Greg McElroy, Booger McFarland push back on Lane Kiffin's statement on SEC title game, College Football Playoff

Ahead of the third College Football Playoff rankings reveal, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said he had conversations with others about the impact playing in the SEC Championship could have. He said some coaches in the league don’t want to play in the game.

That statement drew some pushback from ESPN analysts Greg McElroy and Booger McFarland. They cited the importance of conference title games, especially from the players’ point of view.

Kiffin noted the way the CFP bracket shakes out. The five highest-ranked conference champions make the field while the next seven highest-ranked teams also get in. If a team’s on the bubble, he wondered if a conference championship game could be detrimental.

McFarland, however, pointed to the opportunity a conference championship presents. The chance to win the league, he said, is just as significant as playing for a national title. That’s why he’d want to go play in the game.

“First of all, I’m not sure what coaches he talked to, but from a player’s perspective, here’s what I can tell you. There’s only going to be one national champion every year,” McFarland said on SportsCenter Tuesday evening. “You don’t get an opportunity to win a conference championship often. So as a player, I don’t care. Even if I have two losses, if I have an opportunity to play for an SEC championship, win an SEC crown, to get a championship ring, regardless of the risk and the reward, I want to do that. So I would tell Lane, ‘Hey, Coach, I hear you. But as players, we want to go out there and play.'”

As McElroy noted, winning a conference title is one of the goals players tend to list for the coming season. But he also doesn’t see the logic in the College Football Playoff committee penalizing a team for losing its conference championship if it’s already in contention.

Additionally, he noted teams would be putting their fate in the committee’s hands. That’s why he argued it’d be important to try and win the game.

“We all set out at the beginning of every year. It used to be … beat your rivals, win your division, get to the conference title, win the conference title. That’s been the goal forever,” McElroy said. “But as it relates to the College Football Playoff, I cannot envision a scenario where the College Football Playoff committee keeps a conference championship participant out in favor of a team that didn’t get there. A lot of the stuff they’re going to be looking at is strength of schedule. These tiebreakers, a lot of them, are just strength of schedule. So you’re going to kick out the team that played the hardest schedule because they had to add that 13th data point? I don’t envision that happening.

“So if I were in Lane’s shoes, I would much rather play in the SEC championship game because then, at least I’m probably assured a spot in the College Football Playoff, whereas if it’s in the committee’s hands, there’s no guarantees.”