Hey dubmasses, you lost three conference games. Your out of conference schedule had nothing to do with it.
ESPN top headline: Bama to rethink schedule
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He knows that. He is telling the committee that their approach was so bad it is going to water down CFP going forward. And that if SOS isnt that important then he is going to make Bamas schedule as easy as possible to the extent he can control it.
Every AD in the conference should be asking Sankey to drop the P4 requirement.
I think the flip side of that shines a light on Conference Championship games. The Committee was open they wouldn’t punish for CG loses, and they didn’t. If they had kicked SMU out, teams might be tempted to opt out of a CG in the future.
Pick your poison, IMO
This is so stupid. Their non conference schedule was weak. There best win outside the SEC was a 5-7 Wisconsin team. Maybe don’t lose to Oklahoma and Vanderbilt!
Hell, just don’t lay a turd at Oklahoma and you’re in. The same can be said for Ole Miss. Losing to Kentucky was the killer.
Reduce all D1 schedules to 10 conference games and no OOC games. Expand playoffs to 24 or 32 teams. Bowl games are all trash now. Might as well have a big playoff field even knowing most have no shot.
How can you reward championship game wins and have no consequences for championship game losses. Either the game matters or it doesn't.
Easy solution is don’t lose THREE 17ING GAMES. Remember when some people said the expanded playoff was going to dilute the regular season and only bring in more teams claiming they got snubbed, here we are.
I agree you shouldn’t get punished for a CG loss. I think the conversation predates the CGs. Should an 11-1 team with an SOS in the 70s and no quality wins be in the top 12? I know it depends on other teams but that’s a tough sell.
Hell, I remember when people said that we couldn’t expand to a 12 game regular season because it would interfere with finals. Lol, finals!
None of this would matter if it weren't Bama. If the debate was SMU vs. South Carolina or Ole Miss, there'd hardly be any discussion.
It's the last spot. Who cares. SEC wasn't all that great this year, and I think we'll probably find that out during the course of the playoffs.
Should Clemson be in? Probably not. But that's just how it goes sometimes. If we didn't have championship games, this wouldn't be an issue.
It's the last spot. Who cares. SEC wasn't all that great this year, and I think we'll probably find that out during the course of the playoffs.
Should Clemson be in? Probably not. But that's just how it goes sometimes. If we didn't have championship games, this wouldn't be an issue.
Yeah, you’re right. No one is debating ole miss vs SMU and ole miss has essentially as good of a resume as bama.
The only case to let bama in is because they are bama and we just all know they are more talented than Boise state or SMU. But if talent is the basis to fill out the playoffs, why even play any games? Bama didn’t earn it on the field and they were rightfully left out.
Where that gets dicey to me is seeding, beyond just Bama. It's how Oregon gets saddled with having to play Tennessee or Ohio State and then one side of the bracket is SMU, Penn State and Boise State. I mean you don't think Penn State is amazed at how they got so lucky?
Texas' reward for getting a 5 seed is......Clemson. Even if flawed, you're getting a toughass fist fight.
Then....you get Skattebo.
They really need to re-think the seeding thing.
But that’s how playoffs work sometimes. Just because you’re the 1 seed doesn’t mean it’s a cakewalk all the way to the championship game. It happens that way all the time in pro sports.
Not like this it doesn't. Byes to Boise and ASU is just ridiculous. When #6 Penn St has the easiest draw in the field, there's something wrong.
Now I will agree that the byes for conference championship game winners are dumb. Just allow them to have a bid and then seed the field from 1-12.
I get where you're coming from, but what we perceive as the easiest draw with our lying eyes often turns out not to be.
But you were right on your pro analogy. Champs from weak conferences often get byes they don't deserve if simply ranked fairly.
It’s a little different in college sports than pro just because the schedules are much more unbalanced due to the conferences. The NFL probably does the best job of trying to balance out the scheduling and now there’s only one team that gets a bye in the playoffs.
They play at Florida State and Wisconsin at home next year, then at West Virginia and Florida State at home the next year, so they might have actually had a harder (or just as hard) OOC this year. To be fair, I don't think anybody saw the cliff FSU was going to fall off when those games were scheduled.
They may want to buy out those Ohio State games in 2027 and 2028 though.
Or that Wisconsin would be 5-7 this year. Too Bama's credit, they try to schedule big time OOC games. And I agree the committee is sending the wrong message on strength of schedule. Just schedule for 10 wins and you're in. No need to knock yourself out playing good teams.
Correct. Regardless of opinion on if you should or shouldn’t be “punished” for a CG loss, the fact is that the CG contracts pre-date the current CFP format and the conference realignment.
Teams can’t just opt out of the CG’s. If they do, they are just going to take the next team and still play the game, because that’s the contractual obligation to ESPN. And that creates risk that the team could steal the spot of the team that opts out.
I think matters for SC, particularly because they beat Clemson, and had no bad losses. Not for OM, because of that Kentucky game.
It brings up an interesting point though. If Ole Miss doesn’t lose to UF, they are in Bama’s exact spot. And they wouldn’t have played in Atlanta. Does 11-2 SMU make it over 10-2 OM in that scenario? In effect what I am asking….was OM truly done just with the LSU loss, and the UF game was just icing on the cake?
That's true too. Wisconsin has been one of the better Big Ten teams for the better part of the last 20 years. This was their worst season since 2001 (we feel you, Wisky, we feel you).
But yeah, if you're a Big Ten or SEC team, your conference schedule is going to carry you into the playoffs if you can keep from losing more than 2 games. Schedule an FCS, 2 entry level G5s, and the lowest P4 you can.
OM should have been truly done with the LSU loss, but then they beat Georgia and I don't think anybody thought ALL of these would have happened over the last 2-3 weeks of the season:
Oklahoma beats Alabama
Auburn beats Texas A&M
Syracuse beats Miami
Kansas beats Colorado
Arizona State beats BYU
South Carolina beats Clemson
Clemson beats SMU
Also, I think anybody wanting to see a 9-game SEC schedule in the future is SOL now. Why would the SEC add a conference game after seeing what happens to you when you play a strong conference schedule?
That's where these teams bitching don't get it. You lost to really bad teams. Don't do that and you pass teams like SMU. Can't talk about sos when you didn't beat teams like Oklahoma Vandy or Kentucky or Florida or lsu
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But again, that’s a faulty premise.
The 3 worst teams on Bama’s schedule, in order of worst to best, were Auburn, Vandy, and then OU. They lost 2 of those games. If you’re losing those types of games, that risk is going to be there no matter how many games you play in your conference schedule.
UGA, Texas, or Tennessee would have certainly had no trouble if they added a 9th game against OU or Vandy.
But what If Tennessees 9th game was at Oxford? Or Death Valley or South Carolina? They would have been at major risk for a 3rd loss. Thats the case study. Not 2024 Bama
But you're adding risk for no reward by adding decent or good OOC teams. If SMU had played Bama's schedule, they wouldn't be anywhere near the playoff discussion. That should matter. Both as a matter of fairness and also to improve the fan experience. It's fun having good OOC games during the season. If you tell teams that strength of schedule only helps you when compared to other teams in your conference with the same number of losses, then it becomes a sucker's bet to play decent competition. Everybody is going to start looking to schedule the easiest competition possible because that's what the committee rewards.
ETA: It's like when Boise St used to have undefeated or one loss seaons and actually have a good win in OOC. Yes, they had a good win, but it's easy to get up for one game a year. Every team has bad games during the year. The SEC teams that had terrible losses had terrible losses because they had much fewer cupcakes, so they have 9 or 10 weeks where a down week carries the potential for a loss.
You think the 5 point win SMU had against 3-10 powerhouse Nevada is a win if they play that way against Vandy or UK or Florida?
Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't. We'll never know. Point is, in the SEC virtually EVERY game is a dangerous game that could trip you up. Why take that risk any more times than you have to if you're not going to get rewarded for it?
Ole Miss was ranked 9 before the Florida loss: https://collegefootballplayoff.com/rankings.aspx
If they don't lose, they are likely in Tennessee's spot, and it's Tennessee fighting with SMU. That would have been much closer and I think Tennessee likely wins that battle over SMU at 10-2, rather than Alabama at 9-3.
Of course if SMU had just won, we wouldn't have to be dealing with an undeserving Clemson. And we wouldn't have to deal with that anyway if we didn't have stupid conference championship games. They need to go away.
If that’s the move, then just play a 5 game SEC schedule, load up with FCS and crappy G5 teams, maybe a crappy P4 here and there, then crank out a bunch of 12-0 or 11-1 teams.
That's what I'm thinking. It's not the OOC schedule. It's the conference schedule, and Saban was saying the solution is playing an extra conference game. Makes no sense on what they're saying.
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