RTB X Bot
Member
CFBW: More Bob Stoops gems, via @johnehoover. http://t.co/cTySdXPtOl
More...
There has been every indication so far that when college football's postseason goes to a four-team playoff to determine its champion in 2014 that a forthcoming selection committee will give all due consideration to a team's strength of schedule.
Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops will believe it when he sees it.
"Yeah," Stoops said. "I'd like to see it."
Stoops is dubious that a commission of humans can pay attention to every team's schedule over a period of three months.
"Everybody says that," he said. "Even voters."
Stoops and the Sooners were disappointed by that very notion just last season.
"Going into the bowl games, Northern Illinois had one loss, we had two," Stoops said. "Theirs was to Iowa, right? Ours were to Notre Dame and K-State. And they're ranked ahead of us - well, they got the bid to the BCS bowl ahead of us."
At a press conference before last week's Sooner Caravan stop in Tulsa, Stoops reiterated his stance from last December, when Northern Illinois lost the season opener to an Iowa team that finished 4-8, then won its next 12 in a row, including a Mid-American Conference championship victory over Kent State. That last win jumped the Huskies from No. 21 to No. 15 in the BCS standing and thus into an automatic berth in the BCS field, where they promptly lost 31-10 to Florida State in the Orange Bowl.
The Sooners, meanwhile, lost only to 11-1 Kansas State and 12-0 Notre Dame, and, stuck at No. 11 in the BCS rankings, didn't get the last at-large berth.
Had Northern Illinois finished outside the top 16, OU would have gone to the Sugar Bowl instead of the Cotton Bowl. But voters became enamored with NIU's underdog role and rewarded the Huskies for a great season.
That's fine, of course. But irrefutable empirical data was cast aside in the process: Oklahoma went 10-2 against a schedule that ranked 15th in the nation. Northern Illinois went 12-1 with a schedule strength of 117th.
That's out of 120 teams.
"If they went through our whole schedule, would they have been 11-1? I doubt it," Stoops said. "So obviously then, the voters, it didn't matter that much to 'em. And it's not right."
There is, of course, some slight flaws in this argument.
Northern Illinois shouldn't be punished just because the rest of the MAC is so dreary. Remember when Boise State was always downgraded because of how weak the rest of the Western Athletic Conference was? It wasn't that long ago. Well, Boise State finally got its shot (against OU) and proved - several times - that it deserves inclusion among the nation's elite.
And by the same token, Oklahoma did lose its two toughest games, K-State and Notre Dame. Should the Sooners or anyone else be rewarded for games they didn't win? Should the selection committee pick its field simply on good scheduling intentions? Probably not.
But on the whole, Stoops is right. When one team's schedule is 15th and another's is 117th, that should be obvious. BCS voters dropped the ball. Or maybe they had grown tired of seeing the Sooners underachieve in the BCS.
To be clear, Stoops wasn't still complaining about not getting a BCS spot five months after the fact. That ship has sailed, sunk to the bottom, was dredged up, cut up for scrap and melted down.
But his analogy is entirely valid, and it's the same point he makes every fall: When rankings are compiled, the only number anyone takes seriously to grade a team up or down is that team's losses.
Who's the best one-loss team? Who's the best two-loss team?
The College Football Playoff selection committee must be above that kind of thinking.
"I think the schedule you play does matter," Stoops said. "The cumulative effect of playing good teams week in and week out is different."
Stoops worries that any human biases can't be removed, whether it's from sitting athletic directors or retired coaches, accredited media or a dedicated committee.
"There's an agenda to everything everybody does," he said. "Pretty much. Right? Be honest."
Stoops, that old-school coach who tweets to recruits and has his own website that's badly in need of updating, can't decide who should compose the selection committee, but isn't above relying on technology.
That's right. Computers.
"That'd be great," Stoops said. "It'd cause all kinds of debate. It'd fill up newspapers, TV time, air time. I think it'd be awesome. You guys would have all kind of things to be critical of."
Some kind of system that aggregates empirical data, like the Ratings Percentage Index used in selecting the NCAA basketball or baseball tournaments, should be implemented, Stoops said, taking into account a given team's strength of schedule and road performances and wins against the top 25 and losses to the bottom 100 and so on.
"I would hope so, because I would think it would matter," he said. "Otherwise, why are we going to Notre Dame this year? Why did we travel to Florida State two years ago?
"You know, if you're not gonna be rewarded for it, then just play a bunch of softies and try to be undefeated."
More...
There has been every indication so far that when college football's postseason goes to a four-team playoff to determine its champion in 2014 that a forthcoming selection committee will give all due consideration to a team's strength of schedule.
Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops will believe it when he sees it.
"Yeah," Stoops said. "I'd like to see it."
Stoops is dubious that a commission of humans can pay attention to every team's schedule over a period of three months.
"Everybody says that," he said. "Even voters."
Stoops and the Sooners were disappointed by that very notion just last season.
"Going into the bowl games, Northern Illinois had one loss, we had two," Stoops said. "Theirs was to Iowa, right? Ours were to Notre Dame and K-State. And they're ranked ahead of us - well, they got the bid to the BCS bowl ahead of us."
At a press conference before last week's Sooner Caravan stop in Tulsa, Stoops reiterated his stance from last December, when Northern Illinois lost the season opener to an Iowa team that finished 4-8, then won its next 12 in a row, including a Mid-American Conference championship victory over Kent State. That last win jumped the Huskies from No. 21 to No. 15 in the BCS standing and thus into an automatic berth in the BCS field, where they promptly lost 31-10 to Florida State in the Orange Bowl.
The Sooners, meanwhile, lost only to 11-1 Kansas State and 12-0 Notre Dame, and, stuck at No. 11 in the BCS rankings, didn't get the last at-large berth.
Had Northern Illinois finished outside the top 16, OU would have gone to the Sugar Bowl instead of the Cotton Bowl. But voters became enamored with NIU's underdog role and rewarded the Huskies for a great season.
That's fine, of course. But irrefutable empirical data was cast aside in the process: Oklahoma went 10-2 against a schedule that ranked 15th in the nation. Northern Illinois went 12-1 with a schedule strength of 117th.
That's out of 120 teams.
"If they went through our whole schedule, would they have been 11-1? I doubt it," Stoops said. "So obviously then, the voters, it didn't matter that much to 'em. And it's not right."
Northern Illinois shouldn't be punished just because the rest of the MAC is so dreary. Remember when Boise State was always downgraded because of how weak the rest of the Western Athletic Conference was? It wasn't that long ago. Well, Boise State finally got its shot (against OU) and proved - several times - that it deserves inclusion among the nation's elite.
And by the same token, Oklahoma did lose its two toughest games, K-State and Notre Dame. Should the Sooners or anyone else be rewarded for games they didn't win? Should the selection committee pick its field simply on good scheduling intentions? Probably not.
But on the whole, Stoops is right. When one team's schedule is 15th and another's is 117th, that should be obvious. BCS voters dropped the ball. Or maybe they had grown tired of seeing the Sooners underachieve in the BCS.
To be clear, Stoops wasn't still complaining about not getting a BCS spot five months after the fact. That ship has sailed, sunk to the bottom, was dredged up, cut up for scrap and melted down.
But his analogy is entirely valid, and it's the same point he makes every fall: When rankings are compiled, the only number anyone takes seriously to grade a team up or down is that team's losses.
Who's the best one-loss team? Who's the best two-loss team?
The College Football Playoff selection committee must be above that kind of thinking.
"I think the schedule you play does matter," Stoops said. "The cumulative effect of playing good teams week in and week out is different."
Stoops worries that any human biases can't be removed, whether it's from sitting athletic directors or retired coaches, accredited media or a dedicated committee.
"There's an agenda to everything everybody does," he said. "Pretty much. Right? Be honest."
Stoops, that old-school coach who tweets to recruits and has his own website that's badly in need of updating, can't decide who should compose the selection committee, but isn't above relying on technology.
That's right. Computers.
"That'd be great," Stoops said. "It'd cause all kinds of debate. It'd fill up newspapers, TV time, air time. I think it'd be awesome. You guys would have all kind of things to be critical of."
Some kind of system that aggregates empirical data, like the Ratings Percentage Index used in selecting the NCAA basketball or baseball tournaments, should be implemented, Stoops said, taking into account a given team's strength of schedule and road performances and wins against the top 25 and losses to the bottom 100 and so on.
"I would hope so, because I would think it would matter," he said. "Otherwise, why are we going to Notre Dame this year? Why did we travel to Florida State two years ago?
"You know, if you're not gonna be rewarded for it, then just play a bunch of softies and try to be undefeated."
