Klatt and Cowherd debate the playoff standings value of the MSU game

Beat Maryland

Excuse my French, but fuck that shit. Any neutral observer that actually watched that game could see that Michigan was/is the better team. That misses sack fumble TD call alone decided that game. 

So we "lose" on the road by that exact margin AND a home game equates to at least a FG and you still think MSU is better? Michigan wins that game going away in Ann Arbor. 

What a terrible take, and even worse post.

I guess some people like to look for things to argue about, but in a couple weeks this question won't amount to a hill of beans. With all of the matches coming up -- Michigan State vs Ohio State, Michigan State vs Penn State, Michigan vs Ohio State, things will shake out, and the pecking order could become quite clear. If Michigan ends up with fewer losses than MSU -- or vice versa -- it'll then be clear who should be ranked higher. Likewise, probably, if one of them wins the Big 10 East or the whole conference. If they both lose another game it's a moot point because neither would sniff the playoff.

So why don't we all chill and enjoy the end of the season?

Michigan is the better overall team than Michigan State.  Full stop.  This is why team A is ahead of team B.  I think most everyone outside of East Lansing realizes this.

Michigan State has a better running back than Michigan can offer, all due respect to Hassan Haskins.  But it's probably true.  And that's about it for the green and white.

On a neutral field, Michigan beats Michigan State 8 times out of 10 and I am not coloring that with maize glasses.  Michigan is simply the better overall team.

This is really just academic since this whole question will play itself out on the field. But just dealing with the question of at this point, who should be ranked higher Michigan or Michigan State, I really did not like Klatt's answer.

He at first dismisses Cowherd's other factors argument and then talks about the Purdue game as a trap or let down game for Michigan State. 

Michigan State was coming off a bye week and was playing at home. Michigan was coming in from a tough road game in Madison, followed by a tough night game in Lincoln and then a home game against Northwestern. 

Michigan went into East Lansing and dominated that game and then lost. You can always talk about officiating where should the officials have called a pass interference or a holding call but in this case, the strip sack fumble touchdown coming off the board and the second 2-point conversion where Reed did not possess the ball to the ground and as a scoring play SHOULD have been reviewed is a swing total of at least 6 points which probably did affect the outcome of the game. [In counting the strip sack fumble, I took the 9 play, 54 yard drive field goal off the board just figuring that with 1:31 remaining for the half and MSU starting on their 25, that Michigan probably doesn't get to drive for that field goal.]

So you have Michigan going on the road to face a rival have some quirky officiating and Michigan barely loses but let's count head to head. But Michigan State the next week had to go on the road and got caught in a trap game because they blew their load the previous week. 

Normally, I prefer the head to head match up but in this case I really think that when you look at the whole picture, you rank Michigan higher because they are the better team. That doesn't erase a bad loss for Michigan to Michigan State but if we are just stacking everyone up and ranking everyone as to who is better, it's Michigan then Michigan State. 

For the CFP committee, as they stated years ago, their mandate is to find the four BEST TEAMS. Not best records. This isn't anything new. 

The standard should be "which team would you be more scared to face: UM or MSU?

Answer is obvious. 

The controversy is really misplaced dissatisfaction with a system that only has four teams in the playoffs. 

Lots of arguing and hypotheticals that are all for nothing. The rankings are such that they don’t matter a single bit, and the committee knows that it will work out in the wash. Whatever team wins out is in. They could flip the rankings and it wouldn’t matter. We all know OSU is in the drivers seat and the favorite so Sparty and us are fighting for second or better. 

Is their anything more idiotic and bigger waste of time, energy and oxygen than the weekly FBS rankings?  Who cares???  Doesn't mean a damn thing until the last one.  Don't like your ranking or think you should be ranked higher because of a head to head or strength of schedule, STFU!!! MEANS NOTHING RIGHT NOW.  Tucker was whining this week, instead of wasting 2% of your time being a pissy little bitch, use the other 98% to figure out how to beat OSU.  Do that and you can change the narrative.  All this does is provide ESPN an hour of programming and chance for their parade of losers to get more air time on other shitty shows like Get Up, Steven A and SC. That's you HERBIE!!!!!

"But still,'' my ass. 

What Klatt is asserting has never been the case.  Never.  Here's another Michigan-related example:

In 2007, Michigan beats Florida in the Citrus Bowl 41-35 in a game that was only that close because Michigan was -4 in turnovers, including a Hart fumble inside the Florida 5.  Michigan trailed for less than 7 minutes of the game while leading for about 43 minutes of it.  Both teams ended the season at 9-4.

At the end of the season, Michigan was ranked #19.  Florida was ranked #13.  Why?  Because Michigan had lost to Appalachian State and gotten obliterated at home by Oregon to start the season.  Michigan was Florida's worst loss of the season by final ranking.

If you want to argue that Michigan should have ended the season ranked ahead of Florida based on head-to-head, I understand.  However, Michigan lost to both Wisconsin and Oregon that year.  Both teams ended the season at 9-4 as well, and Oregon absolutely obliterated Michigan in the Big House.  Both teams also ended the season ranked behind Michigan (Wisconsin #24 and Oregon #23).  Shouldn't they (and especially Oregon) get moved ahead of Michigan? 

The problem, obviously, is who each team lost to.  Michigan's loss to App St. trumped its victory over Florida, who had no bad losses.  Though they rose at one point to the #2 ranking, Oregon lost three games to teams that ended the season unranked (Arizona was not even bowl-eligible) and the fourth at home to the eventual #25. Wisconsin's win over Michigan was tainted by the fact that Henne and Hart were unable to play, and they had a loss to an unranked team (PSU) as well, plus they lost in the Outback Bowl as Michigan was winning the Citrus. Based on resumes, those rankings are quite defensible. 

Does 2021 Michigan have a better resume than MSU?  Well, Michigan has road wins against now-#19 Wisconsin (by a lot) and Penn State against a close loss on the road to a top 10 team.  MSU has a close home win over Michigan and....nothing else of note, against a sizeable loss to unranked Purdue.  Maybe if MSU had beaten another team with a winning record apart from Michigan and Western Kentucky, you can make the argument that they have a better resume, but I would argue that Michigan's win over Wisconsin alone is a more impressive win than Sparty's over Michigan, and Michigan can add that they have a better second-best win while Sparty has a much worse loss.  I don't think the resumes are that close, actually.

I agree but they lost to Purdue...and Purdue isn't great...at all. My question would be where does head to head end? MSU was ranked above Michigan before their Purdue loss regardless that we all saw UM was better. Two undefeated teams and the winner pulls ahead of the loser...but then that winner lost to a bad team the next week. 

The question I have is where or when does "head to head" end? What if msu lost the next two games after UM? They still beat UM so shouldn't they still be ranked higher?

They way I look at it is msu had a black and white objective thing that made them drop...the purdue loss. The committee is doing their job by ranking the best teams and the BIG standings and how that plays out is dictated 100% by play on the field. Right now MSU is higher than UM in the BIG rankings because only W's and L's matter. As the committee goes W's and L's are part of the equation but not the only part. 

For the record I actually agree with some of the reason msu should be higher but I also can't get over that purdue loss and seems like a logical reason to bump them back while michigan kept winning. 

This is really a false debate, I would be just fine if Michigan were behind MSU due to head to head.  If MSU wins out regardless of the rank today, they will be in the CFP over Michigan as the B1G Champion even if Michigan wins out.  There might be an argument for 2 B1G teams at that point, but that seems highly unlikely.

Conversely, if MSU loses and Michigan wins out, they will get in.  It all comes down to who wins the B1G.  

The rankings are there to generate controversy and debate. 

It's a challenging question, if only because Michigan dominated during most of the game, was the recipient of some of the worst officiating I've ever seen, some of which actually took points off the board, and where Michigan still probably would have won but for a freshman fumble.  But on the other hand, Michigan State delivered a gritty performance, we were unable late in the game to stop their best playmaker, and fumbles count.  If I were the committee, I'd give Michigan State the edge based on the head-to-head result, whatever asterisks it might have.  This to me seems fairer (games do count!), and we're going to know more about both teams very shortly.  

The Committee was clear they felt Michigan is a more complete team in every facet of the game as well as discussion of the outcome of the game and effect of officiating and the final outcome.  

Also discussed Michigan played on the road largely dominated the game against an agreed upon top ten team and had a late loss fueled in part by lack of officiating.  

Msu lost on the road and were dominated by an unranked opponent.  It was obvious they were dominated.  They couldn't handle success and a week later outclassed by a lesser passing game on the road  Which led the question, msu plays at Michigan how would they have been dominated throughout with home field advantage which would have eliminated a lot of officiating bias.that happened on key calls.

I’ve never fully understood the Klatt/NateVolk logic. Two top 10 teams play. Team A wins. They then lose to a doormat. Team B lost to a top 10 team, Team A lost to a doormat. Team A wants to be ranked ahead of Team B. They trumpet the head to head win as conclusive proof they should be ahead. How is their doormat loss not prohibitive of their claim to be the better team? Feel free to argue against me. 
 

The above is a general example not specific to this year’s UM/MSU debate. This happens frequently, and the debate is usually the same. 
 

And yes, this year, I do find the officiating to be a factor (though not the only one) in the debate, in part because the erroneous officiating was acknowledged and because the score was close. Usually there isn’t such a strong mitigating factor. 

Has anyone considered that the CFP committee might be playing the long game? 
 

what if their goal in keeping UM over MSU is to show how much better (and easier their job would be) if the playoff was expanded to 8-12 teams? 

I don't really care which team is ahead of whom at this point. There's legitimate arguments for both. Whether people like it or not, H2H is not a specific deciding factor on these rankings because most these teams don't even play head to head. So an entire resume must be judged, which yes weighs H2H but also weighs things like the "eye test", strength of schedule, advanced stats, etc. So the committee sees Michigan have a bunch of high rankings in advanced stats, coupled with a schedule featuring tough road wins at Wisconsin, Nebraska, and now Penn State, as well as a tough very close loss @MSU in which they looked pretty good but made some unlucky mistakes and got screwed by refs a few too many times....and they have to weigh that against an MSU team that has one win that is, sure, better than any of Michigans. But a bunch of wins that are much less impressive after that (their second best win is...@Miami? Nebraska at home in which they gained no first downs in the 2nd half?). And a far worse loss to an unranked Purdue team, in which the scoreboard doesn't truly reflect how lopsided the game was. 

HOWEVER, what is insane is to have Michigan ahead in the same poll that Oregon is head of OSU. If we were to look at the two resumes, OSU has a far superior resume to Oregon despite the early season loss. To me the difference is not even close. On top of that, their H2H was much much much  earlier in the year, which most people would agree that early season losses are more forgiveable than late season losses. So the problem with the committee is it isn't consistent with itself, and factors that seem to matter for one school don't seem to matter for another. MSU fans are upset and I don't blame them.