An Interesting Blind Resume Test (Please Stop Screaming About SEC Bias)

I would just like to say that the SEC bias goes beyond where they have teams ranked in the preseason or otherwise. There have been several examples of how it is done. Maybe bias isn't the right word. Maybe it's favoritism or mouth-hugging.

Anytime an SEC team beats anyone, talking heads at ESPN do nothing but stroke them about how great they are. See TAMU and Kenny "Trill" from this year.

When an SEC team loses, it's not about how bad they are. It's that they are just in a more competitive league. Even if they lose to the likes of Kentucky and Vanderbilt. But in any other league if a good team struggles and doesn't cover the spread against a weaker opponent, then it's a weak conference.

I would also buy the notion that they could talk about the SEC more since they are the best conference. But in reality they are not. They have 5-6 teams out of 14 that deserve talking about. It's not a conference thing.

The fact that once the playoff poll was released, everyone on ESPN was talking about the 2 Mississippi and Alabama schools being in the top 6. No one talked about how it will be impossible for them all to stay there. But listening to them, you would have thought the playoffs started this weekend.

There is an old saying that goes, "If you throw a rock at a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is the one that got hit." Stoops and Pelini have thrown some rocks and ESPN yelped. If bias or favoritism wasn't there, the people on ESPN wouldn't have felt the need to address it over and over and try to defend themselves.

 
I think this weekend will be very indicative of how far this SEC bias really goes. There is going to be an SEC team that's in the top 4 with two losses. If they don't drop behind all the power conference 1 loss teams. Then we'll know all the commitees talk about wins and losses being most important was BS.

 
Why should a runner up (or more teams) in the same conference be considered in the playoffs, when they did not win their conference? It is another chance to be National Champions for multiple teams in the same conference to win. Win your freakin' conference, if not - their is always next year and take a bowl game, good luck.

 
StPaulHusker said:
Anytime an SEC team beats anyone, talking heads at ESPN do nothing but stroke them about how great they are. See TAMU and Kenny "Trill" from this year.
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To establish a pattern of bias you'd have to watch ESPN constantly and log what they say about EVERY team that wins a game. They tend to be upbeat about winners. It's a sports thing. You'd have to take note of whether they fail to report bad things happening at SEC schools, like the Gurley suspension.

You'd also have to decide whether the good things they say about Ameer Abdullah, Randy Gregory, Jordan Westerkamp and all the Nebraska highlights they've been replaying constitutes "stroking" or if that word is reserved for SEC teams.

You'd also have to poll the sporting world in general, at which point you'd find even the BIG10 network admitting it's a downtime for the conference, and the vast majority of non-ESPN pundits believing both the Pac 12 and SEC field a tougher inter-conference slate.

Abdullah has already made Nebraska a good story. If we keep winning, we will have everyone's attention.

 
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NebraskaShellback said:
Why should a runner up (or more teams) in the same conference be considered in the playoffs, when they did not win their conference? It is another chance to be National Champions for multiple teams in the same conference to win. Win your freakin' conference, if not - their is always next year and take a bowl game, good luck.
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What if your only loss is on the road in a close game to the team that wins the conference and you never had a chance to play them or for the title on a neutral field?

 
huskerswrkhavoc said:
NebraskaShellback said:
Why should a runner up (or more teams) in the same conference be considered in the playoffs, when they did not win their conference? It is another chance to be National Champions for multiple teams in the same conference to win. Win your freakin' conference, if not - their is always next year and take a bowl game, good luck.
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What if your only loss is on the road in a close game to the team that wins the conference and you never had a chance to play them or for the title on a neutral field?
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Should have won?

 
The thing is ESPN can't take their live Game Day show to an SEC game every other week, and at the same time state that they act with impartiality, and thats before mentioning how often you see an SEC channel commercial on their stations.

Its not that I don't get that they will follow the front runners and that they own the SEC channel, but that IS proof positive that they do not "advertise" other conferences like they do the SEC. (I'd argue they advertise the SEC more so than all other conferences combined.) This may not mean that the likes of Fowler and Herbstreet have an agenda, but they shouldn't try to pretend that their employer doesn't.

 
I really like the idea of an 8 team playoff with the following rules:

Power 5 Conference Champions get in

The last 3 are split up between non Power 5 conference champions (and Notre Dame if they are in the top 10)

That's it. If you don't win your conference, you shouldn't be playing for the national championship. Period. It takes out any bias that might exist, no matter the conference.

 
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I live in Pac 12 country. They don't see things through an SEC lens. They see complete and total East Coast media bias.

For that matter, my San Francisco friends here are convinced that Joe Buck and Fox Sports were constantly dismissive of the Giants, and totally stroking the Kansas City Royals. My Nebraska friends and Royals fans thought the exact opposite.

 
The problem here, as many have said (or at least eluded to) is that to come up with an un-biased ranking using "quality" wins, or wins over ranked teams, you have to assume the rankings you are using to determine quality teams are not biased in the first place.

Take LSU for instance. LSU is not all that great a football team this year. Yeah, they have a pretty good defense...at times, but they have two losses and didn't look that great against Wisky or a 3-3 Florida team. BUT....they are now ranked 16 in the AP poll (one ahead of once beaten Nebraska) because they defeated an overrated Ole' Miss team (in an absolutely hideously ugly 10-7 game that did more to highlight their offensive weaknesses than defensive strengths). So now, in the strength of schedule numbers, Miss St. and Auburn look great because they both have a "quality win" over a top 16 opponent.

The SEC bias is still intact.

As an aside, I think the biggest issue for LSU is that they better be careful. If they lose 3 or 4 more games, they MIGHT fall out of the AP top 20.

 
If you're in favor of a deflated regular season schedule and would like to see out-of-conference schedules full of MAC and Sun Belt teams, you should insist on only conference champions being included in the playoff.

 
Mavric said:
If you're in favor of a deflated regular season schedule and would like to see out-of-conference schedules full of MAC and Sun Belt teams, you should insist on only conference champions being included in the playoff.
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Because OOC schedules are chock full of games against the best teams from the power-5 conferences? And for some teams *cough*SEC*cough* it seems like the regular season doesn't matter all that much anyway.

 
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