Who is your top 4?

CoachHoversten

Well-known member
Think every sane person has Alabama and Clemson as 1/2, but who is 3 and 4?

I love Ohio State as much as the next, but they have not been impressive at all. I liked Cincinnati too but they were not impressive today, and fear they would lose by 50 to Alabama if they were #4.

TxAM already got hammered by Alabama so unless you tell me they are 3, I’m not interested in seeing them play Alabama again.

Notre Dame got smoked and Alabama is theoretically better than Clemson, so that looks bad too.

My Top 4:
1) Clemson - I know, I know, they have a loss. But their star QB and best defenseman were out. With them, you see how much better than ND they are. I think on a neutral field they are better than alabama

2) Alabama

3) Ohio State - by default. Winning ugly trumps losing ugly

4) Cincinnati — Again, winning ugly has to trump losing ugly. A/M schedule is inflated by ranking 2-loss SEC teams way too highly.

no one want to see ND vs Clemson round 3

Only way I would be okay with A/M is if Clemson is 1, don’t want to see them vs Alabama again

Final Thought:
With this year being what it is, teams not even wanting to go to bowls bc it’s too expensive for not even having fans, there is little to no reason to not have an 8-team playoff for this year only.

1) Alabama vs. 8) Coastal Carolina (why not)
2) Clemson vs 7) Oklahoma
3) Ohio State vs 6) Cincinnati
4) Tx AM vs 5) Notre dame
 
 
1 - Clemson, team speed too much for anyone other than possibly Alabama

2- Alabama

3- Ohio State

4- Texas A&m

5- Notre Dame

6- Cincinnati ( did not play well in game vs Tulsa)
 
Alabama, Ohio St. Cincinnati, Coastal Carolina. I'm pretty sure the best team in the country is in that group.
 
Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Cincinnati.
The thought that a divisional second place should be in the CFP over an undefeated conference champion is a joke.
Picking a second place divisional team is dumber than just tossing all the P5 teams into a hat and drawing out 4 names.
 
My picks

Bama
Clemson
Ohio State
Cincy

What I think it will be

Bama
Clemson
Ohio State
ND

And the 3-4-5 spots will be very close.

UC gets Peach Bowl against hometown UGA.
 
Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Cincinnati.
The thought that a divisional second place should be in the CFP over an undefeated conference champion is a joke.
Picking a second place divisional team is dumber than just tossing all the P5 teams into a hat and drawing out 4 names.

TX Am wasn’t even second place, they were defacto third. I think they will get in over ND.

it was 34-3 until ND scored in garbage time against backups.
 
Alabama has won the national championship being the second place team in a division, I think twice, so that shouldn't eliminate Texas A&M from consideration. Cincinnati's best win is Tulsa, who is a garbage team.

Alabama, Clemson, OSU, Texas A&M would be my picks, but I understand putting ND there in the 4 spot. It should be really close.
 
Alabama has won the national championship being the second place team in a division, I think twice, so that shouldn't eliminate Texas A&M from consideration. Cincinnati's best win is Tulsa, who is a garbage team.

Alabama, Clemson, OSU, Texas A&M would be my picks, but I understand putting ND there in the 4 spot. It should be really close.
2014 - Alabama DC & CC
2015 - Alabama DC & CC
2016 - Alabama DC & CC
2017 - Alabama CDC - This is when they got beat in the regular season by Auburn on the returned field goal as time expired - after Saban whined about putting time back on the clock. This was Alabama's only loss that year, while Auburn had 3 regular season losses and lost to Georgia in the CC game. So Alabama got the nod for the CFP. Alabama 13-1, Auburn 10-4. I believe Georgia should have been in and NOT Alabama, just like PSU should have been in over tOSU. As I've said many times, CCs only matter to the committee when it suits their corruption.
2018 - Alabama DC & CC
2019 - Alabama was second in their division and didn't make the playoffs due to LSU's dream season.
 
There's a couple of myths that keep getting in our way with this.

First and foremost, this was put together by the NCAA and the TV networks to make money for the schools. Keep that in mind, that's the #1 reason this was all put together. So this isn't about...

1. Getting the 4 best teams together
2. Getting the 4 most deserving teams together.

It's an invitational tournament to get people to watch the games. And not you or I, we're die hards and we'll watch any games. This is for the casual fan. This if for people who may or may not watch games based on who's playing and if they have anything else to do.

With this said, you can always create a narrative to get certain teams into it. The 4 teams picked were the ones the committee hoped would be here a few months ago. There's no need to go any further than that. The only thing that could have derailed this was Clemson losing to ND again, or if Ohio State's 6 games wasn't going to be enough.

So we get to the playoffs now and we really don't know how good Ohio State is. We kind of know Clemson and ND are good because they've played each other and split, although of Lawrence played the other game, would ND have two losses and who knows would be in it?

The SEC played 10 games, Bama has wins over Texas A&M, Georgia, Auburn and Florida. They've got as strong of resume as anyone in the country. Ohio State's best win is vs. Indiana. The big ten is historically bad this year. Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State are all near the bottom of their levels right now. So is Indiana that much better, or has everyone else got that much worse?

But, good or bad, right or not, Ohio State will bring eyeballs to the TV on New Year's Day and that's why they are in it, plain and simple.
 
I've got Ohio State at #11...And yes I don't regret that...And NO, having that dagger shoved in to the flange, twisted sideways and now sticking out through my A$#&, while the college football world laughs at me doesn't hurt one darn bit...^*#*&@!!!
 
So now how does this look? And what I mean is the gap between the best team this season and the rest is as wide as ever. So here's the talking point. Everyone dismissed Texas A&M because Bama beat them by 28 points during the season. So at this point, is it easy to say that A&M may be the 2nd best team in the country in 2020-21? Now I know the anti-SEC crowd is going to go nuts on this, but this is my issue with how the CFP does their playoffs, especially this year. There's nothing Ohio State did this year that tells me they are the solid #2 team? Even Clemson. There are just not enough comparisons of teams to make good judgement. I always say, do you think Ohio State could go through an SEC schedule and not have 2-3 losses? I think most years that's the case, they get a real pass by playing in the big ten and we never know how good they are until playoff time.
 
The SEC is Alabama with usually one other team (LSU/Florida/Georgia on a rotating basis), followed by a dozen schools that love chanting S-E-C!! at games to try to feel relevant.

A&M's schedule was God awful outside of Alabama and Florida. The rest of the SEC West was pretty bad and they got to play the three worst teams from the SEC East in Tennessee, Vanderbilt and South Carolina. Not sure the mighty SEC card is the hill to die on when 7 of their 9 regular season games were against mediocre at best to very bad competition.
 
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Are people just forgetting Ohio State had some important players out? In no way do they win the game with them, but it could have looked better. And let's not act like Texas A&M rolled North Carolina who had half their team opt out of the bowl game. Amazing when an SEC team has guys out that is all you hear about, but not the other way around.
 
I know many love to play the "Team X would go 9-3 or 8-4 in the SEC every year card" and it's absolute BS. A&M played two quality SEC opponents this year. If Ohio State, Clemson, or whoever else were theoretically in the SEC that would be a typical schedule; two tough league games a year with a non-league cupcake the week before one of those games giving two weeks to prepare for it.

They would only sporadically be better than Bama and would probably have one other league opponent at/above their level every year, but they'd be better than everybody else.
 
Are people just forgetting Ohio State had some important players out? In no way do they win the game with them, but it could have looked better. And let's not act like Texas A&M rolled North Carolina who had half their team opt out of the bowl game. Amazing when an SEC team has guys out that is all you hear about, but not the other way around.

They don't lose bowl games, they just have bowl games they weren't interested in.

Pay no attention to UGA going wild after beating UC on the last drive.
 
They don't lose bowl games, they just have bowl games they weren't interested in.

Pay no attention to UGA going wild after beating UC on the last drive.
It is just mind-blowing how people always set that narrative and it never gets challenged, but no other team can use it. So hypocritical
 
Look at the leagues as a WHOLE, not individual teams. The SEC puts more and I mean MANY more players in the NFL than any other conference, it's not even close. That's a fact. When you say it's Bama and no one else, that's simply not true. Ole Miss, Miss State, Arkansas, Tennessee, while they may not win alot of games in conference, they still have guys drafted every year, and more than one. In the big ten, when you get to Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue, Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana (until this season)...and now, Michigan State, Michigan and even Penn State don't send more than a guy or two to the NFL anymore. It's varsity vs. JV for Ohio State week in and week out, and this season they played took two weeks off between games before playing one of their 6 games???

You could have done a 4 team SEC playoff to end the season that was more competitive than the last two weeks. Bama vs. Georgia, Florida vs. Tex A&M, winners play for the national championship.
 
Look at the leagues as a WHOLE, not individual teams. The SEC puts more and I mean MANY more players in the NFL than any other conference, it's not even close. That's a fact. When you say it's Bama and no one else, that's simply not true. Ole Miss, Miss State, Arkansas, Tennessee, while they may not win alot of games in conference, they still have guys drafted every year, and more than one. In the big ten, when you get to Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue, Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana (until this season)...and now, Michigan State, Michigan and even Penn State don't send more than a guy or two to the NFL anymore. It's varsity vs. JV for Ohio State week in and week out, and this season they played took two weeks off between games before playing one of their 6 games???

You could have done a 4 team SEC playoff to end the season that was more competitive than the last two weeks. Bama vs. Georgia, Florida vs. Tex A&M, winners play for the national championship.
Georgia who barely beat Cincy? Florida who got wiped by Oklahoma? Texas A&M who scraped by a NC team who Notre Dame beat handily? Works both ways.
 
Look at the leagues as a WHOLE, not individual teams. The SEC puts more and I mean MANY more players in the NFL than any other conference, it's not even close. That's a fact. When you say it's Bama and no one else, that's simply not true. Ole Miss, Miss State, Arkansas, Tennessee, while they may not win alot of games in conference, they still have guys drafted every year, and more than one. In the big ten, when you get to Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue, Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana (until this season)...and now, Michigan State, Michigan and even Penn State don't send more than a guy or two to the NFL anymore. It's varsity vs. JV for Ohio State week in and week out, and this season they played took two weeks off between games before playing one of their 6 games???

You could have done a 4 team SEC playoff to end the season that was more competitive than the last two weeks. Bama vs. Georgia, Florida vs. Tex A&M, winners play for the national championship.

What is the purpose of having a playoff? The answer is to crown the best TEAM. The purpose of a playoff with a field this narrow is antithetical in nearly all situations to having multiple participants from the same league when there's already been a decisive head-to-head result between them. Notre Dame/Clemson was somewhat different as they played twice and split.

A&M had zero business being in the playoff and they only have themselves to blame. Same with the Gators who imploded at the end of the year.

Future NFL players is not always a great indicator of college football quality. Northwestern has virtually zero NFL talent and was legitimately pretty tough this year all due to discipline and schemes and being able to grind out wins with minimal room for any error. Minnesota and Rutgers over the last 3-4 years have put guys into the NFL at the same rate as Tennessee and Arkansas and no one tries to argue them as being better than okay at best.

It is Bama +1 most years followed by also rans. No other league in any sport has so many teams get so much credit for so little actual accomplishment.
 
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