It's Only SEC (but I like it....)

GEORGE SOMERVILLE – THE TOUCHDOWN SEC CORRESPONDENT

week 13

We have arrived at the penultimate week of the regular SEC football season – how did it fly by so quickly!?

But while we only have two weeks left to play in the SEC football season there is so much on the line. In the next two weeks SEC football team’s seasons will be extended into the playoffs or shattered and ended prematurely. Which means we have some monster games ahead of us this week, but with also one eye on the final week of the season in seven days time!

It’s been a crazy, chaotic SEC football season, but I have the feeling there is plenty more chaos still to come! Of course, some, maybe much of that chaos in the coming weeks will be determined by what decisions the Playoff Committee makes, which dominates the discussions and has grabbed the headlines across the conference this week. 

So, welcome y’all to our weekly round-up of life in the Southeastern Conference.

Here are this week’s headlines….let’s get started!

this weeks sec headlines

-- You are Gold! --
-- Dawgs have been disrespcted--
-- The Commissioner Weighs in --
-- To play or not to play --
-- week 13 sec schedule --

You are gold (gold)!

Baton Rouge, LA

It’s been a tough SEC football season for the LSU Tigers. While performances throughout the season didn’t necessarily match results, the Tigers were still in the SEC and Playoff hunt until three weeks ago.

But then the wheels fell off the Tigers’ season spectacularly. Three successive defeats, most recently to a much-maligned Florida team in the Swamp last weekend, have left Tigers head coach Brian Kelly under pressure.

Add in the flip of top-ranked recruit Bryce Underwood from Baton Rouge to Ann Arbor this week, and there is a sense of gloom hanging over the Bayou.

So, how could the Bayou Bengals lift the spirits of their loyal fanbase? Well, in the words of Tony Hadley & Co, the answer is Gold – sing along if you know the words…

“You’re indestructible, always believing

You are gold (gold)

Glad that you’re bound to return”

So, gold is what LSU gives its fans. I’ve always been a big fan of the Tiger’s purple jerseys when they wear them, and to be honest, they don’t wear them often enough. However, with a night game scheduled in Death Valley this weekend, the Tigers have announced that they will wear their throwback gold jerseys. To put this into perspective, the gold jersey has only been worn five times in the Tiger’s long history. It was first worn in 1996 when a clash with the Commodores’ uniforms meant they had to change to an untraditional alternative.

So it’s fitting then that these fantastic uni’s make a return for the Commodores travelling into Death Valley on a Saturday night.

Gold. Always believe in your soul.

Dawgs have been disrespected

Kirby Smart
Photo Credit:BRETT PATZKE, USA TODAY SPORTS

Athens, GA

The Georgia Bulldogs have the number one most difficult schedule in all of college football this year. Road games to Austin, Tuscaloosa and Oxford, MS have cemented the difficulty of the schedule. The defeat of Texas earlier in the season had the Dawgs looking like playoff certainties. However, defeats to Alabama and Ole Miss left the Dawgs not just on the cusp of the playoff but, worse still, the Committee did not think that Georgia, with their strength of schedule, was worthy of the Playoff. So they were out. However, in the following week, an impressive win over Tennessee got the Dawgs back in the line of sight of the Committee. This week they are back in by being currently ranked #8.

Unsurprisingly, this has sparked a huge amount of debate across the media as to what the playoff committee really values when it comes to determining the rankings. On the face of it, it appears that the committee continues to attach more value for a win, irrespective of the opponent than a “good” loss.

what are they looking for?

Dawgs head coach Kirby Smart is rarely drawn into a war of words but has expressed some frustration at the lack of credit given for the Dawgs’ schedule over the last seven days. On Wednesday, during the SEC head coaches teleconference, he was again asked about the Committee’s view on Georgia, to which Smart said he really didn’t know.

“I’ve repeatedly said I don’t know what they are looking for, they can’t define that,” Smart said on the SEC teleconference on Wednesday.

“It’s not simple, either, anybody can be on that committee and say this is what we’re looking for, this is our criteria.”

Smart, like many others, is scratching his head at what the Committee is looking for in teams. 

And he continued with a veiled criticism of what he has seen thus far from the Committee.

“It just seems unjust to me when you evaluate somebody’s got a third-ranked defense, or somebody’s got a fifth-ranked defense — well, don’t you think that third- or fifth -ranked defense is dictated by who they’ve played on offense?” Smart said. “Because, last time I checked, our offense and our defense have played the top offenses and defenses across the country.

 

“They talk about the eye test and how do you play in the game, well how you play is dictated, number one, where you’re playing, home or away, and, number two who you are playing.”

The Commissioner weighs in

Birmingham, AL

We just heard what Kirby Smart had to say, but that was far from the end of the debate. It still rages on, and it has reached the point that the SEC Commissioner, Greg Sankey, felt the need to say something. Sankey typically doesn’t comment on such topics, but these are unusual times.

Posting on X, Sankey said

“Interesting to read analysis from others as they examine “strength of schedule” in college football…it does seem there is a trend to be identified…” whilst appending a league table based on strength of schedule with Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Ole Miss and Texas all above the other teams who are ranked ahead of them by the Play Off committee.

Which, as you can imagine, has poured oil onto the already raging fire. 

Unsurprisingly there is a north/south divide on his issue which really won’t go away until the playoff games start and a winner prevails. But in the meantime it keeps webpages, newspaper columns and phone-in shows with as much content as they can cope with.

Well, we wanted excitement and chaos didn’t we?

To play or not to play

Image Credit: Rebel Walk

Oxford, MS

Apologies for continuing the debate about the playoff rankings, but as we may have anticipated preseason, it has become a very hot topic indeed.

This is such an issue that some head coaches in the SEC are asking if there is a detriment to reaching the SEC Championship game if the committee penalises you for another loss.

Rather than credit for getting to the Championship game, some coaches are worried about the committee negatively impacting the ranking due to another loss.

Up until this point, these reservations have been kept private…until now. This week Ole Miss head coach, Lane Kiffin shared the views of coaches he had spoken to 

“I’ve talked to other coaches, so I’ll just kind of give you the feeling from some other coaches. They don’t want to be in it,” Kiffin said during his press conference this week. 

 

“You know, the reward to get a bye [in the CFP] versus the risk to get knocked out completely. I mean…that’s a really big risk….I think it has ended up being a very unique situation of all postseason sports, the way that system is set up there.”

 

“How you could go to [the SEC Championship] and get knocked out [of the CFP race]? And if you don’t go [to the SEC Championship game], you’re in.”

Of course, there is precedent for this, albeit not in the current 12-team format but last year in the 4-team format. Georgia lost in the SEC Championship game last year to Alabama for their first defeat of the season. That defeat (a narrow one) was enough for the Playoff committee to exclude the Bulldogs from the final four Playoff teams last year.

Kiffin expanded further on the costs attached to an expanded playoff competition.

“There’s a cost and benefit to everything,” Kiffin said. “There are great benefits to this playoff system and so many people being excited and fans and programs and more games, and then there’s cost, too. The conference championships don’t mean as much.”

He’s not wrong.

week 13 SEC football schedule

GEORGE SOMERVILLE

COLLEGE FOOTBALL WRITER

GEORGE IS A LONG STANDING FANATIC OF LIFE AND FOOTBALL IN THE DEEP SOUTH AND WRITES HIS WEEKLY COLUMN CALLED “IT’S ONLY SEC” FOR THE TOUCHDOWN. HE IS ALSO CO-HOST AND ONE THIRD OF THE COLLEGE CHAPS PODCAST, THE UK’S FIRST PODCAST DEDICATED TO THE COLLEGE GAME.

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