movielover said:
Well, the Aggies spanked Sac, but it seems the Big Sky committee has something against them. Ags win the head to head, finish higher in league play, were peaking, and may have the best running back in FCS. Tomorrow will be interesting.
It surely was interesting, wasn't it? A BIG Hornets win in a tough venue to play.
Despite the letdown against UCD, the Hornets are still the superior team and the committee recognized and acknowledged that. It's that simple.
Head-to-head really only comes into play when things are even or relatively close to it. But if one program clearly owns a better seasonal resume than the other, that trumps head-to-head.
I mean, would you really make the argument that the 2-10 Arizona Cardinals are better than the 8-3 Dallas Cowboys simply because the Cardinals happened to win their lone head-to-head contest by 12 points? Nope. Because the overall resume matters a lot more.
In the case of the Hornets, 3 of their 4 losses occurred against teams currently ranked 2, 4, and 5 in the country. And their FBS win over Stanford compensated for their loss to UCD. Also keep in mind that Sac State didn't lose to a single sub-.500 team.
More over, the Hornets have consistently been a top tier FCS team since 2019. Like it or not -- fair or not -- they were rewarded for that consistency and name recognition just as many other perennial top flight programs (e.g., Montana) have been rewarded similarly before them.
While UCD matched the Hornets 7-4 record, they lacked a signature win and TWO of their 4 losses came at the hands of sub-.500 teams (NAU and EW). Remember, the Hornets didn't suffer ONE loss to a sub-.500 team.
Lastly, you also mentioned "finishing higher in league play". Well, your missing some important context there.
First, if things were even -- that might matter. For a league title, that would be a tiebreaker. But for a postseason birth, the committee deciding these things can look a little deeper.
The 8-Big Sky games UCD played weren't of the same quality and difficulty as the Hornets. The Hornets faced ALL 5 of the teams that finished ahead of them and only faced 3 of the bottom 6 teams in the conference.
UCD, meanwhile, didn't have to play Montana State or Idaho and lost by 17 to a NAU team the Hornets beat. Had UCD featured a win over Montana, Montana State or Idaho (teams the Hornets lost to) they'd have a stronger argument. Furthermore, UCD's "slightly" better conference record was bolstered by facing 5 of the bottom 6 teams in the conference.
Be real, had UCD faced MSU and Idaho as the Hornets did (in addition to UM) -- they'd wouldn't have forged a better conference record. It's not an apt or fair comparison. Sac State's conference SOS was much stronger, and their overall SOS was higher.
Again, the Hornets seasonal resume was clearly superior to UCD's and that's why the head-to-head didn't factor in and why the Hornets were selected over them. I'm sure you'll continue try to argue otherwise, but the evidence paints a different picture.