Florida AD Scott Stricklin: SEC will be 'well-represented' in 12-team Playoff

Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin is familiar with how the College Football Playoff committee operates. Stricklin served as a member of the committee for a three-year stretch from 2018 to 2020, helping decided the four teams who got to compete for a national championship in those seasons.

The CFP is set to expand from four teams to 12 in the 2024 season, and everyone is curious what the change will look like Year 1. Stricklin joined the Paul Finebaum Show on Tuesday from the SEC Spring Meetings in Destin to offer his thoughts on what conversations will arise among the committee under the new format.

“Having been in that room and knowing how seriously everyone takes the responsibility of ranking not just the top four, but the top 25, it shouldn’t change that much,” he said. “But human nature being what it is, the fact that six conference champions are gonna get automatics and the next six at-large are gonna get in, you’re gonna get to cut offs within the rankings and there’s gonna be people going, ‘wow, this is gonna be a really important vote to see who’s 11th and who’s 12th and who’s 13th.’ So they’re gonna spend a lot of time there, but they’re also gonna spend a lot of time on who are the top four and who’s gonna get those byes and who are 5-8 that’s gonna get those first round home playoff games.”

The SEC is the only conference that has gotten at least one team in the Playoff every year since its inception in 2014. Additionally, the conference has claimed six of the nine College Football Playoff National Championships in history.

No conference has ever gotten more than two teams in the Playoff under the four-team format. However, that feels likely to change with the addition of eight more spots. Stricklin is confident the SEC will have plenty of candidates in the coming years given the strength of the conference and its history.

“From an SEC perspective, because of the strength of our league, regardless of what schedule format we have, I think we’ll be well-represented,” he said. “My hope is we’ll be really well-represented and I know we’re gonna have good teams available to them. You hope the committee recognizes that.”

Scott Stricklin weighs how much strength of schedule will factor in for Playoff committee

The move to a 12-team Playoff could also mean more opportunities for Group of Five schools. Cincinnati is the only non-Power 5 program to ever make the CFP, cracking the field of four after finishing 13-0 in the 2021 season.

UCF was famously snubbed after finishing undefeated in regular season play in both 2017 and 2018. The Knights ranked 12th and eighth, respectively, in those years, so would have been in under the new format.

However, Stricklin brought up an interesting point that the committee will have to consider. If one of those non-Power 5 schools finishes with just one loss, how would they stack up against a three-loss school from the SEC?

“Everybody comes with a different perspective and I think that’s one of the things that makes it a good committee,” he said. “There are people who feel strongly that a team that’s gone 11-1 maybe in a conference that’s not as rigorous as the SEC deserves full consideration. Then there are those that see a team that went 9-3 in the SEC against a really top line competition and schedule and understand how good that team is.

“You start having a conversation about eye test and ‘how would these team do in an imaginary contest?’ At the end of the day, it comes down to people’s opinion. That is something that, as long as you have committees and you have people using subjective measures, there’s gonna be a lot of debate about.”