Another Offseason Thread - What if playoffs

[Volumnus 2011]

The playoffs are on their way, so it got me curious of something. What would a playoff had looked like if we had had it throughout the SEC's run of playing in the 'ship. So I looked to see what seeds 1-4 would have looked like according to BCS standings in the last ranking before bowl games are played. I then seeded the teams and ran a simulator on whatifsports.com. I ran each game five times and took the average score of each team to determine a winner. Here's what I found.


2013

1 FSU
4 Michigan State

Sparta? This.Is.Winston! FSU Advances, 25.2 to 22.2

2 Auburn
3 Alabama

Iron Bowl Proves to Be a Fluke, the Red Wave Drowns Tigers, 49.8 to 26

1 FSU
3 Alabama

Saban Needed 39.3 Points to Defeat FSU, Falls Short, 39.2 to 26


2012

1 Notre Dame
4 Oregon

Touchdown Jesus Enjoys Duck at Last Supper, 28 to 26

2 Alabama
3 Florida

Student Stays the Student, Master (Saban) Defeats Former Pupil (Muschamp), 26.2 to 10

1 Notre Dame
2 Alabama

BCS got this one right, and they played, so I didn't simulate.

Alabama wins 42-14


2011

1 LSU
4 Stanford

Better to Have Two Quarterbacks than Have Luck, LSU Moves On, 23.4 to 18.2

2 Alabama
3 Oklahoma State

Elephants Trample Cowboys, 36.6 to 34.4

1 LSU
2 Alabama

BCS got this one right, and they played, so I didn't simulate.

Alabama wins 21-0


2010

1 Auburn
4 Stanford

The Cardinal Pecks War Eagle to Death, 35.4 to 25.4

2 Oregon
3 TCU

Ducks Eat Horned Frogs, 34.4 to 22.5

2 Oregon
4 Stanford

Ducks over Luck, 34.2 to 33.2


2009

1 Alabama
4 TCU

Texas Christian Succumbs to Satan, 30.8 to 28.8

2 Texas
3 Cincinnati

So Lame the Arm of Colt, Cinci Rolls 32 to 26.4

1 Alabama
3 Cincinnati

Alabama wins big :sick: 42.2 to 23.2.


2008

1 Oklahoma
4 Alabama

Saban Stopped by Stoops and Sooners :loco: 36-24.4

2 Florida
3 Texas

The Good Tim Giveth, Taketh Away Texas Title Hopes 38.8-26.2

BCS got this one right, and they played, so I didn't simulate.

Florida wins 24-14


2007

1 Ohio State
4 Oklahoma

Bradford Pairs with Iglesius and Johnson. Wins 34.2 to 20

2 LSU
3 Virginia Tech

Beamer Bawls, Tigers Steal Semifinal 19-16

2 LSU
4 Oklahoma

Stoops Troopers Do More against Les, Win 34.2 to 20


2006


1 Ohio State
4 LSU

Les Bested by the Vest 29 to 23.8

2 Michigan
3 Florida

Urban Denier, Michigan Earns Rematch with Bucks with 18.8 to 18.6 Win

1 Ohio State
2 Michigan

Michigan Michi"can". Wolverines Bust Buckeyes 21.2 to 21.




So there you go. As an added bonus, I took all the champions from the past eight years and threw them in a bracket. However, three of the 4 teams that made it into the second round were Alabama teams, so I quit simulating. Sorry.

This took a lot of work, and I know a lot of you won't appreciate it, but it's an off season thread for discussion. Which of the last 16 championship teams do you think was the best? Which of these playoff matchups would you have liked to have seen?

Happy Off-Seasoning Vol Fans!!

 

[Pin High]

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[volfanCLT]

Great read and very interesting. Appreciate the work you put into this.

 

[OrangeWayOfLife]

Was butch head coach at cincy in 09?

 

[Volumnus 2011]

Was butch head coach at cincy in 09?

Think that was Kelly's last year.

Edit: That was Kelly's last year. I remember they went to the Sugar Bowl. Kelly got hired and didn't coach against Florida and Cinci got blown out.

 

[Volumnus 2011]

What a shame this got moved where hardly anyone will see it. I literally spent about two and a half hours on this.

 

[Pin High]

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[Volumnus 2011]

Can you explain it in a little more detail? Maybe it's just me, but it's so long that it's hard to understand. Explain 2013 & I should be able to figure out the others. Hate to see your hard work go un-noticed.

At the end of the season, the BCS released its standings which revealed the two participants for the national championship game. I took the top 4 teams in those standings and simulated a playoff to see how it would have turned out. There's a website called whatifsports.com that allows you to put any team since 1996 against each other. So I put Florida State up against Michigan State. I let them play five times and took the average score from those five games. The higher score determined the winner. Then I put Auburn and Alabama against each other. I let them play 5 times and used the same method. Alabama beat Auburn and Florida State beat Michigan State. So Florida State would have played Alabama this year had there been a playoff. All of this is according to a simulator of course, as there's no way of knowing what actually would have happened.

The simulator had FSU defeating Alabama, so if you trust the simulator, then the best team probably won the championship last night.

 

[Volumnus 2011]

Can you explain it in a little more detail? Maybe it's just me, but it's so long that it's hard to understand. Explain 2013 & I should be able to figure out the others. Hate to see your hard work go un-noticed.

OK re-looked at it & have a better understanding. Did you do the 98 BCS to see if TN would have won on paper too?

I haven't done that, but it would be easy to. I may run through that and see if we would have beaten Florida State if Weinke had played.

 

[RockyTop411]

Well man I appreciate this kinda stuff. It's fun to read. Thanks for your hard work.

 

[Volumnus 2011]

Well man I appreciate this kinda stuff. It's fun to read. Thanks for your hard work.

I'm really disappointed it that it got moved. I wanted a big discussion on this. Oh well. But yeah, I enjoy reading stuff like this too, so I just went ahead and did it.

 

[RockyTop411]

A lot of people come in this forum, just not as many as the FF. It can strike a debate.

I'm curious to see how much it would change going from 5 times to 100. Such as a coin flip, it may land tails 5 times in a row, but it could switch up. I don't expect anyone to do that 100 times, it's just food for thought.

Also, your avatar is from the best comedy movie of all time. Only true fans of that movie can truly enjoy this song.

New Age Girl - Dead Eye Dick W/ Lyrics - YouTube

 

[Volumnus 2011]

A lot of people come in this forum, just not as many as the FF. It can strike a debate.

I'm curious to see how much it would change going from 5 times to 100. Such as a coin flip, it may land tails 5 times in a row, but it could switch up. I don't expect anyone to do that 100 times, it's just food for thought.

Also, your avatar is from the best comedy movie of all time. Only true fans of that movie can truly enjoy this song.

New Age Girl - Dead Eye Dick W/ Lyrics - YouTube

Honestly, I felt like the simulation should have been run at least 10 times. But I did eight years and that would have been 240 simulations. I did 120 simulations anyway and it took me almost three hours. But based on what I saw, five more simulations honestly might have changed the results some.

And I can't wait for the new Dumb and Dumber. Such a classic, quotable movie.

 

[Vercingetorix]

I'm really disappointed it that it got moved. I wanted a big discussion on this. Oh well. But yeah, I enjoy reading stuff like this too, so I just went ahead and did it.

You will probably not get as large a discussion as you would have out in the FF, but you will almost certainly get a better discussion. Signal-to-noise ratio is far higher in here.

(I'm not the one who moved it BTW.)

 

[Volumnus 2011]

You will probably not get as large a discussion as you would have out in the FF, but you will almost certainly get a better discussion. Signal-to-noise ratio is far higher in here.

(I'm not the one who moved it BTW.)

I'm cool with it being moved. It's not my site, and I can come here for free, I just wanted the FF people to see it. But you're probably right about the discussion.

 

[Vercingetorix]

1998 would have been a really interesting test case for our playoff committee. Tennessee would have been the #1 seed, of course, thanks to being the only undefeated major-conference team. But vying for the other three slots:

11-1 Florida State, ACC champs
11-1 Ohio State, co-Big Ten champs
11-1 Wisconsin, co-Big Ten champs
11-1 Kansas State, loser in a double-OT Big 12 championship game
11-1 UCLA, Pac 10 champs
11-0 Tulane

I assume they sort through that and come up with Tennessee, Ohio State, Florida State, and UCLA in some order. Kansas State was really good but would have been screwed for losing the CG. Wisconsin loses the beauty contest to OSU (they didn't play head to head). And Tulane is out in the cold of course.

 

[Other_Guy]

I was in favor before, but not anymore. It won't solve anything. The BCS gets it right most of the time, #5 will complain instead of #3 and people will be stuck with more SEC vs SEC Championships hehe.

 

[Volumnus 2011]

I was in favor before, but not anymore. It won't solve anything. The BCS gets it right most of the time, #5 will complain instead of #3 and people will be stuck with more SEC vs SEC Championships hehe.

I think the selection committee will get political and two SEC teams will never make the playoff together, that is why I don't like it. I'd much rather they kept the BCS formula to figure out the top 4 teams and seeding.