Supremacy Chatter: A message to everyone crying about the Playoff selection committee’s ‘SEC bias’
Published:
Raise your hand if you got into an argument about the Playoff selection committee’s “SEC bias” when the first rankings came out last Tuesday night.
OK, now keep your hand raised if you had some sort of interaction with this tweet from Joel Klatt:
Quick trend I would like to point out…Take from it what you will
Top ranked undefeated team – SEC
Top ranked one loss team – SEC
Top ranked two loss team – SEC
Top ranked three loss team – SEC— Joel Klatt (@joelklatt) October 31, 2018
Judging by the amount of engagement on that bad boy, I’m guessing a lot of you had some thoughts to get off your chest and out into the Twitterverse. It’s an interesting discussion point, no doubt.
Before I get something off my chest, let me preface this by saying I sat down with Klatt for 20 minutes at Big Ten Media Days in Chicago this summer. We talked about a bunch of things — whether the Playoff needs to be expanded, if people in the Big Ten are sleeping on Shea Patterson, etc. Klatt is a super smart dude, and I think he’s one of the best in the business as a color analyst for FOX Sports/FS1.
But I bring this up because one of the points that Klatt hit on during our conversation was how the SEC had “the easiest path to the Playoff by a wide margin” because of the fact that it only played an 8-game conference schedule (the ACC does, as well) and it averaged the fewest amount of Power 5 matchups compared to the other 4 Power 5 conferences.
It’s true that we’ve still yet to see a Power 5 team go 9-0 in conference play, win the conference championship game and make the Playoff. That’s why I actually thought Klatt’s point about the path being easier made sense. That’s a different discussion, though.
Here, however, is the problem that I have with Klatt’s tweet calling for “SEC bias” from the selection committee.
The reason the SEC continues to get so much love is because of what it did in nonconference play. The hay was in the barn. The SEC went 6-3 vs. Power 5 opponents in nonconference play. The three losses were Vanderbilt losing by 5 at undefeated Notre Dame, Tennessee losing to Big 12 contender West Virginia at a neutral site and Texas A&M going down to the wire against Clemson. All of those teams were significant underdogs against vastly superior teams, and I’d argue that all of them exceeded expectations.
What about the 6 wins the SEC had against Power 5 teams? They were by an average of 17 points, and 4 were at least 16-point victories. Two SEC teams took down preseason Top-10 teams at neutral sites.
Meanwhile, the Big Ten lost 6 games to Group of 5 teams in nonconference play.
Want to just look at the contenders? That’s fine. We can do that, too.
Here’s the list of the ranked non-SEC Power 5 teams’ wins vs. Power 5 teams in nonconference play (Pre-Week 10 rankings/standings used, and Notre Dame is excluded because everything is nonconference play):
- No. 2 Clemson — Won at No. 20 Texas A&M
- No. 5 Michigan — None
- No. 7 Oklahoma — Won vs. 2-6 UCLA
- No. 8 Washington State — None
- No. 10 Ohio State — Won vs. 3-5 TCU at neutral site, won vs. 2-6 Oregon State
- No. 13 West Virginia — Won vs. 3-5 Tennessee at neutral site
- No. 14 Penn State — Won at 4-4 Pitt
- No. 15 Utah — None
- No. 16 Iowa — Won vs. No. 24 Iowa State
- No. 17 Texas — Won vs. 4-4 USC
- No. 19 Syracuse — None
- No. 21 NC State — None
- No. 22 Boston College — None
- No. 24 Iowa State — None
- No. 25 Virginia — None
They ain’t played nobody, Paaaawwwwl!
But really, do you see what I’m getting at here? It’s not like everyone in the Top 25 has these big-time nonconference wins against Power 5 teams. The fact that the SEC got off to that kind of start in nonconference play was huge. That’s why I wrote Supremacy Chatter columns in September about the key season-long impact each week of nonconference play had.
And yeah, teams like Florida, Georgia and Kentucky have their Power 5 nonconference matchups at the end of the season, so they can either add or detract from just how good the SEC was in that key part of the season. But these are current rankings, and nothing we saw in nonconference play suggested that anyone had a better argument than the SEC to be considered the power conference (I argued all of last year that there really wasn’t a true power conference because of how even it was in non-conference play).
Oh, and speaking of Paaawwwl, I actually asked Paul Finebaum about this when he came on the Saturday Down South Podcast on Friday.
“I think it’s just the easiest thing in the world when you don’t have a good argument to just blame it on the SEC or to blame it on Alabama,” Finebaum said. “I don’t buy those arguments. I know someone listening to this will just say, ‘Well, he’s just an SEC hawk.’ OK. You can say whatever you want, but I would argue against the SEC if I felt it was the right argument. I just don’t think it has anything to do with it.
“To me, you have to separate Alabama from the rest of the SEC even though you can’t legally. That’s where I believe most of this comes from.”
There’s another element to this that includes Alabama. It gets back to Klatt’s original point about the number of losses and how the SEC gets the benefit of the doubt at every stage.
Besides the nonconference dominance, I can show you another reason each ranked SEC team got the benefit of the doubt that it did comparing them to Power 5 teams with as many losses (keep in mind these numbers and records were all pre-first Playoff poll):
- Top-ranked undefeated team: Alabama — +306 with 6 games vs. Power 5 teams (+177 in conference play) having won each game by at least 22 points
- Clemson — +249 but with 2 wins by 4 points or less
- Notre Dame — +119 with 4 wins by single digits
- Top-ranked 1-loss team: LSU — Wins vs. 2 current top-25 teams, both by at least 16 points (+20 vs. 1-loss Georgia, +16 vs. No. 18 Mississippi State)
- Michigan — 0 wins vs. current top-25 teams
- Oklahoma — 1 win vs. current top-25 team (+10 at No. 24 Iowa State)
- Washington State — 1 win vs. current top-25 team (+4 vs. No. 15 Utah)
- Ohio State — 1 win vs. current top-25 team (+1 at No. 14 Penn State)
- West Virginia — 0 wins vs. current top-25 teams
- Top-ranked 2-loss team: Florida — Wins vs. 2 current top-25 teams (+ 7 vs. No. 3 LSU, +7 at No. 18 Mississippi State)
- Penn State — 1 win vs. current top-25 team (+6 vs. No. 16 Iowa)
- Utah — 0 wins vs. current top-25 teams
- Iowa — 1 win vs. current top-25 team (+10 vs. No. 24 Iowa State)
- Texas — 1 win vs. current top-25 team (+3 vs. No. 7 Oklahoma)
- Syracuse — 1 win vs. current top-25 team (+10 vs. No. 24 NC State)
- NC State — 2 wins vs. current top-25 teams (+14 vs. No. 25 Virginia, +5 vs. No. 22 Boston College)
- Boston College — 0 wins vs. current top-25 teams
- Virginia — 0 wins vs. current top-25 teams
- Top-ranked 3-loss team: Mississippi State — Wins vs. 1 current top-25 team (+15 vs. No. 20 Texas A&M), losses to 3 top-11 teams
- Iowa State — 1 win vs. current top-25 team (+16 vs. No. 13 West Virginia), losses to 2 ranked teams, 1 unranked team
Are you starting to get the picture?
This is about résumé, not just some SEC bias. The idea that the selection committee would concoct this plan to give the SEC the best chance to make the Playoff is absurd when you actually look at the facts.
I talked to SEC Network host Peter Burns about this when we had him on the Saturday Down South Podcast on Wednesday because he was one of the people who clapped back at Klatt’s SEC bias tweet. While Burns agreed that there’s a certain historical confirmation bias given the SEC’s championship/NFL Draft dominance, I thought he made a simple but smart point that everyone should remember the next time they cry foul.
“I’m just so sick and tired of seeing people say, ‘Well, the SEC so biased and whatnot,'” Burns said. “First of all, the AP voters aren’t just a bunch of people in the SEC footprint going, ‘Yeah, let’s just vote ourselves pretty good.’ They’re 60-some odd writers from across the country and they all agree on those rankings each and every week. And the committee is even more of an elite group made up of committee members all across the United States, not just in the SEC footprint, and they believe that to be the case.
“So if the sample size of people who are voting is that way, the GMs are talking about that and the trophies are coming to the SEC, well damn it, that just means the SEC is the best at football and you’re just gonna have to deal with it.”
Say it louder for the people in back, Peter.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
