College Football Playoff 2018
- Thread starter Mavric
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The Murphinator
All-Conference
Both those reviews were wrong.
HuskerInLostWages
All-American
OU currently has 0 yards and down 21. This game is going to get ugly.
TonyStalloni
All-Conference
I was thrilled to see the Sooner lineman stick up for his QB when the Tide DL took him down by the neck. He showed the fire I want to see out of our OL going forward. I remember when the LB from Wisconsin slammed TM to the ground in the CCG and our OL did squat. I also saw the refs did nada when the Oklahoma receiver cracked back on the Bama LB and put him on his keister unlike when Bell did nearly the same in that same CCG.
BigRedBuster
International Man of Mystery
After seeing some media's tweets over the weekend, I'm agreeing with John Bishop. They want to go back to the era when they got to choose the champion.
beorach
Special Teams Player
ND clearly isn't as good as Clemson but they earned their playoff berth (i.e., belonged in the playoff). Of all the playoff contenders remaining after conference championship games were played, only Georgia had gone up against tougher competition per the relative stats of their opponents. The only asterisk to go along with this point, regarding ND's schedule strength, is that Eric Dungey was out for most the Syracuse game.
Here's how the Irish have fared against playoff-bound teams (since we've had one in college football):
lost to Florida State by 4 in 2014;
lost to Clemson by 2 in 2015; and
lost to Georgia by 1 in 2017.
Getting back to the 2018 team, they were rolling Michigan for a half before going conservative on "O" and trusting their "D" to save the win. They beat (board darling) Stanford by 21. They defeated two P5 conference division champs in Northwestern and Pittsburgh.
A lot of teams are going to look like "they really don't belong" in the company of Alabama and Clemson besides. Oklahoma was played off the field by Alabama in the first half of the OB. ND probably gets to the locker room down 13 without the roughing call (and that's after Clemson benefited from a couple of questionable replay decisions, one of which almost certainly would have meant Irish points - talking about the stripped ball an official said touched out of bounds without conclusive video evidence*).
* - I think you can fairly argue that a Clemson player had a finger touching out while in contact with the football to make that play make sense but what the official said, I believe, was that the nose of the football was out.
Landlord
Banned
Yeah all that really proved is that it's Bama and Clemson and then everyone else.
Maybe Notre Dame wasn't the 3rd best team in America, or even the 4th, but it seems they fairly earned a spot. They played a decent schedule (tougher than Clemson's at least idk) and didn't lose to anyone, which is a big deal.
Maybe Notre Dame wasn't the 3rd best team in America, or even the 4th, but it seems they fairly earned a spot. They played a decent schedule (tougher than Clemson's at least idk) and didn't lose to anyone, which is a big deal.
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How they have done in previous years has no bearing on this year
Stanford wasn't all that great this year (0-4 vs. Top 30 per Sagarin). Pittsburgh was a .500 team. 4-8 Nebraska should have beaten Northwestern. Not all that impressed with your list.
That quite possible but doesn't prove anything on your point.
My "again" was in reference to the fact that Notre Dame hasn't won a NY6 game in nearly 25 years and has beaten pretty handily more often than not with their closest game being two touchdowns.
beorach
Special Teams Player
It's not fair arguing that recent years don't matter when the post I was responding to (and even your response to my response) referenced other years. The point I was making was that there was no good reason an undefeated Irish squad shouldn't have participated in this year's college football playoff. I thought your "again" was referencing 2012-13 but was mainly arguing based on your use of the word, "belong."
If you have no problem with Clemson being in with their schedule, you can't complain about ND's. The Irish beat the best the Tigers faced and then some. Might makes right, of course. We all get that.
If you have no problem with Clemson being in with their schedule, you can't complain about ND's. The Irish beat the best the Tigers faced and then some. Might makes right, of course. We all get that.
Were they in the playoff discussion in the years you referenced?
They beat Florida State in 2014. They were 8-5 that year. So what? How many teams can say something like that? It doesn't mean they should be in the playoff.
I didn't say they shouldn't have been selected. They were undefeated and thus "deserved" a spot. But they showed - on the field - "again" that they didn't "belong". That's been the story for the past 25 years.
Yes, you can actually have a different opinion about them. First, they deserve they were undefeated so they deserve a shot. Second, they would at least deserve the benefit of the doubt because of their past performance, which isn't the case with Notre Dame. Third, they play in an actual conference. Say what you want about the perceived strength of schedule but it's different when you play in a conference. And fourth, the computer rankings show Clemson to be a much superior team. Clemson is #3 in total offense; Notre Dame is #32. Clemson is #2 in total defense; Notre Dame is #30. Those are significant differences.
beorach
Special Teams Player
They were in the discussion a couple of those years but Miami and Stanford took them out.
FSU beat ND that season. The point was ND has been competitive with playoff teams in three seasons since having been thumped by Alabama in the 2012-13 season's national championship game. I think you understood that before the latest response.
You're going back to the past again after telling me I can't while asserting a team you agree "deserved" to be in a game didn't "belong" in it. I am not going to dispute facts, let alone nonsense.
I didn't say I had a problem with Clemson being in so I'm not sure what you're arguing about here.
Once again, you're allowed to bring up the past despite having objected to my doing it.
That's just ridiculous right there. ND played the best ACC teams Clemson played this season (NC State, Pitt, and Syracuse) with the remainder of their schedule having been clearly tougher than Clemson's. Michigan, Northwestern, and Stanford were the top 3 from outside the shared ACC slate for the Irish. You have Georgia Tech, Texas A&M, and Boston College for the Tigers. If you don't want to believe me, just check out the final polls after the title game.
I've shared rankings that put Clemson above ND on a weekly basis here so I'm not sure why you think I'd argue. As always, however, schedule strength plays a role. In the case of total offense, for example, you have Clemson 6th and ND 18th after pruning out games played against non-P5 opponents. After applying the same filter for total defense, you have Clemson 13th and ND 18th.
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