By Chris Marler
There has never been less of a need for a nine game SEC football schedule than there is today.
No need to do a double-take. You read that correctly.
There’s a lot of disdain towards the SEC after the most recent CFP rankings release. In particualr, the venom is being fired from Bloomington where the Indiana Hoosiers are trying to defend the 106th ranked strength of schedule.
To be fair, there’s a lot of disdain towards the SEC every season. That’s what happens when you win 16 of the last 18 national titles, have the most draft picks for two straight decades, and have fanbases that doesn’t know the difference between their/they’re/there, it tends to rub people the wrong way.
One of the biggest gripes about the conference is their refusal to conform to a nine game conference schedule. There is no reason to change the conference scheduling model. Again, you’ve won 16 of the last 18 national titles. Who cares what someone in Ann Arbor or Columbus thinks about it?
Regardless, the future of SEC scheduling might be determined by what happens behind closed doors in a suburban Dallas hotel ballroom. The College Football Playoff committee has released three rankings so far this season, and each week it seems that we know less than before about what criteria they deem important.
The one thing that has been consistently devalued is strength of schedule. The old saying “actions speak louder than words” couldn’t be more applicable to how the committee has weighed schedule difficulty.
All of these rankings, arguments, eye tests and evaluations are clearly subjective. But, the message they’ve sent to teams like Tennessee, Georgia, Indiana, and Penn State couldn’t be more clear: don’t bother with a challenging schedule, because you won’t be rewarded for it.
Greg Sankey has always seemingly been one step ahead of everything–outside of officiating–as the commissioner of the SEC. Playing a ninth leage game guarantees half the league another loss.
Besides money, there’s never been a valid reason for the SEC to play nine conference games. Shout into the void all you want, but playing Mercer instead of Purdue feels like an even tradeoff. That being said, if three weeks from now an SEC contender like Tennessee, Alabama, or Texas gets left out because of a feel good story from Bloomington–who played 11 games against the Little Giants–gets in over the Longhorns, the response is simple.
There’s no need to make the road to the playoff and a shot at the national title even more difficult by adding another game. That’s not being stubborn. That’s making a business decision based on the lesson the committee is teaching everyone right now. No good deed, or top 25 win, goes unpunished.
