Kirby Smart rejects idea College Football Playoff committee favors one conference

The latest College Football Playoff rankings are out and, once again, the Big Ten is very well represented with four of the top-five ranked teams to only one SEC team.

Despite that, Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart rejected the idea that the Playoff selection committee favors one conference over another. Instead, he argued what they value when doing their rankings is wins and losses, instead of other metrics that may favor the SEC.

“I don’t think they value the Big Ten over the SEC,” Kirby Smart said. “I think they value wins and losses. So, they place people based on a column, a column of wins and a column of losses, not on the eye test of going to watch them play and see who they play. I think they base it on wins and losses. I don’t think they say, well, this is better than that. They just say this record’s better than that.”

No team currently ranked in the top six of the Playoff rankings has more than one loss. Two of those teams, Oregon and Indiana, are unbeaten. Ohio State, Texas, and Penn State then round out the top five. Then, one-loss Notre Dame is sixth. Alabama at seventh is the top-ranked team with two losses and is ahead of several one-loss teams who are in line to take a Playoff spot.

“That’s the most simple way to do it. It’s not necessarily the 12 best,” Smart said. “So, we’ll see what happens. I’m not worried about it much. I got to worry about our team and what we got going on.”

If the current Playoff ranking were to be turned into the Playoff bracket, it would lead to a first round where no SEC team would host the game. Instead, three Big Ten schools and Notre Dame would be hosting the opening round games. That’s despite both the SEC and Big Ten having four teams in the bracket.

The College Football Playoff selection committee is currently chaired by Warde Manuel, the athletic director at Michigan.

Kirby Smart, for his part, has the Georgia Bulldogs in a good spot. The Bulldogs are ranked 10th with two games remaining on the season. Neither of those are going to be conference games, but Georgia still has a shot to make it to the SEC Championship Game, depending on how the results work out in the final two weeks. Winning that would earn the Bulldogs a first round bye.