SEC football gets harangued for an eight-game conference schedule and FCS foes, but it’s the ideal formula to reach the College Football Playoff.
The ACC and SEC both play eight conference opponents each season. That’s drawn ire from college football fans outside of the south, citing the unfair advantage gained by playing “easier” schedules. The SEC has been noticeably profiled for its inclusion of FCS opponents in lieu of another league game. Not only does Alabama not play Georgia every season, they’ll host the Citadel or Chattanooga.
That contrasts significantly with the Big 12, Pac-12 and Big Ten, all of which play nine-game conference schedules. Every offseason pressure is put on the SEC and the ACC to schedule a ninth league game and cut ties with FCS opponents. The idea of more marquee games during the year seems like a slam dunk, but the path to the College Football Playoff becomes almost exponentially more challenging.
Since the Playoff began in 2014 every conference champion from a conference with eight regular season conference games has made the College Football Playoff. Both the ACC and SEC Champion have been included all four times. The Big Ten was the most recent to adopt the ninth game in 2016. Since then neither champion, Penn State in 2016 or Ohio State in 2017, made the College Football Playoff. The Big Ten Champion reached the Playoff in 2014 and 2015, both years before the conference added their ninth conference game.
For those keeping score at home,10 of 10 champions of conferences with eight-game schedules have made the Playoff. Four of 10 champions of nine-game conference schedules have qualified. This isn’t rocket science. The point of schedule makers isn’t to build a “fair” schedule. No, their goal should be to set their team up to make the Playoff.
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FCS games might not draw eyeballs, but they’ve help keep SEC and the ACC atop the college football landscape. Unless there’s mandate from the NCAA, neither conference is going to change their scheduling processes any time soon.