How the College Football Playoff could redefine the SEC football schedule

Where things are as the SEC considers a ninth conference football game amid continued uncertainty around the future of the College Football Playoff format.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey speculates how adding a ninth game would affect the league's College Football Playoff standing. / Brett Davis | Imagn Images

To play, or not to play, a ninth conference football game will be among the major questions raised at the SEC spring meetings in the coming days.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey broached the topic again recently during the league’s baseball tournament, and stressed that decision will depend on how the conference perceives the College Football Playoff’s selection process going forward.

“[It’s] a lot of numbers, a lot of opinions, a lot of conversations, a lot of looking back and looking forward, thinking about how really the College Football Playoff selection process currently governs schedule decision making,” Sankey said on SEC Network.

“I think the most recent example was Nebraska discontinuing a planned series with Tennessee in football and citing the CFP selection process, and it won’t hurt us if we don’t play that game. I understand why they did it, so it’s not about a particular university. That’s not healthy for college football in the big picture.”

At the time, when Nebraska backed out of that series with Tennessee, UT’s athletic director was public about assigning blame to his Big Ten counterpart.

But Sankey pointed the finger at the College Football Playoff selection committee instead, for providing the incentive for the Cornhuskers to cancel the series, based on conversations he had with Nebraska’s athletic director.

ESPN college football insider Pete Thamel backed up that analysis in his own comments.

“The one piece of empirical evidence we have of this 12-team playoff indicates murky rewards for a tough non-conference schedule. That’s the data set we’re dealing with right now,” he said.

That creates an environment in which football programs don’t feel incentivized to play a tougher schedule if it doesn’t produce obvious rewards come playoff selection time.

And adding a ninth conference game to what is already considered the toughest slate in college football may not be thought of as a worthwhile risk for everyone in the league.

For his part, Sankey has endorsed the SEC playing nine conference games in football in comments this offseason, in what appears to be the furthest the league’s most important decision maker has gone in publicly addressing the idea.

The SEC has debated adding a ninth conference game to its football schedule for a few years, but stayed at eight amid financial and competitive concerns about playing another league game.

The SEC has played eight conference football games since the 1992 season, although the addition of a ninth game has been gaining traction.

Arguments for and against adding another conference game have dominated the conversation across the league.

Those in favor believe another game would mean more revenue for schools and the conference and would allow schools to play more often in a league that has expanded to 16 members.

Those against another game contend that the SEC schedule is already the most difficult in college football and would be made tougher still by adding more to the plate.

There is also some concern that introducing another game would make it more difficult for some SEC teams to reach the required six victories needed to become eligible for a non-playoff bowl game.

We don’t know how the SEC’s administrators will vote when formally asked whether to play that ninth football game, but we know it’ll be one of the most important subjects of conversation in the room.

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