+1

But no worries, if that would happen, there would be many jump on that.

O$U has not yet played, let alone defeated, the #2, 7, 8 and 9 teams this season. And chances are some/all of these teams won't be ranked that high when they do play (Iowa is not the second best team in the country). O$U has played one decent team so far this year and lost.

I understand the dislike for the local big state school U. As a resident of the state of TN, I don't allow anything orange in my house.

Yet if you look at the Cincinnati Bearcats schedule, other than the win at non-top-10 ranked (today) Notre Dame, who did they play?

(rankings per Real Time RPI)

Fiami 3-4 (ranked #106)
Murray {non D-1} ranked #186
Indiana 2-4 ranked #68
Temple 3-3 ranked #97
UCF 3-3 ranked #91

Three of their next 4 games are against team that are 1-5, ranked between 130-139

So, where is the grousing about the Bearcats being overrated? About their schedule? Or do they get a pass simply by not being on High Street in Columbus?

If you don't see the difference between a G5 school doing everything they can just to get into the Top 10 and a school who's collective arse is routinely kissed by the powers that be in college football even when they lose I'm not sure how I can help you.

Every single fan of a G5 school should be rooting for Cincinnati to make the playoff.

People do this every year at this time. That team isn't unbeaten with a whole bunch of good wins so therefore they are undeserving. But who DOES meet that definition? Georgia sort of does. Early in the season, if you beat a team they don't have a lot of wins to offset it so they drop. Power 5 schedules are usually backloaded. There is nothing about Michigan's schedule that compares unfavorable to most of the other unbeatens. Cincinnati's doesn't compare unfavorably either.

This is again what I was talking about earlier. Its singling out one particular situation as if it exists in a vacuum without evaluating the whole.

Yes, and Olentangy Tech has certainly faced a murders row with the likes of Rutgers, Maryland, Tulsa and the Akron Zippers. That's certainly a schedule by which to proclaim a school a top playoff contender. And, they lost to the one team they've played that had a pulse. Next week they play another toughie in Indiana, but you never know, the Hoosiers do have half a pulse. ;-)

Georgia has wins over the present #15 and #19. Two other teams were ranked when they played them. But that was my point. A team that is unbeaten with wins over TWO ranked teams has FAR AND AWAY the best resume of anyone. But even this isn't a schedule that is mostly ranked opponents. You just aren't going to find that if you look around. Michigan has probably played the third toughest schedule of all of the unbeatens. You can't just put Michigan in a vacuum, open up their schedule, say that it isn't mostly made of ranked opponents, and dismiss their ranking. You have look at everyone and see who has a better resume or else the exercise is meaningless. There is hardly anyone with a better resume than Michigan.

Again, picking out games and isolating them in a vacuum. NIU and Tulsa are approximately equivalent teams. Tulsa hung around most of the game. Michigan beat NIU by 53. Minnesota and Wisconsin are approximately equivalent teams. Minnesota gave OSU a game. Wisconsin was unable to give Michigan a game. Oregon is the best team either team played but Ohio State lost. Yes, I think that if they played OSU would be favored right now because they are playing better than they did at the start of the year. But wins and losses have to matter. They schedule strengths are approximately equal and OSU has taken a loss. Michigan has outscored its opponents by 138 to OSUs 168. Slight edge to OSU. But the one loss against an equivalent schedule is the reason by they are ranked about the same

You might disagree with that. But the Michigan is flawed because of.....argument is meaningless without consideration of how all teams are flawed and you have to acknowledge that OSU's resume has quite a few flaws.

I would contend that the second best resume in terms of beating good teams belongs to the other OSU. But Oklahoma State is flawed too. They haven't crushed anybody yet. Even FCS Missouri St. gave them a pretty decent game.

Cincinnati has beaten ND. But they have also played Murray St, Temple and Fiami. UCF is not a good team this year and Indiana is below .500 which is, in part, due to the schedule the Hoosiers have played. Oklahoma has struggled to win nearly every game. Who, besides Georgia, has a resume much better than Michigan?

This is a likely scenario, especially if O$U beats the Bloomington Behemoths.

Meanwhile two more Top 10 teams go down to unranked teams. As far as I'm concerned if Cincinnati goes 13-0 you can't keep em out. They'll try like hell but the other alternatives are going down like flies week after week.

Cincinnati was ranked 2nd in the AP poll and 3rd the the Coaches Poll. They beat Navy by 7. They moved up to second in both. Oklahoma was ranked 3rd and 2nd and fell to 4th in both after beating Kansas by 12.

I do think there are times when mid-majors get screwed. A good case in point was Coastal Carolina and Louisiana in most of the Committee rankings last year after Louisiana had beaten Iowa St. and had only lost to unbeaten Coastal. They has ISU about 15 spots higher.

But when you play tougher schedule wins are harder to come by so wins count for more and losses hurt less. It has to be that way. For the most part this thread is full of short sighted lines of thinking.