The SEC keeps finding new reasons to not add a ninth conference game to its football schedule.
Throughout the four-team College Football Playoff era, the SEC ruled that postseason format, so it found insufficient incentive to add another conference game.
When the scheduling debate resurfaced two years ago, some SEC members expressed reluctance to add another conference game without additional compensation from its media partner. ESPN didn’t sweeten the pot. The SEC stayed at eight.
The latest excuse? Many SEC coaches feel loath to welcome a ninth conference game without first knowing the College Football Playoff format for 2026 and beyond.
What’s next, no ninth SEC game until there’s peace in the Middle East?
I’m losing my appetite for this eight-or-nine debate.
The number should be 10 – as in, every power-conference team should play a minimum of 10 games against Power Four opponents.
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The SEC routinely insists it should gain preference from the playoff selection committee because of its run of national championship dominance the past 20 years, plus its strength of schedule. I won’t argue that the SEC often boasts the strongest top-to-bottom conference.
The SEC’s pandering to the playoff committee, though, plays weak considering how the conference structures its schedule. Teams only play half the other members of their 16-team conference, and most only play one Power Four non-conference opponent, while supplementing the schedule with a few layup games.
In this era of the ever-expanding playoff, it is time for the SEC to curtail its feast of cupcake games. Either stay at eight conference games, or go to nine – so long as it adds up to 10 games against real competition.
Power Four teams playing more games against legitimate opponents – and fewer games against directional schools – would provide clarity to the playoff’s at-large selection process.
By comparison, TCU and Baylor will play a nation-leading 11 games against Power Four competition.
Let’s not spare the ACC, either. The ACC joins the SEC in playing eight conference games, while their Big Ten and Big 12 peers play nine. Most ACC schools, at least, will play 10 games against power-conference opponents, if you include Notre Dame as a power foe.
Alternative to a ninth SEC game? Play another Power Four school
Prominent SEC voices continue to trumpet that the committee erred by rejecting three 9-3 teams from the inaugural 12-team playoff, and that the committee does not sufficiently reward the SEC’s schedule.
“I have a hard time seeing Ole Miss, Alabama, and South Carolina not being in the best teams last year,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said, in reference to 9-3 teams that didn’t make the playoff.
I maintain the committee flubbed by selecting two-loss SMU, which beat nobody of substance and lost its two games against Top 25 opponents. Mississippi, which smashed Georgia after suffering a résumé-staining loss to Kentucky, would have been a better choice.
And yet, the SEC’s three-loss also-rans could have tempted the committee more if they’d played and won another conference game or at least played and won an additional game against a Power Four opponent, instead of creaming a Championship Subdivision school.
We don’t know how the committee would view a 9-3 SEC team that played 10 games against Power Four competition.
We do know what the committee thought of the SEC’s 9-3 teams that played only nine games against power-conference foes. They thought them undeserving of a playoff bid.
If Florida, which plays Miami and Florida State, goes 9-3 this season, it likely would have a stronger case for an at-large bid than the SEC’s three-loss teams last season.
The same is true of South Carolina, which plays Virginia Tech and Clemson for 10 Power Four games. Alabama’s games against Wisconsin and Florida State give the Tide 10 games at the big-boy table, too.
Those teams stand in exception to the SEC’s majority that choose a path of lesser non-conference resistance.
The SEC keeps floating the myth that the playoff committee does not respect strength of schedule. That’s untrue.
Indiana won 11 games last season, but the Hoosiers’ soft schedule meant Indiana ranked behind four other at-large playoff qualifiers that won fewer games. Also, the SEC’s three-loss teams reached the playoff’s doorstep largely because of their strength of schedule. Another marquee victory could help get a three-loss team across the playoff’s threshold.
I can understand the SEC’s reluctance to add a ninth conference game. Another league game would guarantee another loss to half the conference. Those additional losses would hinder playoff pursuits across half the league.
The alternative to a ninth SEC game, though, should not be a game against Weasel Tech or Seventh-Grade State. Schedule another opponent from the big leagues.
Non-conference scheduling includes the hurdle of needing two to tango. Not every power-conference team wants to play an SEC foe. Nebraska ducked out of its series with Tennessee. Wake Forest canceled on Ole Miss.
Still, the SEC cannot relent. SEC coaches would be wise to keep the pedal down on this blue-sky idea of a Big Ten-SEC challenge.
The SEC insists it wields the nation’s strongest conference and that the committee should honor it as such.
That argument holds merit, but the case would become easier to prove if SEC teams scheduled fewer games against Coastal Cupcake and more games against power-conference peers.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.