More head-to-head controversies
Texas beat OU 45-35 on Oct. 11, and now it’s the Sooners who are in the Big 12 championship game, thanks to the BCS. That’s not historically unique.
Of course, as has well-documented, the three-way tie of the Big 12 South creates head-to-head issues with every school.
And several times in college football history, the polls have disregarded head-to-head without the nuances of a three-way tie. I’ve already written about Miami-Florida State-Washington in 2000. Miami beat Florida State, but Washington beat Miami. UW lost to Oregon. Miami, FSU and UW all finished 10-1. You would think the pollsters would have it easy in ranking teams behind unbeaten OU: 2. Washington; 3. Miami; 4. Florida State. But no. The pollsters went 2. Miami; 3. Florida State; 4. Washington. The computers jumped Florida State ahead of Miami.
Here are two other seasons in which head-to-head was discounted.
1993:On Nov. 13, No. 2 Notre Dame beat No. 1 Florida State 31-24 in South Bend. So the teams swapped places. The next week, Notre Dame lost at home to No. 17 Boston College 41-39. Florida State went back to No. 1 and Notre Dame fell to fourth.
By the time the bowls arrived, Florida State was still No. 1 and Notre Dame had dropped to fifth, but both were 10-1. In the Orange Bowl, Florida State beat unbeaten Nebraska 18-16. Notre Dame beat Texas A&M 24-21 in the Cotton Bowl.
Final poll: 1. Florida State; 2. Notre Dame.
1978: On Sept. 23, No. 7 Southern Cal beat No. 1 Alabama 24-14 in Tuscaloosa. Bama fell to seventh and USC rose to third.
In October, USC lost to Arizona State 20-7. The Trojans fell back to seventh, Alabama rose to fourth.
OU and Penn State spent most of the rest of the season ranked 1-2, but OU lost 17-14 at Nebraska, and Penn State went to No. 1, followed by Nebraska, Alabama and OU. Then Missouri upset Nebraska.
Alabama beat Penn State 14-7 in the Sugar Bowl and finished 11-1. OU beat Nebraska in an Orange Bowl rematch and finished 11-1. USC beat Michigan 17-10 in the Rose Bowl and finished 11-1.
Final poll: 1. Alabama; 2. USC; 3. Oklahoma.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Being a Sooner fan and living in Austin can be tough. Over the past two years I’ve had good arguments and bad ones with the shorthorn fans. They are very “long” winded with their victory in the rivalry game but have very “short” term memory when it comes to that loss at Tech later in the year. Also a point, they did pull off the close game at home against Okie State by 7!The way Austin is I’m sure there will be enough cheese to go with all of the “whine”! Advice for them: is a tougher non-cnference schedule.Also lose early instead of late and maybe they won’t have such a hard time with the BCS and the next time maybe they won’t come up “short”!
Here is the blog of Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News of your column.
Oklahoma and the high road
12:10 PM Mon, Dec 01, 2008 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Chuck Carlton E-mail News tips
Far be in from me to joust with the Oklahoman’s almost always-on-target Berry Tramel, but I do think his column today on the BCS/Big 12 mess misses the mark.
In the column, the Longhorns come off as shifty Texas wheeler-dealers who almost finagled the poor, proud, honest Joad family off their land and out of the Big 12 title game. Except not really, not the way I remember it.
Bob Stoops had no problems campaigning after that win over Texas Tech, noting Texas and (by implication) Florida in his postgame comments.
“Now we’re in the mix with everybody and, with the way we played, you would think ahead,” Stoops said. “If you can’t move us in front of Texas because they beat us, then you have to keep Texas Tech in front of Texas. If it’s logical for one, it’s logical for the other. If you’re going to forgive other teams with one loss because they’re playing well now, we we’re playing pretty well now too. If it’s logical for someone else it’s logical for us. We’re in it with everybody.”
Not that there is anything wrong with what Stoops did. It’s a free country and coaches are paid seven figures to be CEOs and spokesmen for their programs. He made his point Sunday and Monday, on teleconferences and on ESPN. The problem was that Texas seemed to have the better argument. So on Tuesday, Stoops announced at his news conference he would quit campaigning and got generous press attention.
It worked. Good for him. Good for Oklahoma.
But it was part of a campaign, every bit as much as Mack Brown stating his case well and often or those students with the 45-35 signs.
Everybody had an angle on this one. Everybody was trying to maximize their strengths, affect perception and get their message out. Oklahoma was the hot team; Texas had the big head-to-head win.
One didn’t have better core values than the other. Nor is college football somehow better today (outside of maybe Oklahoma) because the Sooners got the BCS nod.
All the journalist around the nation and the talking heads at ESPN keep dismissing the Horns loss to TT because “they lost in the last second”.
Why doesn’t somebody point out that
First downs UT 18 TT 31
Total Yards UT 374 TT 579
Possession UT 23:07 TT 36:53
Texas never lead until 1:29 left in the game. So Texas had the lead for a whopping 1:28…..
This doesn’t get mentioned.
A DOK readers comment said it best; home-away-nuetra shoud not count for anything, only points (that is what we use to keep socre with isn’t it) and real game stats. Not some Horse S. like he is my pa and I owe him(ala Mack Brown).
Anyway the gist of the comment was this: OU beat ESPN.
In the day when the press chooses who will POTUS, tells us what to wear, infuences Wash DC and add all the drama and and twists and turns, OU beating ESPN is probably the biggest win for OU and College Football.
Eat it Big Media.
Why does everyone always look at in that Texas should be ahead of Oklahoma because they beat them head to head. Why not look at it as who layed the biggest rotten egg loss of the season? Texas’ argument is we beat Oklahoma and our loss to Tech doesn’t matter because they are no good anyway. Tech got blown out at Oklahoma??? That doesn’t make sense. How about the tie breaker being who lost to the team ranked the lowest at the end of the season?? That makes more sense to me… Texas lost to the now disregarded lowest ranked Texas Tech and their argument that Tech is no good due to the blow out against Oklahoma makes them look even worse in my eyes. Oh, but we lost on the last play.. Well if Oklahoma blew them out and they are as bad as your claiming they are, then the game should not have been close enough for them to win on a last second touchdown. Oh and lets forget that Tech lead that game until the last minute. Give me a break!! I don’t see how every one is so shallow minded. Texas should be upset with their performance against Texas Tech period. Nothing but a classless Big Baby Tex riding on the back of Oklahoma’s success, only to jump off at the end of the ride and start claiming they made the trip all on their own. I think its about time to hand Texas back over to Mexico.
Texas beat OU so it should be:
1. Texas
2. OU
3. Tech
But Tech beat Texas, so it should be:
1. Tech
2. Texas
3. OU
But OU beat Tech, so it should be:
1. OU
2. Tech
3. Texas
But Texas beat OU so it should be:
1. Texas
2. OU
3. Tech
But Tech beat Texas, so it should be:
1. Tech
2. Texas
3. OU
But OU beat Tech, so it should be:
1. OU
2. Tech
3. Texas
…
Why is the concept of a THREE way tie so hard to understand? The tie breaking method was voted on and passed by all 12 ADs several years back.
Why the hell is everyone trashing the BCS? The Big XII is the one who picked this as their 5th tie-breaker.
Now that it helps them, Texas wants to change the tie-breaker to 1. margin of victory in a non-UT loss to eliminate Tech
2. margin of victory in a UT loss to eliminate OU
3. bonus points for victory on a neutral field
4. complete disregard of non-conference schedule strength
If the tie-breaker is so unreasonable, why weren’t Mack and Deloss complaining back then???
In the end, I personally lost all sympathy for UT after all of their signs, interviews and airplane banners. OU will play for the Big XII title, possibly its’ 8th National title and Texas can enjoy December off – again.
Here’s what no one is looking at. The computers don’t care when the games are played. If we would have beat TT the first big 12 game of the year, then lost to Texas and then TT beat Texas the last week of the season, OU would be ranked 1st, TT 2nd and Texas 3rd. The computer just looks at who won, not when they won. That is why OU came out on top.
The head to head was not discounted in this situation. The head to head created it. If the head to head were discounted then the OU-Texas game would have decided it. It’s not as complicated as people are making it.
Gil LeBreton is my current hero. Best column yet.
I love all of the above comments….you guys are the best.
What is truly criminal is the politicing and the vote changing. Mack comes off as a class act in so many ways….but when his team is close in any way…he reverts to something confusing at best.
I know it made for good TV….but c’mon. He was on everyone’s halftime show Saturday.
And Musberger: I think he is the best today….but if he mentioned style points one more time……..
I feel for the Texas players…and fans…well, not really. That was pretty low with the plane thing. So everyone gets put in the same boat as far as I am concerned. You all got what you deserved and so did the Sooners.
My biggest issue, and I have a few, is the talking heads. I listen to ESPN radio constantly and it seems that no one can elevate a team faster then these guys and gals. Ohio State, USC, Texas. USC bashes a bad Ohio State crew and all of the sudden they are the best ever. Add Florida to all of this now as well. So they beat up people like the Citadel….and a weak SEC bunch…..whoa, look out for the Gators. Don’t be surprised if Bama beats them.
Just as bad….OU loses their bowl games for a few years and now they are held accountable weekly for it. That was in the past. Let it go. It was different players, a different year. I mean Michigan began the season at # 25. Do you think that was accurate? Different, coach, players…year.
I would rather see rankings begin mid-season, see a play-off, see no sportswriter or coaches polls exclusively. They should be balanced by a non-human factor and true outcomes at all times.
Lastly, Sammy deserves the Heisman. Not Gelding. True, Sam has some great players around him….but so does Gelding. It should be about body of work. The Heisman is given to only one player and for what they have accomplished…not a whole team. That is the National Championship. I am sure ESPN and all of the media will feel bad for ol’ Mack and Gelding and give them a consulation prize for being so neutral /head to head. Should be a new sports term.
Have a great night all!
Go Sooners!
Jeff in Vermont
ps…..Craig…that was great stuff!
If I was a texASS fan, I would be very upset. It’s hard to ignore the head-to-head result. I hope Oklahoma takes advantage of its good fortune and wins its 8th national title. The offense is definitely national championship caliber, but the defense and special teams are not. The Alabama / Florida winner will most likely have the toughest defense Oklahoma has faced all year, and have four weeks to prepare for Sam Bradford and company. Winning the title will not be easy, but it is not suppose to be with the one exception of BYU in 1984.