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Nov 27, 2024
9:32:54am
CaliWG All-American
Time for Yormark to earn his paycheck. XII needs to go scorched earth on the CFP
Brett Yormark needs to go on the offensive in favor of the conference he represents. The Big 12 needs a coordinated messaging campaign from the commissioner on down through the coaches, athletic directors, and local media that covers the conference.

The core message is this: The CFP Committee is selectively applying criteria in a manner that consistently hurts Big 12 teams and props up teams from other conferences. And the Big 12 needs to give specific examples of these disparities, even if it means taking shots at specific teams the committee has ranked higher than the Big 12. Here are six key points that need to be made:

1-The Eye Test
The #1 excuse for the committee ranking the likes of ASU, BYU, ISU, etc. behind others is the fact that they simply haven't passed the eye test. They haven't been impressive enough in their wins and they have some questionable losses. This would be a valid point if the eye test were actually being applied equally across the board.
>Alabama just got its 3rd loss after getting absolutely blown out by a 5-loss team and failing to score a single TD. Yet somehow they are still ranked ahead of three 2-loss XII teams.
>In the last month Boise State has two one score wins against dreadful competition, including a 4 point 4th Quarter comeback win over a 2-9 Wyoming team that both ASU & BYU destroyed by 3+ scores.
>Clemson has no real quality wins and got spanked twice. Once by a currently ranked team and again at home by a 4 loss team. If this were a Big 12 program the committee would say they got exposed and they'd be disregarded as fraudulent. But somehow Clemson is still ranked ahead of the entire Big 12.

2-Quality Wins
There are three Big 12 teams with 2 wins against the current CFP Top 25, including non conference wins over a Top 10 SMU team and a Tulane team that is ranked ahead of everyone in the Big 12 except ASU.
>The following teams with ZERO Top 25 wins are ahead of Big 12 teams with 2: Texas, Miami, SMU, Clemson, Tulane, Missouri, Illinois, UNLV
>The following teams with ONE Top 25 win are ahead of Big 12 teams with 2: Penn State, Notre Dame, Boise State, Tennessee, Texas A&M

3-Bad Losses & Blowout Losses
Big 12 schools are criticized for beating up on each other and for non quality losses. But the same standard is not upheld across the board. Those losses are being held against Big 12 teams a lot more than similar losses by others. For example:
>NIU over Notre Dame
>Arkansas over Tennessee
>Kentucky over Ole Miss
>Oklahoma over Tulane
>Vanderbilt over Alabama
>Auburn over Texas A&M
>Alabama losing by 24 to Oklahoma
>Clemson losing by 31
>South Carolina losing by 21
>Illinois losing by 29
>Missouri losing by 31 & 21
>Indiana losing by 23

4-Treatment of Good Losses
When other programs lose to ranked teams it is considered a quality loss and their rankings are minimally impacted. But when XII teams lose, they take a significant hit even if it is against a Top 25 opponent.
>After losing to a an 8-2 Arizona State team, Kansas State was dropped from #16 to completely out of the rankings.
>In the same week that Alabama & Ole Miss logged their 3rd losses to unranked teams, they still managed to stay ahead of a 2-loss BYU team that went down by 5 points on the road to now #16 Arizona State. BYU was dropped 5 spots.
>Penn State, Texas, Indiana, SMU, Boise State, Clemson, Tulane, Georgia, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Alabama, Missouri & Illinois are all being propped up by their "quality losses".

5-Strength of Schedule
The committee cites SOS as a reason that teams with more losses remain ahead of Big 12 teams in the rankings. Yet they do not apply the same standard to the Big 12.
Here is the SOS data (per Sagarin):
B12: Colorado(17), BYU(21), KSU(25), ASU(33), ISU(40)
ACC: SMU(59), Miami(61), Clemson(62)
SEC: Georgia(4), Alabama(7), South Carolina(18), Texas A&M(28), Ole Miss(31), Texas(39), Missouri(56), Tennessee(57)
B1G: Penn State(37), Illinois(47), Oregon(52), Ohio State(58), Indiana(68),
OTHERS: Notre Dame(65), UNLV(77), Tulane(85), Boise State(89)
Big 12 teams with a comparable or better SOS & the same or fewer losses than the teams ranked ahead of them:
>ASU: Clemson, Ole Miss, Tennessee
>BYU: South Carolina, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Tulane, Boise State
>ISU: Tennessee, Tulane
>CU: South Carolina, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Illinois
Alabama with 3 losses is 14 spots above 2-loss BYU in SOS. If that same standard were applied to the Big 12, the B12 2-loss teams would be ahead of the following 1 loss teams:
>SMU, Miami, Texas, Ohio State, Indiana, Notre Dame, Boise State

6-Big 12 vs G5
There are already several reasons in previous sections as to why ranking Boise State & Tulane ahead of the Big 12 contenders is ridiculous (SOS, Quality wins, Eye Test, etc.).
But here's another:
The Big 12 is the 2nd Ranked conference according to Sagarin, ahead of both the ACC & B1G. 5 points behind the SEC.
The MWC is the 6th ranked conference (even behind the Sun Belt East). 14 points behind the Big 12.
The AAC is the 7th ranked conference. 15 points behind the Big 12.
>So the Big 12 is 3x closer to the SEC in quality than the MWC or the AAC are to the Big 12.
Based on the stated criteria or any other reasonable criteria there is no way either the MWC or AAC leaders should be ranked ahead of the Big 12 leaders.
This message has been modified
Originally posted on Nov 27, 2024 at 9:32:54am
Message modified by CaliWG on Nov 27, 2024 at 9:34:55am
Message modified by CaliWG on Nov 27, 2024 at 9:35:45am
CaliWG
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