Is it possible the College Football Playoff committee will leave out the Southeastern Conference, even with five teams in the top 14 of their very own poll, and how idiotic that would be?
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey says there’s no way that would happen (Greg Sankey says SEC being left out of CFP isn’t ‘real world’), even though there appears to be members of the media openly rooting for it.
“That’s not the real world of college football,” Sankey said, on ESPN’s “College GameDay” Saturday morning. “Let’s go back to like ‘Sesame Street’ so we’re really basic — one of these things is not like the other, and that’s the Southeastern Conference.
“”We have five of the top 15 [in the CFP rankings], so a third, and our teams are playing everyone in the conference. … The reality is there has been no one that’s experienced the success in the postseason in the College Football Playoff that we have. So when you put us up actually against the teams, rather than in the committee rooms, we stand alone. And we stand alone this year, regardless of today’s outcome.”
Sankey has a point. And his hair doesn’t cover most of it.
Regardless of who wins the game, Georgia, the number one team in the nation for most of the season in both the Associated Press and coaches polls, and the current number one in the CFP’s rankings, has won the last two national titles and has a 29-game winning streak, although we’ve been conditioned to try and think that “nothing before the current season matters” (Yeeaaaaaah, we’re human, and I don’t think so).
If Georgia wins the game, it’s a nice little package wrapped neat for the committee; Georgia makes the playoff, no-brainer, period. If Alabama beats Georgia, since the committee continues rank the Tide at No. 8 in spite of their winning streak, then, there’s an issue. Alabama would have ran the table in the nation’s strongest conference.
Then, what does the committee do, without embarrassment? Vault Alabama from eighth into the fourth spot? Hope like hell that Florida State loses? Because at this writing, Texas is up on Oklahoma State by three touchdowns.
It does sometimes feel like it’s the SEC vs. the World, but to hold the league out of the CFP just seems vindictive and would cheapen the process.
