11-29-2016, 09:33 AM
The thing about Stanford last year, in my mind, was that we were clearly better than Iowa, Oklahoma, and MSU, and the results of the bowl games involving the top 6 teams just verified that. The problem is that case was sort of hard to make in a non-homer fashion, and we did have a choke-job late season loss that we shouldn't have.
The question is what the playoff is trying to reward. Traditionally polls are supposed to be about identifying the "best team" (leave aside the fact that they way they work in practice doesn't come close to doing this), but playoffs are typically about rewarding the accomplishment of specific goals (winning a conference/division, having the best record of the remaining teams, etc). The CFP doesn't clearly set about to do either, and we haven't had any test of what they see as their goal until now.
Although, as I said, I'm not sure why everyone is so gaga about OSU anyway, they haven't looked impressive to me at all when I've watched them lately. Then again advanced stats like them, so ¯\_(ã)_/¯. (Although F+ actually has Michigan ranked ahead of them.)
The question is what the playoff is trying to reward. Traditionally polls are supposed to be about identifying the "best team" (leave aside the fact that they way they work in practice doesn't come close to doing this), but playoffs are typically about rewarding the accomplishment of specific goals (winning a conference/division, having the best record of the remaining teams, etc). The CFP doesn't clearly set about to do either, and we haven't had any test of what they see as their goal until now.
Although, as I said, I'm not sure why everyone is so gaga about OSU anyway, they haven't looked impressive to me at all when I've watched them lately. Then again advanced stats like them, so ¯\_(ã)_/¯. (Although F+ actually has Michigan ranked ahead of them.)