LSU head coach Brian Kelly weighs in on College Football Playoff debate for South Carolina, other bubble teams

When South Carolina suffered a gut-wrenching loss to LSU on Sept. 14, thoughts of the College Football Playoff were on nobody’s mind — not from a Gamecock perspective. The only talking point was how the officiating ruined the Gamecocks’ chances of winning that game.

For weeks, that was all anyone could talk about. Even to this day, folks are still wondering what could’ve been if a flag weren’t thrown at a certain point in the game. But now, most of the chatter is about the CFP and what the future holds for South Carolina.

In the few months since that loss, the Gamecocks have turned their season around and won their final six games to end the regular season with a 9-3 record. And because of that, they have a chance to reach the 12-team playoff for the first time in program history.

The playoff committee’s penultimate rankings will come out on Tuesday night with the final rankings and bracket being revealed on Sunday. Even with a strong finish, the odds are stacked against South Carolina with other three-loss teams — Alabama and Ole Miss — also fighting for an at-large bid.

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Ironically, the other head coach from the game that might keep the Gamecocks out of the playoff, LSU’s Brian Kelly, spoke about the CFP debate on The Paul Finebaum Show on Monday. Even though the Tigers are out of the race with four losses, Kelly believes some teams won’t make it because of a third loss, or that they didn’t have one extra win compared to another team.

“I think that that’s going to be the case this year,” Kelly told Paul Finebaum. “And there’s going to be a hue and cry that will be real that some teams get left out because they didn’t have one extra win. And I think it’s wrong.”

Kelly didn’t specifically name drop South Carolina or any other team, but the Gamecocks would fall subject to this if he is right. Though they have nine wins, the three losses, specifically the ones to Alabama and Ole Miss, are holding them back from being a lock.

But that won’t be the only point of contention made by the committee. Other key metrics like strength of schedule and common opponents will most likely be used to determine the field. Kelly could see a situation where a team with a high SOS gets left out for a team that may have won more games but didn’t play tough competition.

“Well, I think I went on record earlier in the season saying that this is where it’s going to be difficult this year because I don’t know that the walking orders of the committee are going to be quite right,” Kelly said. “You’re going to have teams that are going to have tougher strength of schedules and have better football teams and they may get left out. More wins doesn’t mean that you’re a better football team.

“I think basketball kind of went through this and they figured out strength of schedule is really the best indicator. That’s why they use an RPI. That’s why they use that and rely on it heavily to make decisions on who’s in the tournament and who’s not in the tournament. We see that every year. We always talk about some of the non-power teams winning 32 games or 28 games and not getting in. It’s because of strength of schedule.”

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And this is something that South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer has made a point of. He also believes strength of schedule and who teams play must matter. He brought this up when he made his case for the Gamecocks to be a playoff team on Monday.

“We’ve got a six-game winning streak. Four wins this season over ranked teams. And there’s great teams across the country and the committee has a tough job. But I’m sitting here looking at it right now, we have four ranked wins; Penn State, Indiana, SMU, Clemson, Miami, Boise State and Notre Dame have zero. So, your strength of schedule and who you play has to matter. We play in the toughest conference in America, and we have the No. 11 strength of schedule, I believe,” Beamer said on SEC This Morning.

“There’s great teams throughout this conference that are very deserving teams across the country. But who you play and how you perform has to matter. Who we’ve played is right there at the top and how we’ve played is certainly at the top over the last six weeks.”

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