We knew it wouldn't be long before SEC commissioner Greg Sankey would begin his politicking to cram as many teams inside the 12-team College Football Playoff as possible.
And, right on cue, he obliged.
Sure enough, following the latest CFP rankings release earlier this week, Sankey wasted no time posting a graph on X highlighting strength-of-schedule data that conveniently supports his argument.
"Interesting to read analysis from others as they examine “strength of schedule” in college football…it does seem there is a trend to be identified…," Sankey posted.
Interesting to read analysis from others as they examine “strength of schedule” in college football…it does seem there is a trend to be identified… pic.twitter.com/pXSfxRMxvL
— Greg Sankey (@GregSankey) November 21, 2024
His post wasn’t subtle—it pointed out how SEC teams dominate the top of the strength-of-schedule rankings. Of course, this came right after Georgia, sitting at No. 10 in the College Football Playoff rankings, found itself behind undefeated teams like Indiana and one-loss teams like Notre Dame and Miami, whose schedule ranks significantly lower.
Sankey’s implication is clear: The committee isn’t valuing the SEC enough, and he wants to make sure they do.
But here’s the thing: strength of schedule is only one piece of the puzzle. Should a two-loss team from the SEC leapfrog undefeated or one-loss teams from other conferences just because the SEC says its teams play tougher opponents? The argument comes up every single year and, yet, more times than not, we find that there are some elite teams at the top of the SEC and there are some mediocre teams down at the bottom of the conference, just like every single conference in the country.
Are we saying that the SEC shouldn't have the lionshare of teams inside the College Football Playoff? Of course not. But, Sankey is already beginning to advocate to get a fifth, or even sixth team, in the field because of "strength of schedule." Sorry, but that's not enough, or at least it shouldn't be.
The problem with "strength of schedule?" It's based on metrics that are set by humans. Humans believe that a team like Missouri deserves to be ranked. Based on what? Well, they're in the SEC.
Missouri continuing to be ranked bolsters the strength of schedule for a team like Alabama. Ask yourself this: If you take the SEC patch off of Missouri's jersey and have the same team with the same resume, are they ranked? Likely not.
Sankey’s push to frame the SEC as the underappreciated hero of college football feels like a hard sell. His conference already dominates the sport’s narrative, often sending multiple teams to the playoff even before the expanded 12-team format. Yet here we are again, with Sankey essentially campaigning for a system that skews even further in the SEC’s favor.
The SEC is going to get four teams into the College Football Playoff, and those teams all likely deserve to be there. But, to sit there and say that the No. 5 team in the SEC deserves to be in more than the No. 2 team in the ACC or Big 12, or a one-loss Indiana or Notre Dame, based on a metric that is already propagated to help the SEC through preseason narratives is just ludicrous.
If you're not good enough to finish in the top-four of your conference, then you're not good enough to win the national championship.
And before you say, "we know that this SEC team would beat this lowly Big 12 or ACC team," think about how many times they've been wrong over the years.
The 2018 Alabama team was supposedly unstoppable and "the best team in college football history." They got blasted 44-16 by a Clemson team from the ACC.
Just last season, we were being told how the SEC deserved to have its one-loss Alabama team in over an undefeated Florida State. How did that fare for the conference when they had two teams in the semifinals? The last time I checked, neither of them made it to the national championship as Bama lost to Michigan and Texas lost to Washington.
The point? There's more parity in college football now than ever before.
The SEC is still the most dominant conference in the country and they'll get their fair share of bids, but stop this nonsense that no other teams outside of the SEC could win games in the conference, or that the conference is somehow deserving to have three-loss teams make the field because "they played a tough schedule."