One of the things that’s really frustrating about this particular college football season is that #1-ranked Florida — which, as a defending national champion with most of its key players returning, would be an overwhelming favorite under any circumstances — has such a ridiculously easy schedule that it’s actually quite difficult to envision them losing, never mind losing twice, as would be necessary to definitively remove them from the national title picture. It almost feels as if the season is a glorified battle for the #2 spot, with everyone else in the country fighting for the opportunity to play in the Tim Tebow Invitational in Pasadena at season’s end.
To review: three of Florida’s nonconference opponents are glorified high school teams — and those are all home games. The other opponent, Florida State, just lost to unranked Miami and almost lost to 1-AA Jacksonville State, and has to play the Gators at the Swamp. Meanwhile, the three SEC West teams Florida doesn’t play during the regular season are, by the luck of the draw, Alabama, Ole Miss and Auburn. That means almost 50% of their conference schedule consists of Mississippi State, Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Kentucky. (It’s a WAR!!!) Moreover, eight of their twelve games (or thirteen, if they reach the SEC title game) are at home; only three are true road games. Their only tough road game, at least on paper, is at LSU — and Florida has a bye before that game, whereas LSU will be coming off a visit to Georgia the previous week. Yet that LSU game, and the SEC title game, are very probably the only games all season in which Florida won’t be double-digit favorites.
This has caused a lot of anger against the Gators for scheduling such ridiculous nonconference cupcakes. But in a blog comment this morning, Jazz said that anger is misdirected:
Its interesting to see so many folks, here and elsewhere, get so frustrated with Florida’s cupcake schedule, when the true target of angry folks’ ire should be the lack of a playoff in DI football. In the current weird process for crowning a champion in DI,
Florida’s scheduling approach is perfectly rational. First. While Florida has two 1-loss national championships in the past 3 years, in the BCS era teams must plan to go undefeated to get a shot at the crown. A 1-loss Florida always risks an undefeated USC + undefeated Texas getting ahead of them in the pecking order, or an undefeated Penn, Ohio,…or even Boise State. So Florida must plan for an undefeated season.
Second. Suppose that the three non-Florida State non-conference games were changed from cupcakes to Top 10 tilts. Sports fans, being poorly versed in statistical theory, talk about games in terms of expected outcomes, or “Florida would probably beat Penn State 24-21, while Florida will likely beat Florida International 62-3”. Its not the likely outcome that matters, its the variance. In the Penn State case, there are several ways Florida loses that game; there are no ways Florida loses to Florida International.
Third. The voters, unlike the commenters on this blog, believe Florida is the best. Therefore, if the Florida International game skews negative vs. the expected outcome, and Florida only wins 42-7, voters won’t care. If the Penn State game skews negative, and Florida loses, Florida might be doomed if the pecking order is against them.
Therefore, in an era of the BCS, with voter perception that Florida is who folks think they are, it makes no sense for Florida to make their discretionary games any more difficult than absolutely necessary.
If you want no more cupcake games, push for an 8-team playoff. Should solve this problem pretty effectively, since a 1 or 2 loss SEC champion (even perhaps runner up) is in that playoff, no matter what. …
In the playoff case, a non-conference loss is no longer automatically prejudicial to Florida’s national championship hopes. … As such, to me its a no-brainer that Florida’s non-conference schedule gets significantly tougher in the world of the 8-team playoff.
I think Jazz’s analysis is interesting, and partially right, but ultimately incomplete. The root cause of Florida’s cupcake obsession isn’t just the BCS system as we know it. It’s the BCS system as we know it combined with media bias and the perceptions game.
But, first things first. The fundamental flaw in Jazz’s argument stems from his statement that “teams must plan to go undefeated to get a shot at the crown.” While I don’t doubt that, indeed, Florida “plan[s] for an undefeated season” — surely, every team plans on winning all its games (well, okay, maybe Duke doesn’t) — the statistical reality is that, in this era of relative parity in college football, Florida’s 1-loss championship teams are the rule, not the exception. 5 of the 7 national champions from 2003-2008 (yes, seven champions in six years, courtesy of the USC/LSU split in ’03), and all of the champs from 2006-2008, have had at least one loss. The same goes for 7 of the last 12 (and 5 of the last 6) BCS title game participants.
Interestingly, in every single case, the loss(es) suffered by title game participants have occurred in conference play. Thus, while it is indeed rational to set up a nonconference schedule that increases the odds of going undefeated, it is also rational to recognize that, whatever one’s nonconference schedule looks like, running through the gauntlet of a conference schedule unblemished — in any conference — is genuinely difficult, and therefore teams need to “plan for a one-loss season” at the same time that they’re “planning for an undefeated season.”
In scheduling terms, there is an inherent tension between these two concepts, because all other things being equal, a one-loss team with a stronger schedule — or at least a schedule that includes more quality/signature wins over highly ranked and/or big-name opponents — will generally finish ahead of a one-loss team with a weaker schedule. And yet, of course, it’s easier to go undefeated against a weaker schedule. So, in BCS championship contention terms, there is delicate balance to be struck between “planning for an undefeated season” and “planning for a one-loss season.”
But here’s the thing. All other things aren’t equal, because Florida plays in the SEC, and the SEC consistently gets special treatment from the sports media and the voters. For this reason, Florida can have its cake and eat it too, avoiding the “inherent tension” mentioned above. Florida can plan for an undefeated season and a one-loss season simultaneously, in a way that teams from any other conference could not do.
What do I mean by “special treatment”? Well, for instance: in other conferences, upset wins (or near wins) by mediocre teams playing top teams are generally seen as a sign of weakness, proof that the upper echelon is weaker than we thought. In the SEC, they’re proof that conference play is incredibly difficult. For example, suppose Washington keeps it close against USC into the fourth quarter next Saturday. Now suppose Kentucky does the same against Florida in two weeks. Is anyone going to cite UW’s performance as proof of the Pac-10’s strength? I think not. Kentucky, on the other hand…
Another, related example: in other conferences, inter-conference cannibalism inevitably causes teams to tumble out of the rankings as the season wears on. In the SEC, it’s like everybody gets one free loss without really taking much of a rankings hit.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, in other conferences, people pay at least some attention to the actual nature of your schedule — for example, a Big 12 North team that didn’t play Texas or Oklahoma, or a Big Ten team that didn’t play Ohio State or Penn State, would have a hard time getting anyone’s attention with just a strong performance in conference play. Not so in the SEC. It’s much like the Big East in basketball this way. In terms of the perceptions game, it doesn’t matter that Florida doesn’t play Ole Miss or Alabama or Auburn. It doesn’t matter than they have almost no tough road games. And — crucially to the present discussion — it doesn’t matter that their nonconference schedule is the most pathetic bulls**t this side of Happy Valley. Simply playing in the SEC is enough to establish the necessary “street cred” to compete in, and probably win, any battle for BCS positioning against a similarly situated opponent.
Notwithstanding Auburn’s experience in 2004, these days, just saying “they went undefeated against an SEC schedule” puts an SEC team almost automatically ahead of any other undefeated team in the country — regardless of how strong or weak the specific schedule in question actually is — and saying “but they had to play an SEC schedule” is an automatic excuse for any single conference loss, putting them at or near the top of the one-loss line. After all, you have to be ready “week in, week out,” because IT’S A WAR!!!
(I mentioned the undefeated Auburn team that lost out to USC and Oklahoma. But things have changed since ’04. BCS title game victories by SEC teams in the last three years have really cemented the pro-SEC bias — never mind that two of those wins came against totally overmatched Ohio State teams, proving little about the actual strength of the victor.)
To see how this allows Florida to dodge the scheduling bullet and have it both ways, imagine the following hypothetical scenario. Florida goes 12-1, losing at LSU but winning the SEC East and avenging their loss to the Tigers in the SEC title game. Meanwhile, Oregon rallies from its loss to Boise State and the Punch Seen ‘Round The World, beats Utah on Saturday, runs rampant through the Pac-10 including an upset of USC, and finishes 11-1. I know, I know, Oregon’s going to be lucky to go 7-5. But just follow along with the thought experiment for me. Florida and Oregon are both one-loss teams at season’s end, competing for that final BCS spot. How would the argument go? Something like this:
“Florida obviously deserves the spot. The Pac-10 sucks. Oregon would be lucky to finish in the top half of an SEC division.”
“Oh yeah? Have you looked at Florida’s schedule? They didn’t play Alabama. They didn’t play Ole Miss. Their nonconference was pathetic. Oregon has the much stronger resume.”
“Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, right. You don’t understand the SEC. Florida only schedules its nonconference that way because the SEC is so strong. There are no off-weeks. Any team can beat you on any given day.”
“You mean like how USC has had national championship runs in recent years interrupted by UCLA, Stanford, and Oregon State — not exactly elite Pac-10 teams? You want to talk about ‘any team on any given day,’ look no further than the Pac-10.”
“Losing to Stanford isn’t proof that the Pac-10 is strong, it’s proof that USC is overrated.”
“But losing to unranked Ole Miss at home last year proves that Florida is awesome?”
“It proves that the SEC is like the NFL! You gotta be ready for every team. Anybody can beat you.”
“You mean like the ACC last year, when 10 of the 12 teams finished with three or four losses? Did that prove the ACC was like the NFL?”
“What are you talking about? The ACC sucks.”
“Fine, whatever, but let’s look at the nonconference schedules again. You do realize that, while Florida was playing Charleston Southern, Troy and Florida International, all at home, Oregon was playing Boise State — AT Boise State — and Purdue and Utah, right? They didn’t play a single cupcake team all year.”
“Washington State and Washington are cupcake teams.”
“So are Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. But let’s talk about the part of the schedule that each team controlled. Charleston Southern isn’t just a cupcake, they’re basically a high school team. Troy and Florida International play in the worst conference in 1-A. If the SEC is so great, why are all its teams’ nonconference games at home against Sun Belt and 1-AA teams?”
“Because, like I said, they can’t afford to schedule a bunch of tough nonconference games, because the SEC is so tough. And besides, we played Florida State too. And we won!”
“Bully for you. You beat a team that was good in the 1990s. At home. But, speaking of that, let’s look at who each team beat. Oregon beat USC, Cal, and Utah. They also beat a UCLA team that beat the SEC’s precious Tennessee, in Knoxville. Who did Florida beat?”
“They beat LSU in the SEC title game, Florida State, Georgia…”
“FSU and Georgia are your second- and third-best wins? Really? What’s your best road win?”
“South Carolina. But you don’t understand how tough all these teams are to play. Going 8-1 against any SEC schedule is a huge accomplishment.”
“So is going 9-0 against the Pac-10.”
“Yeah, right. You beat USC, I give you credit for that. But otherwise, who cares? The Pac-10 sucks.”
And on and on and on. This is a crude example written from a biased perspective, of course, but it’s representative of what a non-SEC team faces when going up against a Florida or another SEC contender. And that is why Florida can get away with its cupcake schedule, yet still be a contender if it loses a game somewhere in there.
A team from another conference, with the possible exception of the Big 12 South, could never get away with paying the Gators’ schedule, and yet remain in the mix if they lose a game. Just look at Penn State, which somehow has an even worse schedule than Florida’s. They have to go undefeated to be in the mix, and everybody knows it — no way does PSU get into the title game with one loss, unless they’re the last team left standing in a 2007-like season where every other BCS team loses 2+ games. And even then, they might lose out to a Mountain West team or even Boise State. Yet Florida, with a similar schedule, is at the top of the pecking order. Ugh.
So Jazz is right: Florida’s scheduling is indeed rational. The reason it’s rational, though, is not just because of the structure of the BCS, but also because of the perceptions game and pro-SEC bias. And for this reason, it is also rational for people to yell and scream about how bad the Gators’ schedule is — because such yelling and screaming might alter those perceptions just enough to let somebody else, who played a real schedule, have a shot if Florida falters.
Not long after I posted the referenced comment, I realized that I wasn’t terribly clear in saying that Florida “plans” for an undefeated season (which, as you said, everyone does). What I meant to say was, if Florida intends to finish each year a national champion, they need to think ‘undefeated’ to control their own destiny.
They can get there without being undefeated, as they have two of the past three years. However, a loss leaves them (somewhat) at the mercy of the pecking order. Take another look at this now-famous quote from Tebow after the Ole Miss loss. Focus particularly on the last half of the quote. He’s talking about the pecking order. He’s making a plea for Florida’s spot in the pecking order. Worked, didn’t it?
Assuming the Tebows of the world would prefer not to beg for their place in the pecking order (though the SEC fans seem to do it all the time!), the way to avoid that is to ensure you go undefeated. They can’t scrub LSU from their schedule. But they sure can get rid of any challenging non-conference foe.
One other thing about your Oregon scenario: I also argued that the BCS has become way more subjective in the past few years, as voters “knew” what was right more than the computers “knew”. As a result, polls dominate and biases rule. Sorry to say this to any left coasters reading this, but basically everyone east of the Mississippi is pretty sure that the Pac-10, ex-USC, sucks. We can’t explain why we feel this way, but having banished the computers from the BCS process, we pretty much don’t have to.
In a way, the fact that the Eastern US, where the majority of the subjective voters reside, thinks the Pac-10 sucks, is yet another strong argument for a playoff. Heck, Tebow’s thinly-veiled plea for Florida’s spot in the pecking order after the Ole Miss disaster, hidden behind some mumbo-jumbo about “were gunna try harder than anyone has ever!” is one of the best arguments you’ll find for a playoff.
Just to clarify the insinuation that Tebow was really talking about the pecking order, go back and watch the last 90 seconds of that video, and replace whatever Tebow said about blah blah blah we’re gonna be the hardest workers with:
“You will perceive us to be better than one-loss USC or undefeated Utah. You will perceive us to be better than one-loss USC or undefeated Utah. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.” Not that much of a stretch, yes?
Particularly considering that USC had suffered their likely only loss a mere two days earlier.
This is one of the few things where a playoff won’t help, really.
Your argument, and it is correct, is that Florida doesn’t schedule tough nonconference games (or even semi-tough nonconference games; why not a Texas A&M or an Arizona State?) because they don’t have to; they’re in the BCS championship if they win all of their games but one, so why jeopardize it by playing someone who could win if the planets align?
If there is an 8-team playoff, though, Florida still would schedule cupcakes for the same reason — they want an at-large bid if someone bites them in the SEC Championship.
No, the only way to get a Florida to actually play decent teams is to punish them for not doing so. The only way to do that is to develop a ranking system that only takes into account whom you play, and beat, rather than the opinions of a bunch of hormone-infatuated schoolboys who all want to have s-e-x with the SEC.
Though I think you may get your wish in a few years. Didn’t USC used to have a creampuff first few games? And now they play the likes of Ohio State annually? Because they know that they have to in order to make the discussion if they don’t run the table. Sooner or later, the rest of the world will catch Florida the way they caught USC, and Florida may be in a spot where they’re fighting for #2 instead of #1.
I’m torn on this question of whether Florida would still go cupcake to ensure an at-large playoff birth if they lose the SEC Championship.
First, I assume that the 6 (5?) major conference champions would automatically get 6 of the 8 spots in an 8-team playoff. The undefeated Boise State/BYU/Utah/Hawaii would also need a way in. This leaves about 1 spot per year for a major conference team that didn’t win their championship.
Of course, in the era of ‘OMG the SEC is WAR’ that last at-large team will disproportionately often be the loser of the SEC championship game. I’d like to believe that we could leave a measly at-large berth in an 8-team pool to the computers, but even that is surely asking too much from rabid irrational fans.
Its hard to prove, of course, but my hunch is that Florida stops scheduling the cupcakes in the playoff world. This is based on my perception of how Florida sees themselves getting to the national championship. In today’s world Florida wants no part of the USC-type teams early because a loss puts them in a tight spot wrt the pecking order. An early-season loss to USC with a playoff has no effect on the road through the SEC championship that Florida likely has in mind when the season begins. I can see where a team would schedule cupcakes to keep their BCS road alive, circa-2009, and keep their self-respect (sort of). Scheduling cupcakes to keep that one at-large berth in play is a little harder to justify.
IOW, for Mike’s argument to hold up, programs such as Florida would have to plan/schedule to keep the “back door open” for the championship. Teams no doubt take championships that they got to through the backdoor. Would they schedule that way? My guess is no, but I am not 100% certain.
Regarding the number of teams in the playoff, it should really be an automatic berth for each of the Big Five conferences, plus one for the winner of a Big East champion vs. Mountain West champion play-in game on Championship Saturday, plus the highest-ranked champion of the other four conferences (with the conferences in each of those slots/categories to be re-evaulated via some formula every few years), plus one at-large team, or perhaps two at-large teams who then get to play each other in a play-in bowl of some sort. And don’t count on “the loser of the SEC championship game” getting an at-large bid very often, unless the rankings are purely computer-driven as you suggest — teams that lose at season’s end, even in the SEC, always take a tumble. It would be more likely to be an SEC or Big 12 team that didn’t win its division, such as Georgia in 2007, Texas in 2008, or one of the SEC West troika (Alabama/Ole Miss/LSU) this year.
Better yet… all 11 conference champions gets automatic berths, but only the top three ranked champs get byes into the round of 8. The other eight champions have to play each other in a mid-December play-in round, with the four winners advancing to the round of 8. The final spot is the winner of a 4-team play-in round among the four at-large teams.
Or you could just have a simple 16-team playoff. 🙂
Here’s how I’d set up an 8-team playoff: The five winners of the Pac-10, Big-12, Big-10, ACC, and SEC automatically get bids. The 6th slot automatically goes to the highest ranked team outside of those 5 conferences, with the 7th and 8th slots being whatever the two highest ranked remaining teams are, though they can’t come from the same conference. Those 8 teams are seeded according to the rankings, and the first round would be held at the top four seeds home fields. All these rankings would be similar to the current BCS, though I’d put more weight on the computers.
This creates incentive for the power teams to put together tough non-conference schedules, as losing a non-conference game wouldn’t take them out of the playoffs, but a strong non-conference schedule becomes a backup for a lost conference title, plus generally getting home games to start the playoffs. It doesn’t quite solve this year’s issue with Florida, but I think this extreme of a case is a true outlier.
Or journalists could show a little backbone and start calling Florida on their bullshit scheduling. Simplest solution yet. Unlikely, but simple.
Or journalists could show a little backbone and start calling Florida on their bullshit scheduling.
Cue Stewart Mandel:
And this is why I love Stewart Mandel. 🙂
So Brendan at #5 makes a pretty good point; namely, that the loser of a conference championship is a less likely at-large team than a one-loss team that failed to win their division. In Florida’s case, this likely would mean losing the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party (though not necessarily this year).
Having recently argued that Florida would disregard the sole at-large berth, the ‘second-place scenario’ made me reconsider – if Florida is not playing on semifinal Saturday, it seemed they might want to bolster their case, to avoid the possibility of being forgotten. This initially made me think that they would prefer a USC-type game to Charleston Southern.
Because beating USC is more impressive than Charleston Southern, right? If Florida is favored by 70 over Charleston Southern and the USC game is a pick-’em, there’s roughly the same probability that Florida beats USC by two touchdowns as beats Charleston 105-3. Surely its better to beat USC by two touchdowns, right? That’s the road to make your team seem ’07-Patriots-ish, right?
Wrong. That’s the problem. David and many others hate this, though its sad and true. 105-3 is its own reward. If you’ve even seen Sports Center more than once, you know this is true. In your mind’s eye, you can see John Buccigross doing his irony nerd cool thing describing the game, you can imagine fans drooling over all those long touchdowns and big plays, you can envision Buccigross showing the Charleston field goal, because…equal time…all in all, that’s a solid 90 seconds of ESPN highlight reel, the kind of thing that doubtlessly convinces non-reflective fans that Florida is teh awesome! A two touchdown win over USC, lacking great highlight reel material, is quickly forgotten, in spite of its importance and impressiveness.
Therefore, Mike Marchand is right earlier in this thread, if there are any playoff spots contingent on human subjectivity, Florida will go the cupcake road. Its a no-lose situation for them (consider: even if Florida experienced a worst-case scenario against Charleston Southern, winning 38-10, fans would assume
1) Urb took out his starters
2) Charleston Southern had some lucky plays, and
3) Charleston Southern doesn’t interest me enough to confirm or deny.)
The answer is a playoff either with no at-large teams or at-large teams that are entirely formula-driven. Otherwise we will eventually devolve to Florida playing actual high school teams. If we live long enough, we’ll see a game between the mighty Gators and the Tallahassee 7-8 Peewee league runners-up.
Go Peewees!