Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Fjoinkay, post: 2777604, member: 604"] I agree about LSU. The Miss State defense has been statistically better than LSU's defense going back at least 6 consecutive weeks. I have been sitting back and watching the coverage on ESPN and no one ever mentioned that fact. Instead we saw constant praise for LSU's defense which was consistently 5th or 6th in the SEC in Total Defense during those 6 weeks while Miss State's defense was consistently #1 in the SEC during that timeframe. Why did that happen? Hmm. Was it the ESPN PR machine pumping up the Bama - LSU game for at least 3 weeks before the game? The LSU hype really ramped up after LSU embarrassed Georgia. And why is LSU still #7 in the CFP Rankings? Because LSU embarrassed Georgia beating Georgia by 20 points. Georgia gave up 36 points to that really bad LSU offense. Miss State with 4 TOs still played a better game against LSU than Georiga only giving up 19 points. Okay, so right now we are supposed to be really impressed with Georgia. Why? Because after LSU embarrassed them they beat Kentucky. Well, Kentucky's just lost 24-7 to Tennessee. The Vols entered that game 4-5 coming off an 14-3 win at home to a 4-5 Charlotte team. And this week Georgia beat Auburn (6-4) 27-10. Going into that game David Pollack said that Auburn's offense is terrible, and he's right. So what that really means, is that Georgia hasn't really shown a whole lot since being blow out by LSU at least in terms of how the committee should be evaluating them. The Kentucky and Auburn wins just aren't that impressive. If Georgia somehow beats Bama in the SEC Championship game, they were still blown out by LSU. That means that people who want the SEC to have 2 teams in the Playoff want that LSU blowout loss to look as pretty as possible. That is why LSU remains at #7. Because in that scenario where Georgia beats Bama it will be harder for the committee to justify 2 SEC teams if LSU falls out of the top 10. If Texas A&M beats LSU then LSU will fall even further, so it helps to keep them at #7 for now. Some of the people on the committee must want to believe that LSU is better than it is. That is the myth about the SEC at work. It was once a dominant football conference. That hasn't been the case going back a few years now at least. The P5 structure has leveled the playing field. Last season the SEC had Bama and Georgia, but that was about it. The conference was down. The B1G was the best conference last season and the reason no one really saw that until the bowl games played out is because of the SEC myth, rooted in that past, influenced how people on the committee evaluated teams and ranked them. Ask Wisconsin who had a great team last year, or ask UCF whose team last season was legit. The SEC myth has now sprung an obsession with getting 2 SEC teams into the CFP. That became very apparent last season. For example, after Auburn beat a really banged up Bama last year in the Iron Bowl, we suddenly saw Booger and David Pollack saying that Auburn was clearly one of the best 4 teams in the country even though they had 2 losses (Clemson and a REALLY bad LSU team). You see, Pollack and Booger were concerned about what would happen if Auburn beat Georgia in the SEC Championship game. Auburn had beaten Georgia earlier in the season, so if Auburn won the SEC Championship game that would mean Georgia would have 2 losses, both to Auburn. Auburn would have to be the better team with 2 head-to-head wins. That would crush the SEC obsession with getting 2 teams into the CFP unless the committee believed that Auburn with 2 losses should be the 4th team. So I recall Booger arguing that Auburn was clearly a Top 4 team and that anyone who understood football could see it. He also said that the committee could see it. Then Auburn lost to Georgia in the SEC Championship game, and Georgia was able to be included in the Playoff. Of course, not only was Booger wrong but he was way off because UCF then beat Auburn 34-27 in the Chik-Fil-A Bowl. And UCF looked like the better team in that game. They more than held their own. That was not a fluke. Auburn was never a Top 4 team. Not even close. I believe this season the SEC is the best conference, but by no means dominant. LSU is overrated at #7. The committee whiffed last season in a few ways, and this committee is making similar mistakes. I think the reason for the mistakes both years is rooted in the past. The past is filtering the thinking today about how teams should be ranked. The subjectivity in this process is unfortunately the reason why I now think that a 4 team playoff isn't good enough. I thought it would be good enough, but it hasn't played out that way at all. We need at least 6 teams in the Playoff. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?