SEC CFB Playoff Proposal Blasted For Ruining Regular Season

The SEC has spent the majority of the past few months attempting to convince everyone that it is the only conference with a difficult schedule.

Despite a horrendous performance during the 2024-2025 bowl season, after advocating for Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina to make the playoffs as three-loss teams, the SEC has embarked on a propaganda campaign to prop up its strength of schedule.

The SEC went so far as to hand out prepared documents referencing computer model rankings, which after years of being derided and mocked, are now good again out of necessity.

READ: SEC Embarrassingly Hands Out Analytics Research To Support Superiority Arguments

It's clear, as negotiations continue, that the conference did this not for its own amusement or to appease its fans, but to influence opinions during the debate over the future College Football Playoff format. More specifically, to influence those opinions towards a 5+11 format.

One college football analyst, though, is adamantly opposed to letting the SEC get its way. Not just because of its unearned superiority, but because doing so would ruin the regular season.

HOUSTON - Head Coach Brian Kelly of the LSU Tigers talks with Greg Sankey before the Kinder's Texas Bowl against the Baylor Bears at NRG Stadium on December 31, 2024. (Photo by Gus Stark/LSU/University Images via Getty Images)

SEC-Focused CFB Playoff Changes Would Ruin Regular Season 

Josh Pate from CBS Sports discussed the potential 5+11 CFB Playoff format on his "Josh Pate's College Football Show," and went off about what it would do to the regular season.

"The SEC coaches looked around, the SEC AD's looked around, and said, ‘if we can redefine how the playoff committee selects the teams, if we can redefine how strength of schedule is calculated, if we can crystallize it that the SEC gauntlet is tougher to go through and that is mathematically baked into playoff selection, then we’d love the 5+11 format because we're going to get our conference champion,' but do you realize how many more SEC teams would litter the top 16 in this format?"

"I'm not even against the recalibration of the strength of the schedule metric per se, if you were a proponent of 5+11, you are advocating for a world where the SEC is going to dominate the playoff field. Now if you want that, ok, I'm looking at it and I'm saying first off, one conference is going to have a chokehold, a death grip on the amount of teams they put in the playoff field," Pate said. "But the second part is not only does that happen, it happens at the expense of the regular season because what kind of urgency do you have on games anymore. What kind of urgency do you have when, you know, I mean, SEC teams minimum know they can afford to lose three games in that format. It doesn't matter."

"So I can't overstate enough how disastrous to me the 5+11 model would be for competitive balance, but also for the sanctity of the regular season," he concluded.

He's right, of course; the new model, where strength of schedule is determined based on the SEC's wishes, even allowing them to avoid playing a ninth conference game, would make high-profile regular season matchups mean much less. That's one of the best parts of college football, the extra intensity from each game being something close to a "must win."

Under the proposed changes though? Lose two games in the SEC? Who cares? With the SOS boost from playing in the "right" conference, you're in to the playoff regardless. Maybe even some four loss teams would make the same argument, that losing four games in the almighty SEC is more impressive than finishing 10-2 or 11-1 in others.

Whatever the solution for the expanded playoff, the 5+11 model ain't it. Because it's designed to promote and privilege the SEC.