch of people who wouldn’t surprise me if they voted Todd Boeckman the Heisman.
To me, Missouri has the biggest gripe of all. They went from #1 to out of the entire BCS payday (which is really all it is) in about 3 1/2 hours. How does Kansas jump them in the BCS and get to a BCS bowl over them? Missouri just beat them last week! I’m not a Missouri homer (a suffering Iowa fan, actually), but I can’t fathom how this happened.
One other thing- I live about 20 minutes from The University of Northern Iowa. Up until Saturday, they were undefeated and the best team in 1-AA (I refuse to use the new division names). They were beaten by Delaware in the second round of the playoffs, proving that UNI is NOT the best team in 1-AA. I’m fine with that- at least it was settled on the field. I’m sure Georgia, Missouri, Va Tech, and others would love the chance to play their way through a playoff and prove themselves to be the best team still standing.
One positive comes out of the BCS mess, though- a lot of rich, old men will get even richer. Also, there will be parades.
There’s only one way to ever get rid of the BCS: Stop Watching College Football! If nobody watched College Football because there is no playoff then the AD’s would certainly get together and come up with a playoff system.
If there continues to be several million articles every season about how awful the BCS is and ratings continue to go up then the BCS is working exactly the way the people who set it up wanted: It’s a Cash Cow.
Pretty my stance on college football. College sports in general piss me off – the idea that coaches making $4M is year is fair but an athelete getting a penny violates the “Spirit of amatuerism” is horseshit. The NCAA is on my list of entities that are basically evil.
Also, I went to Carnegie Mellon. So yeah, that may partially explain my college football interest. 😉
“Justin, I’m not sure how far back the Washington game was scheduled, but they haven’t had a winning season in at least three years, and they haven’t been to a bowl game since 2002, according to the always-reliable Wikipedia.”
The Ohio State at Washington game was the return match for Washington playing at Ohio State in 2003. Since OSU only schedules one major non-conference game a season (i.e. against a school from another major conference), the two games were scheduled five years apart.
I don’t know exactly when the schedule was made, but it was probably around 1999 or 2000, to have the first opening in 2002. Both games would have been scheduled at the same time. Washington at that time was one of the major powers in college football – they had 26 straight winning seasons, and won the Rose Bowl as recently as 2001. There is no way that Ohio State could have foreseen the eventual decline in the Washington program at the time when the game was scheduled.
I hate college football because for the simple fact that the BCS (although an actually good system) has years like this year, with about seventy-two differnt teams inside the top 10.
Its just nuts that 7 or however many teams can be #1 all in one season.
oh and beside the point, Keith Law is my hero!
go get ’em Keith!
you know way more about baseball than
Buster Lonely.
College football sucks! Let’s all stop watching it! (Great idea, Andrew.) Yeah, it’s absolutely crazy that seven different teams can occupy the #1 spot in a single season!! Why can’t there be a system where only one team sits at the top all year?? HAHAHA BUSTER LONELY
. . .
Calm down everyone. Yes, there are problems with college football, but let’s keep our criticisms directed at the actual problems.
First of all, Keith is 100% correct about Ohio State. By no means (sorry Yoder) did the Buckeyes earn their way into the title game this year. No, they backed their way into the title game by not playing since November 17th and watching as attrition claimed the schools ahead of them.
Here’s the problem though: when you take Ohio State’s body of work as a whole, it’s just not that impressive. “Hawaii didn’t beat anyone significant” – I’ll agree with this. . .but on that note, who did Ohio State beat? Their ranked opponents (that is, ranked when they played) this year: Purdue, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Of these teams, only Wisconsin finished the season ranked – and they finished a mediocre 5-3 in an even more mediocre Big Ten.
Look, the only decent team the Buckeyes played all year was the Illini. If you want to make the argument “It’s not Ohio State’s fault the Big Ten sucked so bad this year,” that’s fine – but then you’d better show me that Ohio State ran the table in the conference or at the very least BEAT THE NEXT BEST TEAM. They didn’t even do that. Ohio State lost to the “second best” team in the conference, and if you think about it (Illinois also beat Wisconsin), maybe Illinois is actually the best team in the Big Ten.
No, I’m sorry: taken as a whole, Ohio State’s body of work just isn’t impressive enough to get them into the national championship game, even though they have one fewer loss than any other BCS conference champion. Without discussing every other team with a legitimate title claim, here are the two teams that I feel are more deserving of a #1 or #2 ranking than Ohio State:
LSU
Good wins: #9 Virginia Tech (killed them), #12 South Carolina, #9 Florida, #17 Auburn, #17 Alabama, #14 Tennessee (all of these wins are better than all of OSU’s wins)
Losses: at #17 Kentucky (in triple OT), Arkansas (triple OT)
Okay, so out of the two losses, only Arkansas is ranked, and they’re lower than Illinois at that. But look at those wins! That is an incredible list of victories. Virginia Tech, Florida, Tennessee, Auburn – those are all top 25 teams, with the ACC champion and the probable Heisman winner among that bunch. Losing to a currently unranked team is bad, and so is losing at home, but they’re both mitigated by the fact that they came in 3OT – and there is no doubt that LSU is the best team in the best conference.
Oklahoma
Good wins: #19 Texas, #11 Missouri, #1 Missouri
Losses: at Colorado, at Texas Tech
Again, both losses here are bad since neither team is ranked. But wait – they were by 3 and 7 points respectively, and they both came on the road. And the Texas Tech loss came with Sam Bradford injured (which he clearly isn’t anymore). And the clinching factor? At the end of the day, Oklahoma is the best team in the second best conference. The ACC, Big East, and Big Ten were all clearly worse conferences this year, and the Pac-10 seemed to be the second best conference this year until Oregon, UCLA, and California all fell apart. Besides, USC’s losses are worse than Oklahoma’s – and the wins aren’t as good.
I could make a case for Hawaii or Virginia Tech, but I don’t need to. The point is the Ohio State is the #3 or #4 team this year.
Keith,
Love your baseball writing, but I’ve got to disagree with you (and all of the ‘yeah, we lost two games, at least one to an unranked opponent, but, but, but, we’re still just better’ folks) when you jump into college football.
People, it’s about Ws and Ls. It’s really quite simple. It’s about playing consistently good football throughout the season. Everybody with two losses just didn’t do that as well as Ohio State. Most importantly, all of the ‘these teams should be in instead’ group was ranked #1 or #2 at some point this season, and then COULDN’T HOLD ON TO THE RANKING. They lost. Sorry.
Did Ohio State back in? No doubt. Are they an all-time great college football team? No. But they deserve to be where they are in a year with no dominant team throughout the year.
I have a further (more radical) discussion on strength of schedule at my blog – dougfortytwo.blogspot.com. Comments are welcome.