Georgia head coach Kirby Smart might have earned a first-round bye, but he doesn't think that others did fairly.
Speaking after his team secured a first-round bye as one of the four highest-ranked conference champions, Smart turned his attention to the seeding process and called out what he perceives as flaws in the structure.
His comments suggest that Arizona State, the No. 4 seed, and Boise State, the No. 3 seed, may not deserve their positions.
“No doubt, seed the field and let the byes fall where they may,” Smart said during a post-game appearance on ESPN. “To say that all these conferences are equal is unjust and unfair. That’s not the case at all. You need to seed it. They don’t do that in the NCAA Basketball Tournament or any other tournament I’ve been around.”
Smart’s frustration stems from the CFP granting automatic byes to the top four conference champions, regardless of their national ranking. Arizona State and Boise State both earned their seeds through conference championships but weren’t ranked among the top four teams in the nation by the selection committee.
This system allowed them to bypass the first round, leaving higher-ranked teams like Penn State and Texas to play an additional game.
“It makes no sense, in terms of guaranteed byes,” Smart continued. “If one team earns the right to be in a seed, they should have an advantage by doing that. There’s not really a great advantage the way it was done, and I think it’s something they’ll have to look at in the future.”
Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, and Arizona State are the four teams with byes through the first-round.
Some fans are saying that they believe the College Football Playoff should do away with automatic berths altogether. If that's the case, we'd be one step closer to the SEC and Big Ten essentially splitting off from the rest of the country and forming their own league, because there would be no diversity — even when it's warranted — with the committee already using logos to help dictate much of its rankings.
Georgia awaits the winner of Notre Dame and Indiana for a matchup in the Sugar Bowl with a trip to the semifinals on the line.