Kirby Smart on college football’s future
Kirby Smart urges leaders to prioritize the game’s future over personal or conference agendas in playoff talks.
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…
Source link : https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/sec/2025/06/05/sec-football-schedule-cfp-bracket-format/83994621007/
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Publish date : 2025-06-05 10:03:00
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