[tyndal23]

An Arkansas win, what would it mean for future? Normally, not that much, but with this being the last year of playing P5 for half a decade and needing some brand bias to offset SOS in future years, I think it is extremely important. It would shoot us up in the teens in rankings and if we are also able to go on the road a week later and beat UCONN ( always been worried about that game sandwiched between AR and VT and 2nd straight travel game ) then somehow beat VT and win out, we could finish around 15. AP Voters have recency brand bias and that even effects Playoff Committee ( somewhat ) making it easier for LU to start higher and climb higher in polls in the future. Our future competition for the G5 spot are brands like Tulane,Memphis,SMU, Boise St., App St - nothing “ overwhelming” like a UCF, Cinci brand to overcome. We can still sneak in ranked end of year if we play them tough and lose, but a very big difference in the future subconscious of voters and national branding if we win, elevate in rankings and finish strong.

[ballcoach15]

If we finish 11-1, we should be Top 10, but pollsters are definitely biased. As for Playoff Committee, I'd trust Democrats in Congress before I'd trust them.

[Baybird]

If we finish 11-1, we should be Top 10, but pollsters are definitely biased. As for Playoff Committee, I'd trust Democrats in Congress before I'd trust them.

What if Ohio State had OUR schedule, would you think they deserved to be in? If you call OSU's schedule a cupcake, what is ours? And...I love LU athletics!
I just don't get your thinking.

[ballcoach15]

If we finish 11-1, we should be Top 10, but pollsters are definitely biased. As for Playoff Committee, I'd trust Democrats in Congress before I'd trust them.

What if Ohio State had OUR schedule, would you think they deserved to be in? If you call OSU's schedule a cupcake, what is ours? And...I love LU athletics!
I just don't get your thinking.

Take off Michigan, and Ohio State's schedule isn't much better than ours. I am 100% biased toward Ohio State. I wouldn't put them in regardless of who they play or their record.

[Baybird]

If we finish 11-1, we should be Top 10, but pollsters are definitely biased. As for Playoff Committee, I'd trust Democrats in Congress before I'd trust them.

What if Ohio State had OUR schedule, would you think they deserved to be in? If you call OSU's schedule a cupcake, what is ours? And...I love LU athletics!
I just don't get your thinking.

Take off Michigan, and Ohio State's schedule isn't much better than ours. I am 100% biased toward Ohio State. I wouldn't put them in regardless of who they play or their record.

Well, that about sums it up...the committee tries to vote on records and misses, but your "vote" is entirely based on emotional preference! Don't even know why we try to reason with you. The only thing it does, it lessens your credibility in all opinions of sports. I guess the headphones at softball games help drown out reason in life as well.

Oh well! Shouldn't have responded but.....

[Purple Haize]

You have only yourself to blame

[Ill flame]

As expected we were left out of the CFP ranking. I was suprised to see a 2 loss UCF ranked over us considering their SOS is currently ranked 103.

[Tnobes]

What if Ohio State had OUR schedule, would you think they deserved to be in? If you call OSU's schedule a cupcake, what is ours? And...I love LU athletics!
I just don't get your thinking.

Take off Michigan, and Ohio State's schedule isn't much better than ours. I am 100% biased toward Ohio State. I wouldn't put them in regardless of who they play or their record.

Well, that about sums it up...the committee tries to vote on records and misses, but your "vote" is entirely based on emotional preference! Don't even know why we try to reason with you. The only thing it does, it lessens your credibility in all opinions of sports. I guess the headphones at softball games help drown out reason in life as well.

Oh well! Shouldn't have responded but.....

He's not wrong about Ohio state being completely overrated, Ohio State has been overrated since the 1990's. They start ranked high, play absolutely nobody until the Michigan game, get a free pass into a big bowl or playoff spot then play a real team and wet the bed. Wash rinse repeat every single year. They turn out players to the NFL and they always end up busts.

[Ill flame]

I hope we get to the point where winning 7 of our last 10 bowl games (all of them being NY6 or CFP) including a natty is considered wetting the bed.

[Kricket]

I hope we get to the point where winning 7 of our last 10 bowl games (all of them being NY6 or CFP) including a natty is considered wetting the bed.

Yeah... You can tell there's a bit of southern bias on this board.

[JK37]

Big Ten could do a lot more to help themselves w/ ooc scheduling. CFP Committee sent a message to Michigan.

[Ill flame]

I don't like the current B1G scheduling philosophy. I preferred when they played 8 conference games and an fcs every year like the SEC and big 12. The 9 conference games, no fcs and mandatory nonconference P5 (not sure why uconn was allowed to count as P5 for Michigan) just guarantees 7 more losses every year so the bottom half of the conference has one more loss than their SEC/Big 12 peers.

[JK37]

Doesn’t calling it a “guaranteed loss” tell you everything about the strength - or lack thereof - of the Big Ten?

[AATL]

Doesn’t calling it a “guaranteed loss” tell you everything about the strength - or lack thereof - of the Big Ten?

There are 14 B10 teams, so the extra conference game does guarantee 7 more losses. But your point stands regardless; the middle of the B10 is a mess this year. The middle of the SEC is much deeper, so the Georgia/Bama/Tennessees will have an edge in strength of record over Michigan/OSU.

[Ill flame]

Doesn’t calling it a “guaranteed loss” tell you everything about the strength - or lack thereof - of the Big Ten?

Every conference game ends with 1 win and 1 loss for the conference. If the SEC figured out a way to not have conference losses count against them the B1G should look into that. Now that I think about it SEC teams do get credit for a "quality loss" so maybe conference losses really don't count against SEC teams in the eyes of the CFP committee?

[JK37]

I misunderstood the “guaranteed loss” statement. I thought it was in reference to the non-con games.

That said, I don’t have a problem with a conference membership “beating up on each other”. If you can’t best your peers, what are we doing?

Examples: I don’t care what Ole Miss would do against the Illinois if they can’t beat LSU,/MissSt/Florida. And I don’t care if Illinois can beat Ole Miss if they can’t beat MichSt/Wisconsin/PennSt.

However many conference games are on the docket, JUST WIN! Win enough, and you’ll get your shot at some other conference’s best.

And time and time again, the SEC proves it’s best are superior to the Big Ten’s best. And that’s the same for the middle of the conference as well.

[ballcoach15]

Doesn’t calling it a “guaranteed loss” tell you everything about the strength - or lack thereof - of the Big Ten?

Every conference game ends with 1 win and 1 loss for the conference. If the SEC figured out a way to not have conference losses count against them the B1G should look into that. Now that I think about it SEC teams do get credit for a "quality loss" so maybe conference losses really don't count against SEC teams in the eyes of the CFP committee?

With the schedule the SEC plays, compared to the Big 10 and PAC 12, conference losses shouldn't hurt SEC teams a lot, as compared to B10 and P12. Pollsters rank B10 and P12 teams higher than they should be, just to make it appear they play a tough schedule, when in reality they don't. They try to justify Ohio State's ranking.

[stokesjokes]

Over the past 3 years, B10 and SEC have played in 16 bowl games against each other. SEC have won 9, B10 7. Doesn’t sound all that dominant to me. SEC teams also benefit from this bias and are consistently over-ranked. Sure, Bama always deserves to be high, but there’s always a couple of top-25 teams from the SEC trading on conference reputation alone, which then perpetuates the myth that the conference is dominant. It’s all very circular.

[Ill flame]

All of those bowl games are defacto home games for the SEC schools too. There was a study that showed that teams playing in a similar climate as their own against a team from a different climate (ie. southern team playing northern team in the south) wins about 62% of the time against the spread. https://thesportjournal.org/article/geo ... owl-games/

Since 2010 they are 7-9 against the B1G in the regular season. Not exactly something to brag about.

[AATL]

Plenty of action in the back half of the CFP Top 25 this week! At 8-1 and coming off a road win in an SEC stadium, this seems like the best opportunity yet for Liberty to crack the CFP rankings.

KEY LOSSES
#23 Oregon State (6-3) loses (24-21 @ Washington)
#21 Wake Forest (6-3) loses (30-21 @ #22 NC State)
#20 Syracuse (6-3) loses (19-9 @ Pittsburgh, 3rd straight loss)
#18 Oklahoma State (6-3) loses (37-16 @ Kansas, 2nd straight loss)
#16 Illinois (7-2) loses (23-15 vs. a no good, very bad Michigan State)

Among other teams vying for a spot:
Kentucky (6-3) beats a hapless Missouri 21-17
Notre Dame (6-3) beats Clemson 35-14
Baylor (6-3) beats Oklahoma on the road 38-35
Maryland (6-3) loses (23-10 to Wisconsin)
2020 Cure Bowl Runner-Up Coastal Carolina (8-1) beats App State 35-28

[FlamesHighontheTide]

My prediction is LU comes in at #24 on the CFP poll.

[Liberty22]

Somehow they’ll put Coastal at 23 then

[JK37]

And somehow ND will vault into the Top 15, maybe 10. Stupid Irish.

[Kricket]

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/20 ... edictions/

I found this by accident this morning. Not saying I agree with it, but we're listed as a team with a shot at the playoffs. This has us all the way up at 4% which is way too high.

The reality is we have no shot but it's cool to be at a point with the program that we will have an outside chance at the playoffs going forward (especially with the format change).

In terms of rankings I'd say we sit at 20 in the AP and 23 in the CFP pol.

[Kricket]

https://www.espn.com/college-football/s ... gs-week-10

#18 in ESPNs power rankings. I think it may be based on our strength of record calculation.