Anything big happens in college football and it’s not validated until somebody gets Nick Saban’s opinion on the matter, right? So he’s asked about the new playoff system and speaks very generally about it in his response.
With one exception, that is.
“I don’t think there’s enough weight put on the quality of your schedule and the opponents that you play, which in our league is very, very important, because we had six teams in the top 10 last year at the end of the season. We play each other, and that has a huge impact on the quality of team you have, regardless of how many games you lose. There are things like that that I think we can do better.”
Expect to hear more and more of this kind of talk from SEC coaches, especially if the pressure to go to a nine-game conference schedule increases.
Get The Picture 
Well, think about Georgia in 2012… goes the distance, wins the East, and either plays for the national championship if they win the conference, or.. drops to a non BCS bowl after coming down to the wire with Alabama. Sounds like something Mark Richt should jump all over.. in a playoff situation, do we still get a chance or do we drop out of the picture completely? I can understand the reasons why UGA doesn’t get that BCS bowl spot last year, but you can also make the argument that the runner up should get it… after all… was Florida really deserving of it? This is more rhetorical than a serious question, but there’s no question Saban has a point when it comes to recent history.
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Thankfully the coaches poll will not have a bearing on “The College Football Playoff” selection process — and the AP Poll a few years back told the BCS to “stick it” — which gives me great hope that those on this panel that will call the shots will be level-headed enough to realize that (in a scenario like last year, at any rate) when the two best teams in the US of A play in the SEC title game, even the loser (particularly in a close game) would deserve to be in the national final four.
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The whole purpose behind the change to the “College Football Playoff” with a committee deciding things is to avoid 2 SEC teams playing in the final game…period. If you think the committee is going to make its decision about who gets in the playoffs based on what teams are the best I’ve got some oceanfront property to sell you in Macon. The SEC will be lucky to get its champion in the 4 team playoff. They’ll make it the B1G, PAC 12, Big 12 and ND if there is any way they can do it. If they ever have to put 2 SEC teams in they’ll put them in the same bracket to play in the first round to make sure only 1 SEC teamis in the final, but that will never happen because they’ll never let 2 SEC teams in–EVER.
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If there are 4 undefeated teams and SEC Champ not named Alabama, LSU, or Florida has 1 loss the SEC out.
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If there are 4 undefeated teams from someplace else and the SEC Champion has 1 loss the SEC is out even if the SEC champ is Bama, LSU or Florida.
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“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Except now. They wrote a little tune about it and it goes like this
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“Wrote a song about it, like to hear it, here it goes….”
– Calhoun Tubbs
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The re-verbatim from the Great Calhoun
and his reptile daddy
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I don’t know about all that; I think our loss in the SECCG opened alot of eyes around the nation about the quality of opponents in the conference. Just today, Cowherd won my respect when he discussed this very issue. He stated that if we used the “playoff” scenario for this past year, the 4 teams he would’ve picked were Bama, Oregon, Georgia, and Texas AM. Said we got there ’cause we beat the Gators and played Bama toe to toe. Cowherd was an unrepentant USC homer and spent the summer trying to build up the West Coast football as something approaching SEC like proportions and even spoke poorly of UGA saying ” they always blow a game”, and Carolina proved him right. But, alot of people outside the SEC felt like Georgia got hosed with the bowl selection. Its hard to argue with strength of schedule malarkey when 6 of the top 10 teams are from the same conference.
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Give Cowherd (is that a stage name or did his ancestors herd something)a few more moments. He’ll say something that will cause you to lose the respect you just gained. Nevertheless our moral victory against Nick even surpassed Lane’s moral victory against Irvin a few years ago.
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Wait till Mark May is on the selection committee and see how much we like this new system over the old…and I mean pre BCS when I say old.
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So now we are entering the era where the makeup of the pollsters is the limiting factor to SEC representation.
I expect that Vince will be on that committee, along with other former (and some present) ADs of SEC teams. Without the Coach’s Poll as a deciding factor(hooray!), the SEC will have more representation.
Don’t worry, an 8-team slate will wipe out many of the inequities between conferences and will replace the 4-team scenario before 2015 season. You may even get upwards of 4 SEC teams represented in an 8-team slate.
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