Rece Davis calls out critics of strength of schedule in the SEC

Rece Davis wants everyone to be consistent in how they view one of the key metrics that could decide on the teams who make the College Football Playoff.

Davis specifically spoke about the Southeastern Conference‘s strength of schedule and how it factors into the CFP’s weekly rankings during a discussion Wednesday on the ‘College GameDay Podcast.’ The College GameDay host believes that particular metric must matter, especially when comparing a SEC team with multiple losses to another with less losses but a much-weaker strength of schedule.

“I don’t want to go too far down the rabbit hole. But the one thing I will say is, if you are screaming for Indiana, and Texas for that matter, to be ranked highly, you are screaming that, ‘I just want them to, you know, win the games,’ doesn’t really matter who they play. But, if you play Georgia‘s schedule and you lose two, you’re out? Or if you lose three, if Tennessee kicks a 62-yard field goal and beats you between the hedges, you are done, done, done? If that’s what you’re saying, you have a right to say it,” Davis said. “But I am not here to listen to you when you start saying, ‘Hey, SEC, play nine games!’ ‘Hey, I don’t want you to play Double Directional State, Georgia! I want you to play Clemson!’ You can’t have it both ways, man.”

“If you’re going to say that the 100th-ranked schedule is No. 5 and you’re good with that, you agree with it, you think that’s as it should be,” Davis continued, ‘and the No. 1 schedule is not worthy of the playoff? I don’t want to hear the other stuff.”

For context, a two-loss Georgia (7-2) currently sits at No. 12 in the latest CFP Rankings, but would be bounced from the 12-team Playoff field in favor of No. 13 Boise State as one of five conference champions. The Bulldogs’ current standing as it pertains to the CFP field comes in spite of those two losses coming on the road while facing college football’s top-ranked strength of schedule.

Meanwhile, Texas (8-1), which Georgia beat at home, sits at No. 3 and undefeated Indiana (10-0) is at No. 5 despite facing the 56th- and 100th-ranked strengths of schedules nationally. The Longhorns’ schedule is ranked the weakest in the SEC, while the Hoosiers’ schedule is the weakest in all of the Power-Four.

So, which is it?

The SEC may seem to get the benefit of the doubt in a lot of rankings across college football. However, Davis questions whether the teams will continue to schedule elite Power 4 competition if strength of schedule doesn’t ultimately factor into the CFP committee’s consideration.

Davis doesn’t mind if people would prefer the better records, regardless of who they may come against. He just wants that point to remain constant when they’re assessing these teams both subjectively and objectively.

“You just have to balance those judgments with the actual results,” said Davis. “The actual results have to matter but they can be mitigated and balanced with some other considerations.”