from:
http://statintelligence.blogspot.comSaturday, November 29, 2008
EVEN I’M GETTING SICK OF THIS TIE BREAKER STUFF
Yes, Texas beat Oklahoma by 10 on a neutral field. It should carry some weight. It should carry a lot of weight. Had there been a two-way tie for first place, it would have carried the appropriate amount of weight.
There wasn’t. There was a three-way tie for first place…and you can’t just throw out Texas Tech because they lost badly in their only loss. That bad loss came to somebody in the three-way tie. How can that NOT be in the mix?!
Mack Brown annunciated the UT position in a phone call with Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit during Saturday Night’s Oklahoma/Oklahoma State telecast. He said that Texas Tech has fallen off the pace in the BCS race, so it should come down to that neutral field win that everyone with a TV set has been reminded about 500 times in the past week. It would have been nice if Brent or Kirk would have said something like…
“Yeah, but coach…it’s not a two-way tie for first place in the Big 12 South, it’s a 3-way tie. And, in those three games…
Oklahoma was plus 34 points
Texas was plus 4 points
And Texas Tech -38 minus”
You see…Texas doesn’t want anyone thinking about that, because the neutral field win gets trumped by the Oklahoma rout of Tech. How can the rout NOT be counted? I understand that Texas was in a horrible schedule spot in Lubbock, playing their fourth tough game in four weeks. Handicappers can account for that. Voters can remember that. But, on the scoreboard, the three-way comparison favors Oklahoma by a good bit, not UT.
YOU’D THINK THE NETWORKS WOULD HAVE FOUND A WAY TO POINT THAT OUT AT SOME TIME DURING THE GAME…OR SOMETIME DURING THE TEXAS A&M/TEXAS GAME THURSDAY NIGHT!
Texas Tech didn’t disappear. They’re still 7-1 in the league and 11-1 for the year. You have to acknowledge that Oklahoma beat them by 44 points.
I’d love for Texas to play in the big game. Why is everyone purposely avoiding the obvious comparisons, while focusing so heavily on only part of the equation? Texas has a right to lobby however they wish. Journalists should be pointing out that it’s lobbying in a way that’s trying to divert you from the reality of the situation. And…that the reality of the situation is Oklahoma +34, Texas +4, Tech -38 in the head-to-head meetings within the three way tie.
Texas surely gets the short end of the stick because they didn’t get to play at home, and they were exhausted when they faced Tech. Them’s the breaks. Texas could easily have lost outright to Oklahoma State but the Cowboys decided to stop running at a dumb time. That was a lucky break for Texas. Oklahoma State lost by 20 at home to OU (would have been 13 had OU taken a knee)…and Okie State lost to Texas Tech by 36. The Horns result vs. the Cowboys looks pretty bad in that light.
Regarding Brent’s constant harping on how BCS rankings end up being the ultimate Big 12 South tie-breaker…I’m sympathetic to his concerns. It does seem dumb to let outside voters determine your divisional champion. On the other hand, the conference wants to give its division winners a chance to play for a national championship (the highest BCS team would get that chance)…the conference would have to come up with a complicated methodology that would probably be close to the BCS computer approach anyway…and farming the process out keeps internal politics from getting involved.
What about Brent’s idea for using point differential amongst all common opponents? I’m against that because it favors teams who play fast break football. It doesn’t really matter in this particular three-way tie because all three do. But, what if a defensive-minded team tied for first that won its games 30-10…while two fast break teams were in the tie off typical wins of 40-13. The extra margins are the result of bullies running up the score in up tempo games rather than actual quality. No reason to reward bullying, or to punish defensive minded teams who dominate the games in their own way.
