Number of losses is still the most distinguishing metric, and as long as you’ve played well against a Power 5-lookin’ schedule, your SOS isn’t a big worry. Getting big games in Week 3 is great for fans and the bottom lines of athletic departments and broadcast companies!īut the CFP’s main relation with SOS seems to be as a benchmark, rather than an obvious differentiator. The initial committee made a branding to-do about every game mattering, and it seemed to encourage teams to schedule tough non-conference games. There’s also little evidence SOS is quite as big a factor in the Playoff era as the committee would have us believe. Imagine if a 24-team FBS Playoff gave an autobid to the C-USA champ, but not to a team that only lost to Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, and the Miami Dolphins. * If you think top-level SOS arguments are cutthroat and granular, you should listen to some FCS or DIII fans on their Selection Sundays. The only point of it, in the popular discourse, is to excuse your favorite team’s losses, discount all the wins of the team that ranks ahead of you, and apply a Bravery Bonus to all of your conference’s achievements.
It fires up around mid-October and dies once everyone quietly notices all its conclusions just led to the Randomized Bowl Game Results Generator anyway, and then we repeat it all the next season.
So we then turn to the argument that cannot possibly ever die: SCHEDULE MANLINESS and the LUCK INHERENT in the TEAMS YOU SIGNED CONTRACTS WITH EIGHT YEARS AGO happening to BE GOOD RIGHT NOW.
Everyone realizes this is dumb as soon as some smartass strings together a series that shows Alabama losing to a team that lost to a team that lost to an NAIA team. Having no on-field way to directly compare all 130 of these teams, the argument about rankings first turns to transitive victories. Whoops! Shit! Meanwhile, FBS teams are being ranked anyway*, and in rankings that matter. Once you figure out which SOS argument you want to have, and once you’ve looked at a handful of solid metrics, then you’re prepared to yell online.Įvery year, college football watchers realize each FBS team has failed to play all 130 other FBS teams within the course of a 12-game season. The SOS part is yet to have a dedicated page at ESPN, but you would like to see it.