College Football Live ESPN

First, let me say that despite being a huge Michigan fan, Georgia is my second favorite team in college football. My family is all from Georgia and many of them as Georgia alum. Therefore, I want it to be known this is coming from someone that is not an SEC hater.

I have listened to a lot of commentary on the possible scenarios that could occur after this weekend’s conference championships … mostly from ESPN and Fox Sports. Let me just say that the overly dramatic sports reporters (and everyone knows who I am referring to) who main goal is to stir controversy in the pursuit of ratings are ridiculous.

While I feel both the College Gameday’s and Joel Klatt’s insights on the playoff scenarios are definitely fair and comprehensive, I struggle with some of the arguments both sources have been sharing. I continually have been hearing some things that I cannot get behind from the media and the biggest one is that the SEC is the best conference in college football.

Joel’s points on keeping Tennessee in the top 25 despite 4 TD losses to Georgia and Missouri as well as 2 TD losses to both both Alabama and Florida (yes … 5-7 Florida who just lost to a Florida State team without Jordan Travis), strongly supports the SEC-bias and overrated conference viewpoint.

This conference is definitely top-heavy and receives SEC-bias from year’s past. I watched Georgia struggle against, and beat a mediocre .500 Georgia Tech team by one score. On the same weekend, I saw it take a miracle (and horrible defensive call on the 4th and 31 play) for Alabama to beat a .500 team at Auburn last week.

Let’s talk common opponents or the one degree of separation aspect for a moment. Georgia Tech lost to Clemson by 3 TDs … which is a team that Florida State beat (granted before Jordan Travis’ injury but the comparison is still a 4 TD difference in final scores). If you’re talking about Georgia still getting in after that performance followed up by a loss in the conference championship game to Alabama (especially after Alabama’s previous week’s performance), I find it challenging at the least to say that either SEC champion should get in with one loss.

To explain further, the vaunted SEC team of Alabama could and should have lost to Auburn … a team that lost to New Mexico by 3 TDs the week before. For those who may have forgotten, New Mexico is a team that lost to a 3-9 UMass team earlier this year. I would argue that Alabama is not exactly playing their best at the end of the year either. The Crimson Tide’s “huge win” against UT-Chattanooga the week before ashouldn’t impress anyone either since that opponent also lost to 3-7 North Alabama, Western Carolina, and Furman teams as well.

Compare either of those 1-loss SEC teams (if Alabama beats Georgia) and putting them in over an undefeated Florida State conference champion; a Texas conference champion that beat Alabama by double digits head-to-head; an Oregon conference champion that avenged it’s only loss (and may be playing the best of any team in the discussion lately as the eye test winner) and you may understand why it is hard for me to support the 1-loss SEC champion HAS to have a team in the playoffs argument.

When I hear statements that Alabama or Georgia would be favored over any of the other teams being considered as mentioned above, I simply say, “it depends on which Georgia and Alabama team shows up”.

If the inconsistent Georgia team that played against Georgia Tech, Auburn, or South Carolina shows up, Georgia may not beat the other candidates under consideration on a neutral site.

If it is the inconsistent Alabama team that played against Auburn, Arkansas, South Florida, Texas A&M, or even possibly Texas were to show up, I feel they definitely wouldn’t … despite Paul Finebaum’s most crazed rants of “over my dead body!”.

Every year, at least one of the Power 5 conferences have been left out of the 4-team playoffs, until now, the SEC was not even considered to be that 1 team (and with good reason). However, I feel the right circumstances may provide the necessary evidence for other deserving teams to get the nod if Georgia were to fall to Alabama in the SEC title game this year.

1 star

Every day of the week.