Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin voiced a shared concern about the reality of being a SEC Championship Game contender.
“I’ve talked to other coaches, so I’ll just kind of give you the feeling from some other coaches that, you know, they don’t want to be in it,” Kiffin said on Monday. “You know, the reward to get a bye versus the risk to get knocked out completely ... that’s a really big risk.”
The four highest-ranked Power 4 conference championship game winners receive a first-round bye in the 12-team playoff, while the loser would have the loss added and evaluated as part of its overall resume.
The reason Kiffin’s analysis — that a two-loss SEC team could be better off not playing in the league championship game — has everything to do with how the latest College Football Playoff selection committee has been trending.
The 13-member committee, chaired by Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel — has seemingly placed more emphasis on number of losses, as opposed to quality of wins.
For example, a one-loss Penn State team that has not beaten any AP Top 25 teams is ranked ahead of a two-loss Alabama team, which has beaten four ranked teams.
CFP executive director Rich Clark said at the start of the process that schedule strength would carry heavy weight.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart, leading an SEC team with two losses, passed on the opportunity to comment on the matter at his Monday press conference.
“Why would I put energy or time into trying to figure out what the best pathway is, including the SEC Championship, when I’m worried about UMass?” Smart said. “I just don’t think it’s a quality conversation.”
SEC Network host Paul Finebaum explained the complication the conference championship could present.
“It should be a reward to get to the conference championship game, but the bad news is, it is not,” Finebaum said. “Kirby Smart last year had an undefeated regular season, he went to the championship game, lost to Nick Saban and got knocked out of the playoffs.
“So, yes, what Lane Kiffin said is correct, you’d rather not go there. But the problem is, you don’t have a choice in the matter. There’s a tiebreaker and you get in based on a number of tiebreakers.”
Kiffin took issue with those tiebreakers by suggesting the league tiebreaker for the SEC Championship Game be picking the two teams ranked highest in the CFP rankings.
Teams do not control their league schedules or how their opponents fare, but to some degree they do control their results and corresponding rank.
