buckhorn, you're right about Florida State vs Ohio State, but that still doesn't excuse that getting blown out 62-36 or 35-7 apparently means nothing to the computers, nor does it excuse that it might actually matter whether your early-season warmup pansy Sun Belt opponent finishes the year 0-12 or 1-11. The humans polls are usually better than the computer polls. Not always - the human polls dropping us below OU right after we lost to Tech is one good example of HP stupidity. But still, they are usually more right than the CPs. And yes, I say this even knowing that it's mainly the computers that put us ahead of California in 2004. Obviously in hindsight that was correct, but as of the first week of December, it was about as close of a 50/50 tossup between two teams as you can get. At that point, it wouldn't have been "right" or "wrong" to select Texas, nor would it have been "right" or "wrong to select Cal, and the general opinion around here was that both Texas and California deserved to be in the BCS and whoever got left out would really be getting robbed by Pittsburgh, not by Cal/Texas.
Stat I fully agree that the computers do some goofy ****. I just don't think of them as being wholly different than the HPs and, all in all, I consider them a reasonable part of a badly flawed system. If you are going to have the system having computers makes more sense to me than not having them. At least they provide some stabilizaton and transparency, though one has to look closely. They are not as plastic/flexible as the HPs, but that was what we wanted after years of complaining about the old HP-only system. To me, especially in the case of the Big XII, one of the big problems with the way the BCS system works is the money-grab CCGs. These f**k up everything. When you ask a bad question you invite absurd answers no matter how many different ways you ask the person or persons questioned to formulate their response. The system asks a stupid question and has us saying stupid **** like 'when did the HPs get it wrong?' The search for two 'best teams' is so badly diseased it cannot produce a fair scenario but by accident AND hindsight that buys into the lie whole dong. We used to more or less accept that the MNC was a flawed award, that it was the result of strange biases in the media and strange inertia in the coaching world. We now ask that the system of polling so something it has always manifestly failed to do while always claiming that such was the case. This all comes down to an effort to get away from the old polling results which simply had no discernible criteria (apparently the reason borna horn prefers them). People were disgusted with the way that the putative top teams never often did not play in the bowls. Split championships seemed weak, etc. The BCS didn't attempt to fix the bowls or polling, but instead sought to present some polling criteria (which the computers do) and to get the 'two best' into a game at the end of the season. The belief was that people would be able to agree on who the two best were, especially if there were only two undefeateds. This is, of course, nonsense, though people will buy nonsense whole dong on a regular basis. Depending on what you think goes into making up the 'best teams' you can come up with any number of teams that 'deserve' to be in the conversation. Undefeated W/L When loss or losses occur To whom loss or losses occur Head to Head (this is very fickle -- If unranked beats #1 and they both have the same record after that week, or even if they don't, seldom if ever does the winner of that game jump over the ranked team -- Oregon State didn't leap over USC last year and no one thought they should-- further, since it is a criteria that involves only two teams, it is usually too narrow to hold form over the course of multiple weeks as fresher sets of criteria come to the fore to fit developing scenarios) Talent (including returrning experience)/Coaching (much more important than many think -- this controls the first polls, which have inordinate power over the way the rest of the season's polling goes) SOS (including strength of conference) Tradition Style Points (MOV, playing well against other good teams, crushing inferior squads (this is less important than the former)) There are likely other powerful criteria (the above are not really in any order). All of these get entered into the computers in one way or another as the HPs have heavy sway in the computers. When the HPs are by themselves it is hard to tell how the criteria are being considered. With so many criteria and so many variants (more than 100 teams, conference systems that don't really invite a great deal of cross-referencing, etc.) there is no way to really agree on who the best teams are, especially when everyone gets pissed that some obviously deserving team loses (I continue to think that UT got clipped in '08 in part because there was a push to really privilege the idea of who was best based on hot play at the end of the year, something that arose because tOSU lost two years in a row and, in '07, many thought the hot team, Georgia, should have gotten a chance). Playoff. Scrap the search for a best team and be happy with crowing the team that does not lose. Polling sucks. CCGs suck.
This thread is way too long to read in it's entirety. Has anyone addressed what Mack Brown hopes to gain with this invitation? It's pretty clear to all involved that you don't lose or have close games late. That and the B12 tie-breaker rules are why UT spent bowl season in Tempe rather than Miami. It's not a secret. This public invitation is simply grandstanding. I have a lot of respect for Mack Brown and how he handles himself and runs the program but he's slipped a bit with this maneuver, IMHO. This is sometihng I'd expect of Bob Stoops.
