Im Gipper said:
How many of those teams with a bye were perceived as the clearly better team?
One. Ohio State this year.
Last year, the bye teams were all dogs! Two were so bad that they changed the rule!
This year? Likely 2-2. The horror!!!
Last year, Oregon and UGa were better than their QF opponents. ASU was, at worst, about even. Oregon was last year's Indiana, though not anywhere near as well coached it now is clear.
This year, only one of this weekend games was actually close -- a rematch game. The team who's coach left them won!
You can argue "clearly better" until you're blue in the face but that isn't the way to look at it. Randomly, football is a funny game. The way to look at it is this:
the 1-4 seeds won during the regular season during both years. Why did they suddenly go 1-7 in their only playoff game?Not .500. Not even .250.