Mar. 22—College football fans have been led to believe over the years that the SEC is all-powerful. A league without an equal.
And that seems to make sense given the conference dominance on the biggest stage. Though it didn’t win it all this year, Georgia took the two previous national titles and Alabama and LSU have dominated for stretches.
But it is time to challenge the SEC’s commitment to be the best. The problem I have with the SEC is the continued practice of playing only eight league games each season,
Umm, teams in the Big Ten — which all reasonable people think is the second best league — play nine conference games each season. So do the folks in the Big 12. But not the SEC. Ir the ACC, which is following the same pattern.
Why? The easy answer is greed. The goal of the league seems to be to earn as many playoff spots as possible. If your teams play one more game against each other, it will produce more losses and fewer playoff teams.
College football needs a commissioner. Someone to say “You know what, all the Power Four conferences should play the same number of league games.” That way, when playoff bids are being decided, the comparison will be apples to apples. Not apples to fraidy-cats.
Let’s take a look back at Alabama’s 2023 noncon schedule. The Crimson Tide did play power Texas, so that is good. It lost at home by 10 points and still got in the CFP. I guess A for effort.
Alabama also played Middle Tennessee, South FLorida and, ahem, FCS school Chattanooga. If I had been on the CFP committee the schedule would have taken Alabama off my list.
Here’s hoping the committee in future years gives strong consideration to how the SEC isn’t scheduling like everybody else.
Lecture over.
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/cant-wait-saturday-why-wont-145600225.html
Author : The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
Publish date : 2024-03-22 14:56:00
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