[stupac2]

College football's pecking order is predicated on perception.  You have to win your games no matter the ranking, but you have a cushion for error when ranked higher in pre-season that you don't have when ranked lower, in terms of BCS opportunities.

Sort of. I mean, look at ND, I don't think they were even ranked preseason (and if they were it was low). If you go undefeated as a team from a major conference (or ND) then you're almost certainly in.

The question of cushion is an interesting one. Alabama or Georgia were in with 1 loss last year, but Oregon and KST were definitely out. Why? I don't think it's because the latter pair lost later, I think it's just that the SEC gets the benefit of the doubt (with "neither of the non-SEC teams played in a CCG" thrown in as a rationale). Is this deplorable and terrible and a travesty upon our great sport? Yes. Hopefully the move to a playoff (and the eventual move to a bigger playoff) will mitigate the blatant unfairness some, but until then we're stuck with pretty much needing to go undefeated, unless you're from the SEC.

Anyway, do there exist scenarios where a 1-loss PAC-12 team makes the NCG? Of course. Are they likely? I don't really think so. I think that scenarios where a 1-loss PAC-12 team makes the NCG because it was ranked top-5 but wouldn't had it been ranked only 6-10 (and there's really no reason to have Stanford outside of the top 10), or even 11-25 basically don't exist. So in that sense exactly where we're ranked in the preseason doesn't matter a ton.

[stupac2]

College football's pecking order is predicated on perception.  You have to win your games no matter the ranking, but you have a cushion for error when ranked higher in pre-season that you don't have when ranked lower, in terms of BCS opportunities.

Sort of. I mean, look at ND, I don't think they were even ranked preseason (and if they were it was low). If you go undefeated as a team from a major conference (or ND) then you're almost certainly in.

The question of cushion is an interesting one. Alabama or Georgia were in with 1 loss last year, but Oregon and KST were definitely out. Why? I don't think it's because the latter pair lost later, I think it's just that the SEC gets the benefit of the doubt (with "neither of the non-SEC teams played in a CCG" thrown in as a rationale). Is this deplorable and terrible and a travesty upon our great sport? Yes. Hopefully the move to a playoff (and the eventual move to a bigger playoff) will mitigate the blatant unfairness some, but until then we're stuck with pretty much needing to go undefeated, unless you're from the SEC.

Anyway, do there exist scenarios where a 1-loss PAC-12 team makes the NCG? Of course. Are they likely? I don't really think so. I think that scenarios where a 1-loss PAC-12 team makes the NCG because it was ranked top-5 but wouldn't had it been ranked only 6-10 (and there's really no reason to have Stanford outside of the top 10), or even 11-25 basically don't exist. So in that sense exactly where we're ranked in the preseason doesn't matter a ton.