OT: Notre Dame declines bowl bid

[ScottVib]

How do Louisville, NC State & Clemson who were two games worse in conference get in over Duke in any tiebreaker, let alone North Carolina who was 2-6 tied for 13th?

 

[spsct]

Well Tom, I did look up the ACC tiebreaker rules and here's the ridiculous reality: Had the ACC used any other Power Conference’s tie-breaking system the league would have sent a different participant to the title game than Duke. Here's who would have played Virginia had the ACC been using the tie breaking systems of the other conferences. (interestingly each of the other conference tiebreak systems would have created a different opponent for Virginia--perhaps a reason for tie breaking to use a uniform system) Under the SEC's tie breaking system Virginias opponent would have been Louisville, Big Ten's--North Carolina, Big 12's--NC State, even the old Pac-12's — Clemson. In every one of those alternate formats, whoever won the ACC Championship game would be the ACC champion--and Virginia --or any of those four others would have outranked James Madison and officially taken the auto-bid-- and Notre Dame would have punched its ticket as an at-large. Happiness was that close!
The truth is simple:
Everything that happened was downstream from that single, avoidable, debacle caused by the ACC's convoluted tie-break fiasco. Now, all of the ensuing (and I say dangerous) national debate over whether the G5 should ever have any access to the CFP, never mind all of the vitriol and fury surrounding the Notre Dame snub--all the criticism and hand-wringing about the CFP format design — all of it--was triggered not by the playoff system or the committee, but by the ACC's idiotic tie/breaker which ended up choosing the one team the system could not process cleanly.
The CFP didn’t blow it.
The ACC did.

How does that work? None of those schools were 6-2. Those would be Duke, Miami, Pitt, SMU, and Georgia Tech.

 

[ScottVib]

At its core the ACC tiebreaker that ruled the day was simply among the tied team whose opponents had the best record. That was Duke; they benefitted from a schedule with more of the 4-4 teams (which they beat) and fewer of the bottom dwellers. In fact, they had the best opponents record with some margin. This is a pretty common feature of conference tiebreakers:

Under the SEC & Big Ten tiebreaker, it still would've been Duke (they both uses the same fourth-tier tiebreaker as the ACC; conference opponent winning percentage). The problem that the ACC had was simply too many tied teams that it caused there to be no opponent that showed up on all four team's schedules.

SEC Tiebreakers
Big Ten Tiebreakers

I'm sure they'll change to use the College Football Playoff rankings as the tiebreaker, much as conferences did when the BCS was the system of record.

 

[Patman]

Miami didn’t receive special treatment. They’re a full member of the ACC while ND is an associate member. The conference chose to advocate for the full member rather than the team that’s a member when it suits them

they got special treatment, despite being quite numerically worse they were put into the college football playoff. I still think the real one that has been getting worked over is BYU.

 

[HuskyNan]

Oh, dear

 

[Patman]

Let me say that I dont think ND deserves preferential access. The whole thing is a clownshow

 

[Waquoit]

As much as I don't like ND, I'd agree to a home-and-home with them.

 

[DW1361]

As much as I don't like ND, I'd agree to a home-and-home with them.

Ya, ND may agree to that, but I would make sure we got the home game first because I wouldn’t trust them to honor the commitment to come to the Rent.

 

[freescooter]

I haven't looked up the tiebreaker rules the ACC has in place but the idea that Duke was one of the top two teams when those rules were applied doesn't seem to make sense. I would have believed that someone would have needed to devise the criteria after the fact to get them in the top two.

That is entirely on the ACC and in all candor, it would have served them right if they were locked out of the CFP this year.

There were a couple things the CFP could have done in advance of all of this, but they intentionally did not as a) they knew it would have been a very bad look (even though it would have been exactly how they think) and b) they never considered the possibility of it being necessary.

They could have given each of the P-4 automatic bids. They didn't because with their rule of five highest ranked conference champs, they believed the P-4 would always be 80% of the top five. Leaving the language as they did allowed them to claim they were giving G level schools a fair chance at qualifying (even though they really weren't).

They could have capped G level champions at one spot in the field. Again, they never thought this could be necessary and they didn't want it said that they were intentionally preventing schools from access.

I would like anyone who believes Notre Dame was cheated to tell me how they would have felt if everything with Miami and ND (record, strength of schedule, performance week by week) were flipped (and ND had the head to head win) yet with that, Miami had been selected, what would your reaction have been? Would you have then said the committee got it right? Would you then complain about head to head results?

I think this is largely posturing. If the committee had skipped over a Big 12 team to take Miami the B12 commissioner would be yelling just as loud. If Alabama had been skipped over for Miami, you think Sankey would be saying “they need to try harder next yesr.” If so, call me about some beautiful swampland in Florida. I actually think that Miami was selected to prevent the ACC from being embarrassed and to insure they got at least some payment out of the deal. The committee had a tough choice. It had to shut out 1 of the 2 most popular media darlings. And Sankey is more powerful than Bevalaqua.

 

[WiseWillie]

Well, have we exhausted the ND novella or is there more to say? This definitely has to be considered one of the hottest topics on the Boneyard in a while. I was all in for ND being screwed then there were lot of comments saying they deserved to be left out and I could agree with that. Then a lot said they disrespected all their fans and I thought that's !00% right. Guess in the end put me outside looking in and thinking it's happened before although maybe not ND but other teams and it will happen again because the CFP isn't perfect and there will always be disagreement with sour grapes by the fans and the teams left out. But that's what makes it interesting. So comment on.

 

[NHUConnfan]

I mean, I hate to state the obvious, but I think the reason why this was one of the hottest topics here is because it's the perfect example of how bad the state of college football and conference realignment is now. This is about way more than ND rejecting a bowl bid now.

 

[BRS24]

Last one (maybe) ... an oldie but repurposed goodie

 

[BRS24]

(maybe)

 

[giddyup]

The simple fact that ND gets preferential treatment is an insult to the basic notion of a level playing field and fair competition. Is there a single adult left any with any respect for the game?

 

[HuskyNan]

Lol

 

[giddyup]

Lol

Zero self awareness. Just doubling down on their arrogance and entitlement.

 

[BigTenFan]

Glad a Hoosier won!

 

[BlueandOG]

As much as I don't like ND, I'd agree to a home-and-home with them.

Independents need to help each other! I'm with you.

 

[freescooter]

Oh, dear

Yeah. Like any AD is not going to want his team to play probably the biggest name in college football. I’ll believe it when I see it. Most of them would lick the yellow line along the road to South Bend to get on the ND schedule.