Missouri /arkansas Thread

[Al Agnew]

We can pontificate all we want about who's a top ten team, how good the SEC west is and how bad the east is, or whatever. It doesn't amount to a hill of beans, and neither does the subjective opinion of the committee--except that they have all the power. Mizzou beat a bunch of "weak" east teams and a couple of "mediocre" west teams, yet one of those mediocre teams came within a point of beating mighty Alabama and shut out two other West powerhouses immediately before losing to Mizzou, and the only SEC team that beat Mizzou got waxed by one of those "weak" East teams that Mizzou waxed. Also, most of those teams that Mizzou had to beat to win the East were supposedly hot at the time...in fact, of the SEC teams Mizzou beat, their record for the game immediately before the Mizzou game and the game immediately after the Mizzou game was a combined 10-5, so it wasn't like Mizzou caught them all on a decline.

And the committee is even worse. One of the members, when asked about Mizzou after this latest ranking, said that among 10-2 teams, they equated Mizzou as closer to a Boise State than an Arizona. REALLY??? Never mind that, of all power conference divisions, the computers rank the SEC East as the third strongest, behind the West and Pac 12 South, while Boise State doesn't even play in a power conference. The Indiana game apparently totally wrecked any regard anybody would have for Mizzou...yet Ohio State lost to a nobody early in their season and they are still very much in the play-off picture.

There is such a thing as a team improving and coming together during a season, to where they are far better at the end than they were in the early going. The committee even recognizes that with Ohio State, yet apparently completely ignores it with Mzzou.

Not only as a Mizzou fan, I'm hoping that Mizzou beats Alabama so that it puts the committee into a difficult spot and shows what stupidity it all is. WINS should mean the most, because the scoreboard is what it is. And wins late in the season in must win games should mean the most of all. And not only Mizzou, I hope all four of the top teams get beat. Let's throw a huge monkey wrench in this thing. Putting TCU ahead of Baylor is a travesty...Baylor had more points than TCU on the scoreboard, where it should count the most.

Instead, the committee is talking about things like "eye tests" and controlling the game. How pretty you win is apparently more important than winning. I'm pretty sure that from now on all the coaches will be telling their players in the locker room that "we gotta make sure we control the game and win pretty". The committee said earlier in the year that conference championships would really matter a lot, but now that there's a chance that some of those "pretty, game-controlling" teams might actually lose their conference championship and some never even made it to the conference championship, that's gone by the way-side.

Maybe Mizzou will get blown out by Bama and none of this will matter in the end. But if they pull out a win, then they will be the champions of the allegedly strongest conference in the land, and as such there's no way they shouldn't be in a play-off. The scoreboard doesn't lie, and head-to-head is still the only way to tell who's the better team at the time. You think that the NFL would keep a team out of the play-offs if that team lost to the Rams early in the season but went on went on to win their conference?

[ozark trout fisher]

Does Mizzou get in as a 2 loss SEC champ?

No. Sitting at #16, I don't think even nuclear-level chaos could get us in at this point. I think the only SEC team with any shot in the event of an Alabama loss is......still Alabama. And only then if several top teams lose.

I agree with Al about the Baylor/TCU thing. Who cares about "game control"? No one knew that term existed until a few weeks ago when Jeff Long all of a sudden not only decided it was a thing, but the main thing we would be using to decide if teams play for a national championship.

I don't care whether a team wins all of their games 63-0 or if it's always 10-7. A win is a win, a loss is a loss. End of story. They should look at the quality of a team's schedule, who they beat, and who they lost to. That's it. All this garbage about "watching them play" and the "eye test" to decide who's better is just that: garbage. We're missing the forest for the trees here: it should only matter whether you win a game, not whether you look pretty doing it.

Even with all of that, I don't contend that Missouri should be in the serious playoff discussion. That loss to IU was just so bad. Even compared to the next-worse loss by a contending team (Ohio State to V. Tech) it's way worse because they missed a bowl game and didn't win a conference game until literally the last one of the season. The only thing that irks me is that Georgia stays ahead of us. I know they beat us by a million, but they have three losses, two of them "bad losses" and choked up a sure divisional title by getting trucked by a Florida team that otherwise wouldn't have made a bowl game. They have a lot more talent than Missouri, but I don't get why they're rewarded for being so inconsistent, especially late in the year.

Whatever, though. Beat 'bama, get to the Orange Bowl. All of that's still out there, and completely under this team's control. If there is any Mizzou fan that wouldn't be beyond thrilled with that, I don't know what to tell them.

[Quillback]

I'd love to see Mizzou make the final 4 with a win over Bama, and I think they would deserve it as SEC champ. But I agree with you all that it probably won't happen. It will be very interesting to see what the committee does if Mizzou wins. I think there is pretty much general agreement among the college FB analysts that the SEC is the strongest conference in the nation, if Mizzou wins, it will be interesting to see how they can finagle an SEC team into the final 4. It's funny how this four team playoff which was supposed to lessen the controversy seems to be creating even more.

[Feathers and Fins]

4 Team playoff is a joke there is right now 8 teams I can see with an argument to be in a playoff seat.

Bama

Missouri

Miss st

Georgia

TCU

Baylor

Ohio St

and this pains me but Louisville

All those teams have played difficult schedules and could make a case for deserving a chance to play for a shot.

[Al Agnew]

I naively thought when it was first proposed that the four team play-off would work better than the old system, because USUALLY it's fairly easy to pick two or three teams that are simply better than the rest, and then throw in a fourth team who is probably going to lose to whoever it plays in the semi-finals. But not this year, and this year simply shows that any system that relies upon subjective judgements by whoever is doomed to fail more than not. The only objective way to do this is to make conference championships be the play-in games and go to an 8 team play-off. Force the Big 12 to have 12 teams, two divisions, and a conference championship like the others. Conference champions of the power five are automatically in, and the computers pick the other three, based upon strength of schedule, head to heads, and simple wins and losses.

[Wayne SW/MO]

They problem, IMO, is still the human intervention. There is no way that anyone actively involved in football has the time to adequately evaluate every eligable team. The computer can look at strength of schedule for all the teams in seconds.

To be really accurate the computer should probably do the picking and allow one game to be thrown out as long as it's in the first half of the season. You would then likely get a team that was truly a champion at the time of play.

This new format has been a joke. They keep knocking FSU back because of close games while ignoring close games by other teams.

[Feathers and Fins]

There is now way in Hades I would ever want a computer to pick who should or should not be in a playoff. Computers though they may be impartial and emotionless are not the solution.

Only true way to do it is to create 8 conferences and let them fight it out.. Take the computer, the polls, the speculation everything out of it and let them fight for it.

[stlfisher]

I agree with all of you. This committee is absurd. While I don't think Mizzou should be in the top ten they should be higher than 16 IMO. A win over Alabama would probably be the best win that anybody has.

I am not sure I have ever heard more negative/disrespectful reporting on a college team than Mizzou has received this year. I am not saying we are great team or even a playoff team, but we are pretty much dismissed by every media outlet. The SEC East is ranked as the third toughest division in football behind only the PAC 12 south and the SEC West.. If it is FL or TN....you wouldn't hear anything about the East being down.

I really really hope we can find a way to win, but regardless of the result, this team is going to come out fired up. With Mauk's improving shoulder I think we might see a more aggressive offense....I think they turn him loose earlier instead of waiting until the 4th quarter.

[Wayne SW/MO]

There is now way in Hades I would ever want a computer to pick who should or should not be in a playoff. Computers though they may be impartial and emotionless are not the solution.

Only true way to do it is to create 8 conferences and let them fight it out.. Take the computer, the polls, the speculation everything out of it and let them fight for it.

But you still have to pick 8 and if you 16 you still have to pick 16. I belive there were 128 teams at the start of the season and now 4 have to be picked. The computer can do something that humans can't and that is look at all the teams quickly and compare competition. Yes they are emotionless and impartial, both of which have no place in the final say. It would be easy enough to overcome the one disadvantage it has, and that is a major change in a teams structure. I could see OSU or FSU being downgraded if they lost their QB's very late. Even that is iffy for humans to evaluate.

As for Missouri, they didn't have the competition to get a higher ranking. All but one of the SEC teams they played have 5 losses, the only major non-SEC team they played beat them, and the ranked SEC team they played annilated them. They are good, but they have to be considered a big underdog against 'Bama.

[Feathers and Fins]

Wayne it is very simple to do without the use of a computer. We have a working model for it right now, this is how it would work, as Arkansas is Western and Missouri is Eastern I will use them

Each team would play 3 teams in their division twice and 3other teams in their division once and 3 other teams from the conference once.

Arkansas would play ………………………………………………………….Missouri would play

Week 1- LSU ………………………………………………………………….. Georgia

Week 2 - Tamu ………………………………………………………………. Tenn

Week 3 - Alabama …………………………………………………………. South Carolina

Week 4 - Miss St…………………………………………………………….. Florida

Week 5 - Georgia…………………………………………………………… Tamu

Week 6 - South Carolina……………………………………………….. Alabama

Week 7 - Ole Piss ………………………………………………………….. Vandy

Week 8 - Auburn …………………………………………………………. Kentucky

Week 9 – Miss st …………………………………………………………. Florida

Week 10 – Alabama ……………………………………………………. South Carolina

Week 11 – Tamu ………………………………………………………… Tenn

Week 12 – LSU ………………………………………………………….. Georgia

Week 13- Best team by wins goes to the SEC CHAMPIONSHIP. If there is a tie then Team with most yards gained pass/rush combined. If there is still a tie then team with most points scored during season. NO Stupid polls or computers. Best two teams Play in Championship and no more Atlanta it is played at the higher ranked schools stadium AKA Home field advantage. This should also be how the 8 team playoff would be done.

Week 14 – SEC v ACC Round 1 of Playoffs

Week 15 – SEC plays Pac12 winner

Week 16 – NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.

Now I understand much realignment would have to be done as there are 128 current teams. That would force each Conference to go to 16 teams each. It would put it at 14 games regular season, 15 would be Division Championship, and week 16 would be playoff round 1. Week 17 would be round 2 of playoffs. Weak 18 would be off week. Week 19 or 20 depending how new-year fell would be the National Championship.

So 20 weeks starting 1^st weekend closest to September1st, Week 20 or National Championship to be played New Years Day 7pm Eastern time. Game to be played in an NFL Stadium to be moved each year.

We play currently 14 games to get to the NC game now 15 including it. A true playoff every game means something would only put it at ONE MORE GAME for 16. It takes Committees, Polls, Computers, Psychics, Martians, Klingons and the Mighty Starfleet out of it and would even be Yoda Approved I suspect.