Maladroit

the venn diagram of life series twitter and jesse winker twitter has one person in the middle and that person is me

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

- poaches the Big 12's two best teams, nearly destroying the conference
- fifth-best team gets a playoff spot over the more deserving second-best team in the Big 12
- "dude the Big 12 has taken so much from us trust me bro"

are we fr

[David Ubben @davidubben]

The SEC's coaches have issues with the Big 12.

Plus, Sankey plays referee, killing sports, regrets over 9 SEC games and the newest battleground for the Big Ten-SEC rivalry.

What @ralphDrussoATH, @SethWEmerson and I heard at SEC meetings:

Free story: https://t.co/FSkswRpSF5

[Oklahoma Softball @OU_Softball]

Final | Mississippi State 6, Oklahoma 0

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@DanWolken Particularly funny because part of those ratings was neutral fans watching for the schadenfreude of Bama getting blown out and missing the playoff. And then they got a spot anyway, because SEC.

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@LordOfTardaria ten of the other eleven teams on ND's 2027 schedule are in the P4 and the other non-P4 is their rivalry game with Navy

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@AriWasserman Allowing your decisions to be influenced by personal opinions and bias is NOT what being a judge is about. Being a judge is about *opens list of recent Supreme Court decisions*

uh oh

*Frantically starts flipping through pages*

uh oh. oh no. no no no. uh oh

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@TheHerdBros > They’d have more at stake playing for a bye

There are four byes in the 12-team format. Byes that these teams would've missed out on 10 times in the 21 seasons listed.

Those byes go to eight with the larger format. The same teams would've gotten 20 byes in those 21 seasons.

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@caydenmc Interesting that Oklahoma (last postseason win: 2021; last major bowl win: 2020) gets the benefit of the doubt that they could've deserved a spot in other years.

And Tulane (beat playoff-caliber USC in the Cotton Bowl in 2022) doesn't?

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

"Top-quintile outcome" is a wild way to decide who makes the playoff. It'd be wild even in the much more permissive pro leagues.

A top-quintile outcome for the Browns over the last 30 years is going 8-9. That doesn't mean we design the playoff to make sure 8-9 gets you in.

[Bud Elliott @BudElliott3]

For a lot of programs, 9-3 or 8-4 is not mediocrity. It is a top-quintile outcome. It is a season fans remember. It is a season that gets a coach an extension, wakes up donors, helps recruiting, and makes people believe the program is moving.

In the old bowl ecosystem, those seasons had somewhere to go.

The Citrus Bowl, Gator Bowl, Holiday Bowl, Alamo Bowl, Sun Bowl, Liberty Bowl, Outback Bowl, Peach Bowl, Music City Bowl, Las Vegas Bowl, Pinstripe Bowl, and a bunch of others could mean different things to different programs. They were not all equal, and they were not all national-title-adjacent. But they gave teams a postseason reward that fit the scale of what that program had accomplished.

That is what the playoff era damaged.

The sport did not merely create a better championship mechanism. It centralized almost all postseason meaning into one event. ESPN, as the CFP’s exclusive rights holder, helped build and promote that hierarchy. ESPN and the CFP extended their exclusive relationship through the 2031-32 season, including rights to the playoff games, selection show, weekly rankings shows, and related programming. That is not just broadcasting the sport. That is defining the sport’s value system.

So when people say, “Why is Team 19 making the playoff better than Team 19 going to the Citrus Bowl?” the answer is: because there was a time when the Citrus Bowl carried real status. So did a lot of other bowls, depending on the program. But the sport spent a decade telling everyone that anything outside the CFP is meaningless. The meaning moved.

And once the meaning moves, the access point has to move with it.

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@ChrisGordy Why are we giving the SEC credit for a marquee OOC matchup between two teams that went 7-6 last year?

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@podoffame Could've played defense.

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@BudElliott3 The harm came from the committee, not the number, IMO.

If anything, the committee made bad choices on purpose to help plant the idea that playoff expansion had to happen, as if there wasn't room for teams like '17 UCF and '23 FSU when there obviously was.

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@CJVogel_OTF LSU hasn't finished in the top ten once this decade btw

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@handlewin @dubsinfive @TexasTechFB You invented the concept of having a color?

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

both of these teams went from preseason top ten to 7-6 last season

[On3 @On3]

NEW: College GameDay is set to go to Baton Rouge for LSU vs. Clemson in Week 1, @PeteNakos reports📍

https://t.co/hIuryVsMzT

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@CoachCoog "surely Houston and Iowa State would still get the benefit of the doubt over Iowa and Tennessee if those rankings decided the final CFP spots"

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@OmarRashonBorja "Make an incredibly prestigious bowl game that you have a good chance at winning" and "lose in the second or third round of a five-round playoff" are not the same stakes.

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@CSG_MSU @Madisox43 This is the fault of the committee, not the format.

Arguably, the committee made obviously wrong choices like that to convince people that the playoff needed further expansion, and still does.

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

this is like if the best oracle in the land prophesied you would become king but as part of a triumvirate with your two most hated enemies

[Ari Wasserman @AriWasserman]

Steve Palazzolo's model has really good early indicators for Texas Tech (with or without Sorsby), Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State.

Last year, No. 1 and No. 2 in his preseason model? Indiana and Miami.

[Preston Guy @PGuy77]

In a 24-team playoff, both these teams are comfortably in, with a bye. This game means nothing.

In 2013, it’s widely regarded as one of the most dramatic football games of all time.

[Maladroit @PrestonPack]

@Clowfb 20 straight, actually.