The primary season of the 16-team SEC has confirmed to be must-watch tv practically each week. Final Saturday’s prime-time Georgia–Tennessee recreation turned the league’s fourth matchup this season to garner at the least 10 million viewers. Solely two SEC video games reached that mark at this level previously three seasons mixed.
For that, the convention can thank the 12-team School Soccer Playoff. With out it, this is able to be a a lot totally different season for the league.
Had been the four-team CFP nonetheless in impact this yr, the SEC would probably be one Texas loss from lacking the Playoff for the primary time within the occasion’s 11-year historical past. In spite of everything, all of its different groups have already got two losses, and no crew with two losses ever made the four-team subject. Primarily based on how this yr’s committee has approached its rankings thus far, there’s no cause to suppose that pattern would change until a number of of the present groups with one loss — like Penn State, Notre Dame and Miami — tripped up down the stretch.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey couldn’t have envisioned that chance.
He was one of many predominant architects of the 12-team format the Playoff first proposed in 2021. However throughout the yr of stalled negotiations that adopted between the commissioners, he incessantly informed reporters some variation of, “We’re wonderful staying at 4.”
“Even after we introduced the additions of Oklahoma and Texas, I’m nonetheless snug staying at 4,” he stated on a Fox Sports activities podcast in 2023. “I don’t suppose we’re going to have fewer groups within the 4 than we’ve had.”
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Maybe due to these additions and the altered schedules that adopted, this season could have examined that concept.
It was a foregone conclusion most years that the SEC champion would attain the four-team subject, partly as a result of the league normally produced at the least one season-long juggernaut. An undefeated crew made it to the convention championship recreation in seven of the final eight seasons. However when 6-0 Texas misplaced to Georgia on Oct. 19, it was the earliest the SEC’s final undefeated crew had fallen since 2007.
In an alternate, four-team model of this season, the Large Ten can be dominating the dialog. The principle query: Would that league get two groups in or three?
The Large Ten presently has 4 of the highest 5 groups within the CFP rankings: No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 4 Penn State and No. 5 Indiana. Presumably, the loser of Saturday’s Indiana-Ohio State showdown will drop out of the highest 5, however the common season may nonetheless finish with three, and probably all 4, avoiding a second loss. And for 10 years, that was the No. 1 standards for reaching the four-team CFP.
Not solely did no 11-2 convention champion ever make the four-team Playoff, but additionally solely two of them, 2016 Penn State and 2017 Ohio State, even completed No. 5. And people each have been overwhelmed out by a Large Ten or SEC crew with one loss.
GO DEEPER
What the CFP committee ought to do with the SEC logjam
No convention ever despatched three groups to the four-team CFP, and the Large Ten itself noticed 5 of its groups miss the sphere with just one loss. That features 11-1 Ohio State simply final yr. In all of these seasons, nevertheless, there have been 4 or extra groups from the opposite energy conferences that additionally completed with zero or one loss.
With no extra Pac-12 this season, it’s potential that received’t occur, if somebody in addition to Texas wins the SEC and if 11-2 Colorado/Arizona State/Iowa State wins the Large 12.
Take into account the probably high 4 below these eventualities.
Situation 1: Ohio State beats Indiana, Oregon beats Ohio State
1. Oregon 13-0
2. Miami 12-1
3. Penn State or Notre Dame 11-1
4. Penn State or Notre Dame 11-1
Situation 2: Indiana beats Ohio State
1. Oregon-Indiana winner 13-0
2. Oregon-Indiana loser 12-1
3. Miami 12-1
4. Penn State or Notre Dame 11-1
Situation 3: Ohio State beats Indiana and Oregon
1. Ohio State 12-1
2. Oregon 12-1
3. Miami 12-1
4. Penn State or Notre Dame 11-1
The Large Ten will get two bids in certainly one of them and probably three within the different two.
The closest a convention ever got here to securing an 11-2 champion was the SEC in 2017. After beginning the season 5-2, Auburn received its subsequent 5 — together with two wins in three weeks over groups ranked No. 1 within the nation — and had jumped to No. 2 earlier than the SEC championship recreation. The Tigers would have been in with a win towards 11-1 Georgia, however they misplaced 28-7.
The SEC’s finest hope of an 11-2 crew making a four-team subject this season is perhaps if SMU turned the ACC champion. The committee has proven little respect for the 9-1 Mustangs thus far, as they sit down at No. 13, ranked behind 4 SEC groups with two losses. It’s uncertain they’d leapfrog whichever of Alabama/Ole Miss/Georgia/Tennessee received the convention on this situation.
However that 11-2 SEC crew would nonetheless probably get squeezed out by 11-1 Penn State and 11-1 Notre Dame if each received out.
Opposite to Sankey’s public feedback, the SEC was by no means going to face by and let the four-team Playoff go on indefinitely. In truth, certainly one of its personal presidents, Mississippi State’s Mark Keenum, helped resuscitate the 12-team plan in 2022 after it was stalled for a full yr by the ACC, Large Ten and Pac-12. The CFP board, chaired by Keenum, primarily informed the commissioners at that time, go get this accomplished already.
And it’s a superb factor they did. The SEC could have seceded from the Playoff totally if the occasion featured two colleges from Indiana and none from the South.
(Photograph: Gregory Shamus / Getty Photographs)
