Football teams around the SEC have begun reporting for practice, as preparation begins for a new era in the conference, one that will be fascinating, exciting, compelling …
And, perhaps, a complete mess. Start bracing yourself.
Could the best team in the conference miss out completely on playing for the championship? Absolutely.
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Is it possible some merely above-average teams will go 7-1, maybe even unbeaten? Indeed, very possible.
Will there be a three-way tie for first place, or at least a multiple-team tie for second place, with who plays in the SEC championship going to second, third or fourth tiebreakers? Again, yes, and yes. Come up with your own chaos scenario, and it probably can’t be ruled out.
This is what you get with megaconferences. This is what you get with 16 teams but only an eight-game schedule, wherein many of the top teams won’t play each other. And, by the way, a nine-game schedule would help only a bit. Anytime you have this many teams without at least one game between them during the season, you basically ensure a jumbled mess of standings, including at the top.
That’s why the SEC office and athletic directors are taking so long to finalize the tiebreaker process. As we reported a couple of weeks ago, they won’t be doing anything dramatic — like using nonconference records or margin of victory or rankings — and will lean on more factors like head-to-head and record against common opponents. They want to get the tiebreakers as right as they can because there’s a good chance they’ll need them.
GO DEEPERWhat might, and what won't, be SEC football tiebreakersEven then, the chances are middling at best that the final standings will accurately portray how good each team is in the conference.
Start with Georgia. The clear favorite based on the vote at SEC media days, and perhaps the No. 1 team when the national polls come out. If all things were equal in scheduling, I would also pick the Bulldogs to win the conference. But all things are not equal in scheduling: Kirby Smart’s team has to play at all three teams picked to finish second through fourth: Texas, Alabama and Ole Miss.
2024 FOOTBALL MEDIA POLL @GeorgiaFootball (🏆), @TexasFootball predicted to meet in 2024 #SECChampionship by a vote of the media covering #SECMD24
🔗 https://t.co/vXZkOyTLS8 pic.twitter.com/EuyYsYG2is
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) July 19, 2024
Let’s say Georgia still finds a way to go 7-1 in the conference. That almost certainly would be enough to get it in the College Football Playoff, assuming it doesn’t lose more than one nonconference game. But it will easily leave room for two others to qualify for the SEC championship, and maybe not one of the presumed favorites.
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LSU, fifth in the preseason media vote, gets its three hardest opponents on paper at home: Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma. The road games are Texas A&M, Florida, South Carolina and Arkansas. There’s a path to 7-1 or even 8-0 there.
Missouri, coming off a breakout season, has to go to Alabama, but otherwise its hardest game on paper is at Texas A&M. Its next hardest games would seem to be Oklahoma and Auburn, both games at home.
You may notice that neither LSU nor Missouri has to play Georgia or Texas. In fact, a number of the projected top teams don’t play each other. Alabama and Texas don’t play. Neither do Ole Miss and Texas or Alabama and Ole Miss.
So those are some of the head-to-head tiebreakers off the table for this season. And if Tennessee manages to be involved in the discussion, it will have played Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma, but not Texas, Ole Miss, LSU, Missouri …
So, yeah, you can see the chaos coming. Thank goodness, of course, for the expanded 12-team field, which should — could — lessen the impact of this.
But only a little bit.
It’s a big deal who actually wins the SEC championship game. That team gets a bye into the quarterfinals, a total of three weeks off after playing in Atlanta and a matchup with the winner of the 8-versus-9 game.
From there, it’s up to the Playoff committee to decide which SEC teams make the field. And that’s where jumbled standings and unequal scheduling could bleed into national meaning.
Could Brian Kelly and LSU contend for the SEC title and/or a College Football Playoff berth? (Brett Patzke / USA Today)
The operating assumption is the loser of the SEC championship game is still a shoo-in, having been good enough to be one of the conference’s top two teams. But what if they’re not? One need only examine some of the schedules above to come up with plausible scenarios: LSU going 7-1 in conference but losing its opener to Southern California and getting creamed in the SEC title game; Missouri going in 7-1, the one loss a decisive one at Alabama, then also getting beaten badly by its opponent in the SEC championship. Would 11-2 in that scenario, if there aren’t many quality wins, still be enough — especially if other SEC teams are only 10-2 but played harder schedules?
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Sorry to pick on LSU and Missouri. The programs merely provide examples for a greater point, and we thank you for playing along.
And yes, the difficulty of schedules as they look now are often not how they look after the season. Teams are better and worse than expected.
Another necessary caveat: The season may play out in perfectly clean fashion. The two clear best teams in the SEC may be reflected in the standings. Or a tie for first or second place may be cleanly broken via the luck of an available head-to-head tiebreaker.
This is all new, not at all predictable, and watching it play out should be fun.
Especially if you love chaos. Because you very well may get that.
(Top photo of Texas coach Steve Sarkisian: Brett Patzke / USA Today)
Seth Emerson is a senior writer for The Athletic covering Georgia and the SEC. Seth joined The Athletic in 2018 from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and also covered the Bulldogs and the SEC for The Albany Herald from 2002-05. Seth also covered South Carolina for The State from 2005-10. Follow Seth on Twitter @SethWEmerson