This week at a spring practice presser, LSU Head Coach Lane Kiffin was asked a question about preparing his team for a nine game SEC schedule that was adopted this season by the conference. While demurring at first, he responded in a way that was thoughtful, well-put, and absolutely correct…and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey should pay attention.
"“I'm not going to complain about it. I was very outspoken in meetings with the commissioner, with presidents, athletic directors. In my opinion that was not a good idea until the system of how they selected teams was fixed — until there were automatic bids, until it was truly fixed that strength of schedule matters how it should, much more like basketball does. Until that's fixed, it made zero sense to me to go add another hard game, put teams on the road five times in this conference, which top-to-bottom is the hardest conference to play and the hardest stadiums. But we did.”"Lane Kiffin
The SEC was bullied into adding a ninth conference game by the other conference commissioners, and was sold a bill of goods about “strength of schedule” being a more seriously considered data point in playoff selections. At the same time, the SEC maintained its scheduling requirement that every team schedule at least one Power 4 opponent or Notre Dame. There is no such requirement in the mighty Big 10.
As a result of that lack of requirement, Indiana’s out-of-conference schedule in 2025 consisted of Old Dominion, Kennesaw State, and Indiana State, and 2026 will feature the juggernaut of North Texas, Howard, and Western Kentucky. That is not the same as LSU playing Clemson, Texas playing Ohio State, or even Mississippi State playing Arizona State, fresh off a playoff appearance.
Kiffin also pointed out that traveling in the SEC is not comparable to other conferences. That is also very true. Try taking those cowbells in Starkville, Mississippi, or the incessant rooster crow in Columbia, South Carolina on a Saturday night. Compare that to, say…West Lafayette, Indiana, or Piscataway, New Jersey at “Big Noon”.
ESPN’s College Football Power Index for 2025 showed 10 SEC teams in the Top 18 in Strength of Schedule. For one conference to absorb 56% of the nation’s toughest schedules, and THEN decide to add another level of difficulty is asinine and something Greg Sankey should fix immediately. He should absolutely refuse to agree to ANY playoff expansion until some measure of comparable scheduling is achieved across all Power 4 conferences. Instead of losing the P4 requirement, have EVERY conference sign on to it, and force more reliance on strength of schedule and strength of record in seeding. Otherwise you are running uphill in chasing playoff appearances for your teams when the only metric that seems to outweigh all others is number of losses.
As Kiffin pointed out later, “10-2 is in, 9-3 is out”. The playoff selection committee is simply counting regular season losses. There is little to no consideration of the road the teams traveled to get there.
Even the proposed expansion of the playoff to 16, with the 4 auto bids for the Big 10 and SEC (as Kiffin mentioned), is a hollow victory. SEC teams will still be ranked below those with easier roads and more shiny records and be forced to travel in early rounds or miss out on byes.
Greg Sankey MUST protect his product. And if the Big 10 wants true recognition as the premiere conference, it must prove it by eliminating some of these embarrassing schedules with a P4 requirement.
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