Lane Kiffin voices support for advanced metrics being used as CFP criteria
By Ethan Stone
Published:
First and foremost, Lane Kiffin is focused on Georgia State this weekend.
The Ole Miss head coach said as much Wednesday during the SEC’s first teleconference of the year. He said a few more interesting things, too. Perhaps most intriguing, he voiced support for advanced analytics being used as criteria for the selection of College Football Playoff contenders in coming years.
“I think that that sounds good, metrics and finally using it more,” Kiffin said Wednesday, via On3 Sports. “Should’ve been that way already. It’s kind of unfortunate that we’re that far behind other (NCAA) sports that they’ve already figured out. Wish they would have that more figured out and finalized versus just saying, ‘Oh, it’s going to be used’ and you still have the humans deciding.”
“I’m not really into that right now, That’s a year from now. I’m trying to get ready for opener.”
Kiffin supports this partly because of the SEC’s announcement this past week that the conference will be moving to a 9-game format, making a tough schedule that much tougher. Specifically, Kiffin mentioned the following:
“If we’re going to take the hardest schedules in the country, by far, and make them harder, you would like to know that it is going to matter in the (CFP) selection process and matter, really, you know matter a lot… It matters who you play, where you play, how hard they are and that’s how you end up with judging win and loss records instead of just looking at win and loss records.”
It’s tough not to agree with Kiffin’s assessment here. A major topic of note among college football coaches, fans and administration has been (and will no doubt be this season) the process by which the selection committee analyses strength by way of schedule.
Not all schedules in this sport are created equally, as Kiffin pointed out above, and it becomes tough to decide between an undefeated or 11-1 team with an easy schedule against a 10-2 or 9-3 team with one of the 10 toughest schedules in the country. With an extra conference game added, that problem becomes that much more real.
Ethan Stone is a Tennessee graduate and loves all things college football and college basketball. Firm believer in fouling while up 3.
