Let’s turn the clock forward for one moment in the SEC Championship Game race. If Georgia beats Tennessee and Texas beats Texas A&M, the Longhorns will finish in sole possession of first place in the SEC as the only 7-1 team on the board. It’ll be an easy ticket punched to Atlanta to play for an SEC title.
From there, things quickly become a mess. Assuming no other upsets, six teams would be tied for No. 2 in the SEC standings with a 6-2 record: Texas A&M, Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU and Missouri. From there, it’s on to the SEC tiebreaker scenarios:
- Head-to-head competition among the tied teams: Most of these teams haven’t played each other. Next.
- Record vs. common conference opponents: There aren’t common opponents between six teams.
- Record against the high-place opponent among the tied teams: There aren’t enough common opponents to use this.
- Cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents: Essentially which teams have the top conference strength of schedule?
Since the tiebreaker would almost certainly come down to the final strength of schedule, it’s impossible to know which team is even in the driver’s seat right now. Assuming the nightmare tiebreaker scenario plays out, Alabama would appear to have the narrow edge in strength of schedule. Georgia would play the most top teams, but its schedule will be pulled down by Kentucky, Auburn, and Mississippi State.
And by the way, if Texas A&M beats Texas, it holds sole possession of first place in the SEC. The Longhorns, the highest-ranked team in the SEC, would miss out on playing for a title to Alabama because they had Arkansas on their schedule instead of Missouri.
Does that make sense? Didn’t think so. My head hurts too. It shouldn’t require a law degree to determine whether your team is alive for an SEC championship. Welcome to the new world of superleagues.
All four power conferences will face similar challenges as they try to slide the top two of at least 16 teams into a title game. By the way, the confusion about reaching a conference championship game will only be magnified in the expanded College Football Playoff era, where teams are only eligible for first-round byes with a title. Deciding trips to the playoff could come down to interpreting technical language in a conference press release.
As often happens, the Big 12 got the first taste of this confusion last year. Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and Kansas State were projected to finish with identical 7-2 records. The Cowboys beat both teams head-to-head, but OU and KSU did not play. Still, the Big 12 clarified that beating both teams counted as clinching the head-to-head tiebreaker in that scenario.
Luckily for the conference, Kansas State lost, leaving head-to-head available for Oklahoma State to beat Oklahoma for a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game. Losing out on the opportunity to play for a Big 12 title ultimately knocked the Sooners out of the New Year’s Six. Had that taken place this year, it would have been the difference between making and missing the 12-team playoff field. These things matter! The entire CFP case of teams like LSU or SMU could hinge on tiebreakers.
At least in previous large conference eras, a divisional setup meant that a collection of teams played each other consistently. Even more than clarifying tiebreaker scenarios, it meant that there was true identity and rivalry between a collection of squads that really knew each other.
If the SEC had divisions in 2024 with an eight-game conference schedule, that would leave only one game available to play cross-division every year. Obviously, that’s not palatable.That doesn’t even get into leagues of 17 (ACC) or 18 (Big Ten) teams. There’s essentially no math available that makes any of this makes sense.
Still, there are other ways to approach this. Conferences could separate teams into pods so there’s at least some guarantee of mutual opponents. It may be worth simply having completely separate divisions and living with the consequences, even if most teams will never play (a model the SEC embraced with 14 teams). Of course, the SEC really should step into the 21st Century and schedule nine conference games, which would help matters. But ultimately, there’s only so much leagues can do with far too many members and limited unifying identity.
The College Football Playoff expanded and changed its rules to emphasize the value of conference championships. As we’re about to find out in the coming weeks, struggles by conferences to create serious ways to decide a champion will make everything much more complicated.