It’s Dec. 5 and fans in the Georgia Dome are on a frenzied edge as the two-loss Georgia Bulldogs take the field for the SEC title game versus Alabama, the one-loss winners of the SEC West.
Relax, fans of the rest of the conference. It’s just a hypothetical scenario. Of course — insert your team here — will make the title game. The actual teams are a moot point in this scenario, be it Alabama or Vanderbilt.
What happens if the Bulldogs prevail over the Crimson Tide (aside from a terse Nick Saban post-game press conference) in the aforementioned scenario, leaving the SEC champ with two losses on the season?
Would the proverbial sky fall? Would it be the ultimate doomsday scenario for the SEC to likely be looking from the outside-in on the second annual installment of the College Football Playoffs?
That’s difficult to assess, but the SEC doesn’t want to find out the hard way. With only four playoff slots and five power conferences, it doesn’t take a Wonderlic wonder to determine that losses come at a premium when qualifying for the postseason.
Even having a single blemish on your record isn’t a guarantee to make the playoffs. Just ask last year’s casualties TCU (12-1) and Baylor (11-1 regular season) — and, to a lesser extent, Marshall (13-1).
Contending for the national championship is almost an SEC birthright, if you ask many fans. After all, the conference competed in 10 of the BCS era’s 16 national title tilts. But the playoff committee doesn’t hand out postseason spots like tenure to teachers. You don’t just earn them for longevity.
And it’s only a matter of time before an SEC champ closes out the year with two losses. Granted that hasn’t happened since LSU and Georgia each fell twice during the 2007 regular season. Of course, the Tigers and Bulldogs finished that year Nos. 1 and 2 in the AP Poll, respectively, so that might not be the best example. But, at least, it speaks to the conference’s dominance.
Eventually, one of the conferences left out of the playoffs will yell loud enough to force the expansion of the playoffs. You can bet you’ll hear from the SEC, should it find itself shut out of the playoffs for a year or two. Also expect to hear from the rest of the country, should the committee place a two-loss SEC team in the postseason over a one-loss squad from another conference.
Expect a lot of yelling, is the takeaway here.
Does the thought of an SEC-less playoff scare the NCAA the same way that a Tiger Woods absence used to hurt the PGA? As arrogant as it sounds, what does it do for ratings? Does the SEC fan base tune out if none of their teams are in the playoffs? We’re talking about a constituency of roughly 15.6 million, potentially suddenly disinterested, people. Sure you keep the hardcore fans, but you could lose the fringe football watchers.
One impact of missing out on the playoffs is the fickle beast that is recruiting.
The SEC isn’t hard-up when it comes to luring top-flight talent to the South. The conference ranks 12 of its 14 teams inside 247Sports’ class of 2015 top 25 composite rankings. But being out of the spotlight could be just enough to sway an elite prospect North to the Big Ten, West to the Big 12 or Pac-12, or even to the ACC and Florida State. Any prolonged absence from the playoffs could be a recruiting headache for a team such as Alabama or LSU.
Revenue is another major aspect. Missing out on the playoffs not only means a loss of postseason earnings for the team(s) that fall short; it costs the entire conference money. The NCAA doles out $6 million to each conference per playoff team.
These are just the worst-case, doomsday scenarios, constructed mostly from hypothesis and hand-picked statistics. The reality is, we can’t judge a regular season until we’ve seen the finished product.
But it’s safe to assume that there would be some fallout should zero SEC teams fail to make the playoffs.
Chris Wuensch is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers South Carolina and Tennessee.
