Golden Gophers Proving OOC Schedule is Irrelevant

They won’t beat OSU in the Big championship.

Clemson proving entire schedule irrelevant. 

Beating the non-conference teams hasn't been our biggest issue.

I mean, is this a surprise to you (since the playoff format began)?

Well you want to have those big OOC wins in your back pocket should you trip up somewhere else on the schedule. Can help offset a bad in-conference loss. If you have a weak schedule, you have no margin for error, and one loss likely does you in. 

In other news, Clemson OOC and IC is garbage and look where they are.  So, the OP has a good point.

Minnesota will NOT be in the playoffs. They will lose to Wisconsin and 100% lose to the Buckeyes. I do agree with scheduling for success. Everyone bitches about Clemson playing in a weak ACC and it weak, however, make no mistake in the fact that Clemson can beat OSU and LSU. They can

Psu actually has a home abs home with auburn coming up

This idea is brilliant!

We’ll replace Wisconsin and Penn State with... hmmmm? What’s that?

Oh our losses this year are Big 10 opponents. Last year we lost to Notre Dame but probably go to the playoffs if we beat OSU.

To ever do anything special at Michigan we’re gonna have to slay the Buckeyes.  
 

A good OOC win gives you breathing room for a loss elsewhere.

There's risk and reward.

They are a pretty good team, but not too 10 quality. You are absolutely correct. 

I agree.  The CFP committee puts a ton of weight on the goose egg in the loss column.  But SOS is a talking point and would end up hurting Minny if they are in a battle for the fourth spot with another undefeated team that has a higher SOS.

If we have to schedule MAC teams to get into the CFP, college football is broken.

I'm not a fan of just playing body bag / cream puff / cupcake teams in out of conference games. I also dislike the complete nationalization of football fandom . . . anything short of the CFB playoff is always a failure. Imhe, focus first on beating OSU, second on winning the Big 10. If that happens, everything else will sort itself out.

I would argue part of the reason OOC matters so little is that those games mostly happen to open the season and the CFP board has recency bias when they evaluate teams. It doesn't really matter that X barely beat South Dakota State Technical School for Dream Weavers by a last second field goal in week 2 because they've played well in the conference and look good now. Always better to lose early or get your ugly wins against inferior opponents early when you have time to show improvement and make a better case for getting in.

Say what you want, But i like the bring on all comers attitude. And i like having looking forward to playing teams like Washington, Texas, Oklahoma. 

The only teams scheduling a strong OC schedule would matter for are teams like Clemson. That’s what hurting them right now. With big ten teams, doesn’t matter one bit.

The fact that people look at Minnesota and Baylor being undefeated and behind multiple 1 loss teams and think to themselves "this is why you schedule cupcakes" because Michigan has 2 losses to in conference teams is a new level of stupid.

If this were an independent like ND playing nobodies and getting in, that'd be one thing. Minnesota is part of a (for the most part) well respected conference, they've already got a top 4 win, and to win out would have to beat another prospective playoff team and win their conference. Also they've got Iowa at Kinnick; not that I disagree totally with your premise, and Minnesota does not have a hard schedule comparatively, but if they do win out you can't say they'd be completely undeserving of a CFP spot. 
 

Tl/dr; Minnesota probably isn't the best example.

minnesota was like 17th prior to beating PSU, with a 8-0 record....and that's even with conference wins.

If they had a crossover game with MSU and not PSU, you think they'd still jump to 7th from 17th with that cupcake schedule?

They'll get in IF they go undefeated. Then they'll have beaten PSU, Wisconsin, Iowa and OSU. If they played Clemson's schedule, then I'm not sure they'd get in, even if they went undefeated (but Clemson probably will).

OTOH, Alabama's learning their lesson this year of scheduling 4 complete crap OOC games. They have only a small chance of making the playoffs, even though their own loss may be to the #1 team.

If Michigan finished the season with 1 loss this year, they'd almost certainly be in because they played a very tough conference schedule, and ND.

Been saying this forever.  The committee does not give a rat's ass about strength of schedule.  It's why they have yet to put a two loss team in the playoffs.  We shouldn't be scheduling teams like ND and Washington because our conference schedule is tough enough.

Seems like Bama figured this out. They'll schedule a big kick off game usually (which to their credit they pretty much always win) but outside of that, it is all cupcakes and FCS schools

I'm in favor of a 8 team playoff - all teams get picked. Keeps all regular season games important & SOS as well.

Exactly. That’s why M should only schedule “good” cupcakes. For example, which M B1G winner would you exclude

1) 1 loss Michigan, won the conference championship. Loss was to PSU, beat 3 OOC cupcakes

2) 2 loss Michigan, won the conference championship. Loss to PSU, 2nd loss to Top 20 ND team, beat 2 OOC cupcakes. 

Let’s see where they’re ranked. Up til now it hasn’t done them any favors.

You know when this didn't happen? Before the playoff and conference championship games started.

For me the seasons were more fun in the Bo era: The goal is to win the Big 10 championship, done with a full round-robin schedule, and go to the Rose Bowl. You either do that or you watch from home. No stupid 60 bowl games for 133 teams.

Completely agree. You cannot lose, so why risk it by playing hard opponents when you don't need to. Big 10 is hard enough. Clemson plays nobody all season long--until the playoffs. They never lose and make the playoffs a lot. 

I would go further: leave the big ten and join some cupcake conference. 

Well, that's also why they were ranked #17 despite being undefeated, and not among the top 5-7.

Here's the difference - if LSU loses in the SEC title game there's a real chance they'll still have a shot at the playoffs because they played a reasonably tough conference schedule as well as a marquee OOC game.  Similarly, Wisconsin a couple of years ago wen undefeated against a mediocre schedule, lost a close-ish game to OSU in the title game, and were punted down the bowl order.  You lose any margin of error you might have if you don't go undefeated, and going undefeated during a season is incredibly tough in a conference like the Big 10.  So while I'm not a fan of scheduling both Army and ND during the year, I'd rather play a big-name opponent in the OOC and, if you win that game, have a nice feather in your cap versus hoping you go undefeated and even then sorta rely on voters to look favorably upon you.

The SEC has been doing this for years.  May be time to catch up.

Minnesota is a middling power 5 team so it is not easy for them to get home and home games against elite Power 5 competition. Hence the reason you see them and teams like Purdue playing out of conference road games against Fresno St. and Nevada. Teams like Texas and LSU are not coming to Minneapolis anytime soon.

Gotta win all the conference games to make the playoffs. 
 

We won all of our OOC games so if we could just find a way to win in the big ten it wouldn’t matter if we play an easy or hard OOC. 

I think where having an overly difficult schedule is problematic is if you have two losses, and the committee is comparing that team to one loss teams.  A one loss team with an average schedule is going to be chosen over a team with two losses and a very difficult schedule.  The committee has never put a two loss team in, so why make your schedule so difficult?