Urban Meyer states Lane Kiffin conference championship comment 'doesn't compute to me'

Urban Meyer took issue with Lane Kiffin alluding to SEC coaches wishing to be excluded from the SEC Championship Game due to fears of missing the College Football Playoff.

With many of the SEC’s best possessing two losses, a third loss in the SEC title game could knock a team out of the 12-team Playoff, and send a rival who didn’t compete in Atlanta to the dance. Evidently, the risk isn’t worth the reward, at least not in Kiffin’s eyes.

“I’ve talked to other coaches, so I’ll just kind of give you the feeling from some other coaches that. They don’t want to be in it,” Kiffin said, regarding the matter. “You know, the reward to get a bye [ in the CFP] versus the risk to get knocked out completely. I mean, that’s a that’s a pretty big — that’s a really big risk.”

“I think it has ended up being a very unique situation of all postseason sports, the way that system is set up there. How you could go to [the SEC Championship] and get knocked out [of the CFP race]? And if you don’t go [to the SEC Championship game], you’re in.”

While that makes sense from Kiffin and some other unnamed coaches, Meyer declined to see his point of view, believing it simply doesn’t add up for an SEC team to not want to play in their title game.

“I’m shutting you out, because I can’t even think like that,” Meyer responded, while Rob Stone tried to contextualize Kiffin’s comment, via The Triple Option.

“What do you (mean), you hope you don’t go to the championship game? Like, I don’t — what do you like, you go and then you eat dinner afterwards? You get up in the morning, as you’re driving to work, do you say, ‘Boy, I hope we don’t win the SEC Championship.’ I mean, that doesn’t compute.”

Despite Meyer’s opinion, there’s six SEC teams — Ole Miss, Texas, Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee — that all have a legitimate path to make the College Football Playoff. One of those teams will make the SEC Championship game and also might not make the College Football Playoff, while the five others very well could. 

Perhaps it’ll have to become a reality for Urban Meyer to see Lane Kiffin’s point. The latter is simply hoping it doesn’t happen to Ole Miss in 2024.