[NU Sports] Heck of a finish in Happy Valley ...

[michael.vance at att.net]

--- On Sat, 11/27/10, SjT (Stephen J. Truog) <sjtruog at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> less confusing than the old three-way tiebreaker.
>
>Actually, the old way was pretty easy to remember.
>
>1) Head to head
>2) Overall record
>3) Team that hasn't been there the longest

That third one was only the criteria of last resort.  There were a bunch of ways to get from three teams down to two by comparing record against each other and record against common opponents.  It was only if all of those failed that they went to the "What haven't you done for me lately" rule.  I'll have to see if a few minutes with the Google Cache or archive.org can turn up the old rules.

>And there are a lot of folks across Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan who 
>until a week or so ago (when the 3-way race became a real big story) 
>still thought that was the way it would be determined.

Ignorance of the rules is no excuse, even in fandom.

>It was pretty easy to remember, and I'm sure a lot of folks in East 
>Lansing still wish that were the way they did it. :)

If that were really the case, then probably.  But see above.

>What's really baffling is how they said a 3-way Big XII South tie would 
>be decided should Oklahoma win tonight (despite OSU having a better 
>overall record in that scenario) - going to the B(C)S rankings, unless 
>they're within one spot, in which case I think the time of the lunar tide 
>multiplied by the exchange rate of the Euro will determine who faces 
>Nebraska in Jerryworld next week.

But what are the althernatives? If your objective is to field the most competitive game possible and to send your best team on to the BCS (or highest seed in the playoffs, if that ever happens), then you need some objective ranking system to pick who that should be. Is using the BCS rankings any worse than using the AP poll?  Or a localized coaches/press poll?  The latter might actually be a pretty good idea, do your own poll among those who know the conference teams the best. But if you think that the results will be very different from the BCS rankings, you're deluding yourself.

>The B(C)S SUUUUUUUCKS point remains - death to the B(C)S! :)

I'm not a huge fan of the BCS, either, but don't think that it's going to be much different with a playoff. Instead of jockeying for BCS ranking, they'll be jockeying for playoff seeding.  Just like people disagree with the Big Dance seedings, there will be disagreement with football playoff seedings.

-Michael