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5 Things We Just Learned About The 12-Team College Football Playoff · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Buck guys tomorrow morning for Friday, November First,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tom Moore. The penn State game is
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: in one day, the Gamiga's Michigan in twenty nine days.
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  Speaker 1: All right, we'll take care Karris and housekeeping up front. Yes,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: there's a Ross Fulton Defense show still in the hopper
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  Speaker 1: for this week. We'll get that to you as a
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  Speaker 1: bonus episode as soon as it's done. Also, Tony, Kevin
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  Speaker 1: and I headed to State College, Pennsylvania on Friday to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: cover this weekend's Ohio State penn State game. We will
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  Speaker 1: have a live team arrival show from the Buckeyes hotel
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  Speaker 1: in State College coming up Friday evening. That is usually
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  Speaker 1: around dinner time, let's say six ish o'clock. Depends a
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  Speaker 1: little bit on their flight plan and all that kind
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  Speaker 1: of stuff, but go ahead and clear your calendar for
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  Speaker 1: Friday evening. We will be there as the Buckeyes arrive
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  Speaker 1: in State College. All right. On with today's show. We've
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  Speaker 1: talked a bunch about the new format for the twelve
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  Speaker 1: team college football Playoff, and I think there's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of interest because there's a lot of uncertainty about a
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  Speaker 1: lot of things involving that playoff. We've kind of done
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of those projection shows where say, okay, based
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  Speaker 1: on where things are right now, here's what the bracket
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  Speaker 1: might look like. Just so you can sort of wrap
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  Speaker 1: your heads around that. The first College Football Playoff selection
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  Speaker 1: ranking show is coming up next Tuesday night. Nothing on
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  Speaker 1: Nell's going on in America that night, so you can
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  Speaker 1: safely clear your calendar that night as well to spend
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  Speaker 1: it with Kevin, Tony and I as we recap what
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  Speaker 1: we learned on that first College Football Playoff Committee show
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  Speaker 1: of the year. So we also earlier in the week
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  Speaker 1: got a chance to talk to College Football Executive Director
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  Speaker 1: Rich Clark. He had a teleconference along with Brett Hancock
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  Speaker 1: of the Committee to just kind of talk about answer
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  Speaker 1: some questions, walk people through the process. We've really understood
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  Speaker 1: how it all worked before they did their first show
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  Speaker 1: next week. So I'm joined by Tony Gerdmuckehuddle dot Com.
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  Speaker 1: He was on that call with me. Got to ask
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  Speaker 1: them a question at one point, but I guess, Tony,
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  Speaker 1: let's start with some of the more basic stuff. There's
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  Speaker 1: been a lot of conversation about, Hey, the Nonpower five
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  Speaker 1: champ year say a Boise State for example. What if
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  Speaker 1: they're not the twenty third best team in the country,
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  Speaker 1: what if they're a better team. How does the selection
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  Speaker 1: process and the seeding process work for the team that
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  Speaker 1: is not the non Power five champ.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, basically, if they're you're ranking the conference champions at
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  Speaker 2: this point, and if they are the third highest ranked
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  Speaker 2: conference champ, then they would be the third seed and
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  Speaker 2: rather than or then we always just view them as
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  Speaker 2: whoever that's going to be is going to be the
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  Speaker 2: twelve seed. It's not necessarily that way. If they're the
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  Speaker 2: eight seed, then they would fall in line there. That's
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  Speaker 2: you can't just assume they're going to be seventeen or
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  Speaker 2: something like that, where then they're just slotted in at twelve.
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  Speaker 2: I did also find it interesting one of the questions was, well,
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  Speaker 2: what if they're not in the top twenty five and
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  Speaker 2: then it's just like, well, we'll just rank basically the
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  Speaker 2: conference champs, and then the fifth highest ranked conference champ
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  Speaker 2: would be that team, and then they would be twelve.
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  Speaker 2: But they don't necessarily need to be twelve. If they
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  Speaker 2: keep climbing the rankings, they're just going to fall inline
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  Speaker 2: like a Tennessee or a Penn State or an Ohio
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  Speaker 2: State or a Georgia would.
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  Speaker 1: And another thing that's interesting that I think people just
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  Speaker 1: sort of assumed with They'll be the lowest ranked team. Theoretically,
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  Speaker 1: if the Big twelve champion has two losses and is
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  Speaker 1: the seventeenth best team in the conference in the country,
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  Speaker 1: and Boise State has one loss and is ranked as
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  Speaker 1: the thirteenth best team in the country, Boise State would
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  Speaker 1: be the four seed because they would be the fourth
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  Speaker 1: highest conference champion. It's not just automatically the Power four
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  Speaker 1: conferences get those top four seeds. It is the four
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  Speaker 1: highest ranked conference champions who get those top four seeds.
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  Speaker 1: So theoretically, yes, Boise State could get a buy or
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  Speaker 1: whoever the non Power champion is that the Army could
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  Speaker 1: be any of those teams. They could theoretically be a
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  Speaker 1: top four seed, could be a higher than twelve seed.
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  Speaker 1: So all right, So that's question number one. Thought that
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  Speaker 1: was interesting. Next thing was it went into how they're
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  Speaker 1: deciding what those rankings are, because those brankings are going
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  Speaker 1: to go a long way towards determining what that bracket
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  Speaker 1: looks like. Really are going to determine what that bracket
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  Speaker 1: looks like. And the committee is relying a lot on
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  Speaker 1: data from a company called Sports Source Analytics, and they're
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  Speaker 1: going to be looking at all sorts of power rating
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  Speaker 1: stats and all that kind of stuff. And then someone asked,
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  Speaker 1: can we see them, and they said no, yeah, no.
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  Speaker 2: Sports Source Analytics is also what almost the penultimate tiebreaker,
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  Speaker 2: the second to last tiebreaker for like the Big Ten basically,
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  Speaker 2: and it's all these data sets and strength the schedule
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  Speaker 2: and it's all proprietary basically. So yeah, people were asking,
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  Speaker 2: what about the strength of schedule and how do we
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  Speaker 2: know that your strength of schedule is you know, accurate?
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  Speaker 2: Or what data are you using? So it's interesting to
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  Speaker 2: see people wanting to know exactly how this is all divide.
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  Speaker 2: But then do you remember like the BCS computers, like
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  Speaker 2: there are people who would want to know what numbers
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  Speaker 2: are you putting in so that then they could put
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  Speaker 2: those in and project them because they'd have all the
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  Speaker 2: same numbers, whereas Sports Source Analytics is like, no, no, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 2: these are ours just trust us.
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  Speaker 1: Man who has learned less trust or more trust over
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  Speaker 1: the years than the college football Playoff selection committee. It
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  Speaker 1: has been always a sort of vaguely transparent process, real
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  Speaker 1: vaguely in some cases, and that is going to continue
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  Speaker 1: to a certain degree this year. They were asked also
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  Speaker 1: about conference runners up, the fact that this year you've
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  Speaker 1: got teams who are playing in the college football playoff
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  Speaker 1: or in the conference championship games in the lead up
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  Speaker 1: to the college football playoff, and of course, the conference
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  Speaker 1: championship game winners get a huge benefit, which is they
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  Speaker 1: then get one automatically one of the top four seeds
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  Speaker 1: in the in the playoff field. The question is more
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  Speaker 1: about the other team, the team that loses in that game.
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  Speaker 1: Are they punished for losing? Do they get a boost
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  Speaker 1: for playing in that game? How is how is that
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  Speaker 1: going to work?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the quotes was they won't be unduly punished.
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  Speaker 2: So basically you and then I asked for clarification in
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  Speaker 2: terms of a team making it and being compared to
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  Speaker 2: a team from another conference that didn't, because it used
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  Speaker 2: to be if you won your conference championship that was
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  Speaker 2: one of the data points. So it's conference champions strength
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  Speaker 2: to schedule, head to head, and like strength of record
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  Speaker 2: or something that they would look at as data points.
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  Speaker 2: Now since they don't need to use conference champions as
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  Speaker 2: a data point in comparing because you're automatically in depending
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  Speaker 2: on your level. I wanted to know, is now making
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  Speaker 2: the conference championship a data point and it is not.
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  Speaker 2: You're not going to get any boost for as Rich
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  Speaker 2: Clark told me, but just the fact that you've made
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  Speaker 2: it tells everybody that you've had a good season. But
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  Speaker 2: I also it was interesting where he did say we're
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  Speaker 2: a sophisticated bunch, like you know, the committee, sophisticated. They
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  Speaker 2: recognize who has made it and who hasn't. But it
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  Speaker 2: is going to be interesting to watch this unfold and
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  Speaker 2: the outrage of all of this. But I think the
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  Speaker 2: key thing that I took out is if you make
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  Speaker 2: it great, don't lose bad, don't get blown out because
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  Speaker 2: you you won't be unduly punished, but you will be punished.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you lose a twenty what sixteen, twenty fifteen
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  Speaker 1: Big Ten Championship game, the Iowa Michigan State game where
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  Speaker 1: old boy, it's a real close game, goes right down
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  Speaker 1: to the final minute, you're not going to get punished
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  Speaker 1: for that. If you get twenty fourteen Big Ten Championship
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  Speaker 1: gamed fifty nine nothing by Wisconsin. Well, then that probably
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  Speaker 1: will be held against you. So that's a we'll see
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  Speaker 1: how that, you know, how true that ends up being
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  Speaker 1: something else, will see how true it ends up being.
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  Speaker 1: They were asked about. But you know, are you going
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  Speaker 1: to be juggling?
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  Speaker 2: You know?
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  Speaker 1: Can you can you maybe just kind of put a
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  Speaker 1: little finger on the scale there and and slide some
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  Speaker 1: people a spot up or down to avoid rematches. It
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  Speaker 1: seems like from a television product perspective, Yeah, you'd probably
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  Speaker 1: like that. You'd like to have a big ten team
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  Speaker 1: playing an SEC team rather than a Big ten team
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  Speaker 1: playing a Big ten team and an SEC team playing
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  Speaker 1: an SEC team. That feels like something that might make
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  Speaker 1: their corporate champions happy, Tony, So is the committee going
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  Speaker 1: to do it? Uh? Tom?
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  Speaker 2: No, of course the Committee's not going to do it.
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  Speaker 2: I know people think this is just a television product
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  Speaker 2: created to air on network television and cable and to
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  Speaker 2: put a bunch of buyeballs on the television that this
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  Speaker 2: is devised to find out. Yes, Tom, of course they're
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  Speaker 2: going to put the thumb on the scale. They say
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  Speaker 2: they're not, but wouldn't we all want them to? Anyway?
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  Speaker 2: And the question one of the questions was posed like yeah,
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  Speaker 2: but like, say you're deciding between two teams that are
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  Speaker 2: you know, six and seven. Basically like if you switched
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  Speaker 2: the other one for the other, nobody would care because
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  Speaker 2: we all agree that these are close. Wouldn't we all
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  Speaker 2: want them to avoid rematches as well? And wouldn't they
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  Speaker 2: want to avoid rematches, And wouldn't their television partners want
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  Speaker 2: them to avoid rematches. So I understand them saying no,
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  Speaker 2: that's not going to be any part of the consideration.
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  Speaker 2: But they're going to talk about a lot of things,
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  Speaker 2: and if I would be surprised if that isn't part
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  Speaker 2: of their conversation. But then maybe at some point, if Tom,
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  Speaker 2: if they want to get rid of a conference, we're like,
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  Speaker 2: you know what, Clemson, Florida State, you know, you guys
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  Speaker 2: are playing each other or something like that, where or
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  Speaker 2: maybe you know, if you've got too many SEC teams
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  Speaker 2: in or whatever, then maybe you try to put them
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  Speaker 2: together or you don't try to keep them apart. But
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  Speaker 2: I think everybody would like to see them, just like
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  Speaker 2: we don't care about moving a team one spot. I
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  Speaker 2: don't think anybody does. It's the the whole manipulation of
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  Speaker 2: the rankings that gets more gets people more angry than
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  Speaker 2: this one little thing, this one weird little trick to
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  Speaker 2: avoid a rematch. I don't think anybody would really have
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  Speaker 2: an issue with that.
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  Speaker 1: You wouldn't think, So we'll see when when we get
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  Speaker 1: to that point of the process. I think lots of
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  Speaker 1: people are going to have lots of issues with lots
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  Speaker 1: of stuff at that point, because that's just kind of
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  Speaker 1: how things work at this point. But yeah, right now,
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  Speaker 1: just sort of in the cold, sterile environment of not
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  Speaker 1: knowing how any of this is really truly going to work.
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  Speaker 1: It does feel like if you could avoid having Ohio
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  Speaker 1: State and Oregon play for the third time, or you know,
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  Speaker 1: Alabama and Texas, or Georgia and Texas playing for potentially
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  Speaker 1: the third time in a quarter final or semi you know,
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  Speaker 1: semi final type matchup, that feels like that would probably
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  Speaker 1: be a good thing. So we'll see whether that ends
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  Speaker 1: up being exactly how it works. Something else we're going
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  Speaker 1: to see how it exactly works is the semi finals
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  Speaker 1: and how they're going to try and avoid putting the
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  Speaker 1: number one team in a bad spot. The example that
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  Speaker 1: I always think of, and I asked about this summer
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  Speaker 1: was you know, hey, Ohio State's number one, or it
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  Speaker 1: could be Oregon, or could be whoever. Can you avoid
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  Speaker 1: putting them in the Cotton Bowl where they might have
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  Speaker 1: to play Texas in Texas in the semi final? Can
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  Speaker 1: you just flip them to play in the Orange Bowl?
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  Speaker 1: Or if hey, if Miami's on their side of the bracket,
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  Speaker 1: would they be definitely placed in the Cotton Bowl, Because
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  Speaker 1: that's a decision that's going to get made before you know,
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  Speaker 1: on selection Sunday. You're going to know this team if
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  Speaker 1: they win on New Year's Day, they're going to the
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  Speaker 1: Cotton Bowl or they're going to the Orange Bowl. That
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  Speaker 1: will all be laid out on the bracket. So can
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  Speaker 1: they take that into account? And it felt like we
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  Speaker 1: got about four different possible answers to that question.
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  Speaker 2: It is, and I'm just trying to look through the
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  Speaker 2: transcript real quickly to just refresh my mind on all
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  Speaker 2: of the answers, because we were initially told like, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: they can do something to make sure that you know,
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  Speaker 2: Ohio Stated isn't playing in the Cotton Bowl against Texas
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  Speaker 2: in the semi finals or something like that. But then
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  Speaker 2: what we were told in this teleconference was that there
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  Speaker 2: is no consideration for that unless there needs to be consideration,
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  Speaker 2: and in which case maybe they could do something they
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  Speaker 2: probably wouldn't, So I I think I think we maybe
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  Speaker 2: had had this in a group text or in conversation.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of some of this teleconference felt like they
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  Speaker 2: were coming up with some answers on the fly, and
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  Speaker 2: I know that's not the case, but when you're posed
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  Speaker 2: with all of these different questions, you're you're you're searching
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  Speaker 2: the rules that you've all laid out. But it didn't
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  Speaker 2: it didn't seem like there's gonna be any type of
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  Speaker 2: you know, it's whatever is closest to you. If you're
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  Speaker 2: the number one seed, that's where you're going. And they
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  Speaker 2: don't want to there's too many moving parts, Like there're
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  Speaker 2: two games away from it being an issue, and I
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: can't really worry about you having to play on the
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: almost home field of the sixth seed or something like
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  Speaker 2: that or whatever the seven or eight or whatever, and
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  Speaker 2: so you just you're just gonna have to deal with that.
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  Speaker 2: And and honestly, Tom Midwest teams have been dealing that,
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  Speaker 2: dealing with that forever in the postseason. So it's like
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  Speaker 2: it's just kind of part of the deal of playing
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  Speaker 2: college football in the Midwest. But I what, what are
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  Speaker 2: these circumstances where they would you know, take that into consideration,
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  Speaker 2: because it seemed like there were there were circumstances, but
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  Speaker 2: not normally.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if the dividing line, because they did
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  Speaker 1: talk about, you know, trying to project things multiple games
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  Speaker 1: down the line. I wonder if the dividing line as well,
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  Speaker 1: If you know, Ohio State or Oregon is the one
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  Speaker 1: seed and Miami is the four seed, and Miami would
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: only need to win one game to get to the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: semi finals, then you would avoid putting them in the
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  Speaker 1: Orange Bowl side of the bracket because then you put them,
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  Speaker 1: you'd be the number one seed, would be playing in
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  Speaker 1: the opposing team's home stadium in the semi finals, which
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  Speaker 1: seems like that would be something you could relatively easily avoid.
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  Speaker 1: And the example they gave was they used last year's ranking,
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  Speaker 1: so you know, they had Michigan as number one, and
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  Speaker 1: they said, well, Michigan is slightly closer to Dallas than
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: they are to Orland. To Miami, those are the two
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: locations I guess Arlington and what in Miami Gardens or whatever, Hollywood, Florida, wherever,
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  Speaker 1: wherever the Orange Bowl is these days, that Michigan is
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  Speaker 1: slightly closer to Texas, so therefore they would send them there.
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  Speaker 1: And it's like that doesn't I mean, like say, saving
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: them seventeen miles in the air is how this decision
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: is going to make. That doesn't feel like that's the
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: intelligent way to do it. But it's at least the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: way that it's sort of being discussed right now. It's
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: not something that the team is going to be just
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: given a check, you know, check check one box Orange
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Bowl or Cotton Bowl kind of thing. It's all a
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: little vague. We'll see how it all plays out. As
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: with the as with the avoid rematches thing, it feels
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  Speaker 1: like you might get to a point where common sense
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  Speaker 1: wins out, even if it's well, technically we've got a
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: little bit of wiggle room, Like the little bit of
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: wiggle room might win out as a common sense thing.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Will it Well, we'll all find out together as they
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: go through the whole college football playoff selection process this
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: year again. That starts next Tuesday. Dony Kevin and I
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: will be doing our usual college football Playoff live watch
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: a long show, looking at it, reacting to it as
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: it happens, and then giving you the answers that we
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: get in terms of the post show live call in
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: interview segment thing that we do as well with the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: CFP folks. So sometimes we get some answers there, sometimes not.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Sometimes that makes sense, sometimes not. But it's that time
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: of year again. We will be back with that next Tuesday.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: But before next Tuesday, we have a bunch of coverage
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: this weekend about a game that's gonna have a lot
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of impact on that First College Football Playoff rankings reveal
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Ohio State and Penn State, another top five matchup for
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the Buckeyes in Happy Valley on Saturday. We'll be there
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Friday night covering the Buckeyees team arrival. We will be
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: there Saturday covering the game. You can find it all
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: at Buckeyehuddle dot com and YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: That'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.