While I generally stay away from talking about college football on this blog, today I'm going to make an exception. That's because I saw something about the new College Football Playoff that debuts next season on ESPN.com the other day, and it was very interesting. The SEC released its conference schedules for the next several years last week, and the conference is drawing plenty of criticism for having each team only play eight conference games when everybody else is playing nine.
A guy from the Pac-12 made perhaps the best point on this topic. The CFP is supposed to look at the teams objectively and determine the best four to place in the two semifinal games. Yet they're not being held to the same standard. Not when you have teams in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 playing nine conference games and SEC teams playing only eight. Those SEC teams are likely all going to have an extra win as a result.
Whether it's justified or not, the SEC has gotten a reputation as the best conference. The SEC teams know this. That's why they don't want to play each other. But, the Pac-12 guy is right. The perspective is going to be skewed. The Big 12 only has 10 teams. They play everybody every year. In the Pac-12, you play nine of the other 11. Yet in the SEC, you only play eight of the other 13 teams. There's no guarantee that the best teams in the SEC will play each other, even with the existence of the conference championship game. And since seven of your opponents are the same every year, it'll take you six years to cycle through everybody in the conference...and you could go more than a decade between home games against a conference team! (Missouri fan #1: "Why are we playing Georgia?" Missouri fan #2: "Because they're in our conference." Missouri fan #1: "Georgia's in our conference!?")
The SEC guys have tried to justify their stance by saying they want to "preserve rivalries" and spewing off this line about the "integrity of the schedule." They also claim it's unfair for half the league to have to play an extra conference road game each season (although that would alternate every year, just like it does in all the leagues that play nine). And then there was that argument about being able to play a non-conference rivalry game late in the season because they don't have that extra conference weekend.
But, let's be honest here. The SEC teams don't want to play an uneven number of conference games because it means half of them would lose a home game. You can't schedule your easy home win against Georgia State (sorry, Georgia State, I needed an example) if you have to play a road game against an SEC team instead. You won't get your thousands (millions?) of dollars in extra revenue, and you might even lose. And the SEC sure doesn't want that. They don't want to have an extra week where the conference is guaranteed to go 7-7. They'd much prefer the 11-3 weeks and having 12 bowl-eligible teams.
In their defense, the SEC did also make a conference rule requiring its teams to play actual BCS schools in non-conference games, instead of loading up on those I-AA home games that they win 70-7. After all, strength of schedule is going to be a big component in the CFP, so they knew they had to do something. The SEC's gotten burned by that in basketball time and again over the past few years. But you know a way for SEC teams to improve their strength of schedule even more? Actually playing SEC teams!
I don't know how the selection process for this College Football Playoff is actually going to work or if it even makes a difference that the SEC is playing one fewer conference game than the other four BCS leagues. But it is a significant enough thing to keep an eye on. If the SEC gets two of the four teams in that thing every year, those questions will become louder. And people, especially those affiliated with or fans of teams in other conferences, will want to know if their teams are having that second conference loss held against them.
Play by the same rules. It seems simple enough. If they're going to compare teams from five different conferences against each other, it would seem to make sense that your sample size should be the same. And if you've got four of those five doing the same thing (playing nine conference games), the fifth should follow their lead.
Unfortunately, the NCAA and the College Football Playoff people can't make the SEC go to a nine-game conference schedule. But they should do it on their own. If you want to continue making this claim that you're the best, prove it. Go beat each other on the field.
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