Yes, they took the risk in playing in their conference championship game. SMU had one loss going in, and was clearly more qualified for a playoff spot than Bama on record alone prior to the conference championship game. You don’t want to incentivize teams weaseling their way into the CFP by opting out of their conference championship games because a loss risks bumping them out in favor of a 9-3 team who didn’t even make their conference championship.
Strength of schedule isn’t all that matters folks. There’s a reason Florida isn’t even in the playoff conversation despite by far the toughest schedule. They didn’t win enough games. Simple as that. Same goes to Bama. They just lost one too many games. Given two of those were to Vandy and a mediocre Oklahoma team, hard to say Bama has anyone to blame but themself.
I guess someone at UF likes giving our opponents a little competitive edge. Of course, only scheduling one OOC cupcake a year is our own doing
We have two stretches against potentially highly ranked opponents. Meanwhile Texas plays patsies before and after their tough games. The difference is significant although we own at least part of that as we continue to schedule fsu and Miami while also drawing lsu, tennesse and Georgia as permanent games and and also somehow contingent to draw aTm and now Texas as well....
If we (SEC) truly believe this, the answer is the exact opposite of Bama's braindead logic. Every SEC school schedule 4 P4 OOC game so everyone except the SEC has 4 losses. Again, problem solved.
If we beat the other P4 teams it opens more spots for SEC. Then the murders row of SEC play has more forgiveness, which is the ACTUAL problem. Allowing other P4 conferences to be 4-0 OOC is going to make the issue worse, how do people not understand this?
If Bama had just happened to schedule Indiana instead of Wisconsin, and got the same result in their matchup, they are 100% in and Indiana is out. I sure hope Cal or NC st don't happen to pull an SMU or IU against us the year we were scheduled to play them. That would be some hella crappy karma.
UGA went 4-0 vs playoff teams, we went 0-3. The schedule is hard because of where UF is right now. If we were a top contender it would be an opportunity rather than liability.
Maybe just me, but I've gotta push back against some of this because it's presented without context: LIU - opener for both teams USF - we have LIU before hand; they have Boise State LSU - we have USF before hand; they have Louisiana Tech Miami - we have LSU before hand; they have USF; similar first three games. This is all before our first bye. I don't think any of these are egregious and I think there's some debate to be had as to whether or not (at least early in the year) it's better to come off of a tough game than it is an easy game going into a tough game. That is to say, I don't think it's necessarily tougher for us to face Miami after facing LSU than it would be if we had USF that week and they had, say, Notre Dame right before they played us. We get a bye before facing Texas; they play Sam Houston State. That's gotta be a wash at worst, no? For TAMU, they have to play MSU the week before where we play Texas; yes Texas is a tougher opponent, but it's only the 2nd game after a bye, this doesn't strike me as egregious, and it's not like A&M can take MSU lightly. That game was 21-17 at halftime this year. MSU gets a bye before they play us; we get them at home. It's our 3rd of three games in between byes. Still don't see anything egregious yet. FLORIDA and Georgia both get byes before our game. Kentucky plays Auburn the week before they play us; presumably Georgia will be better than Auburn, but it's not like this is a gift for Kentucky. Ole Miss gets the Citadel before facing us; sure there's one...I guess. We'll be their 6th straight game between byes, whereas for us it will be the 3rd straight game after a bye. Does that even out? I don't know, but doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Tennessee has an edge; they get bye week, New Mexico state, and then us. We get them in the SWAMP, first game back in over a month; crowd will be juiced and I'm sure the team will be too. We'll see if that edge for Tennessee matters. SWAC is defending outright 17th place finishers in the ACC. Their season may already be wrecked by the time they play us. But their schedule is not out so it's not worth figuring out what kind of advantage they may have over us. Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
If we finish this past season with three losses, I think we are a playoff team. Seems hard to reconcile that notion in light of how bad the first two losses looked, but the tough schedule plays in our favor *if* we show we are good enough for that level of consideration. Alabama's schedule wasn't quite as tough, and losses to Vanderbilt and getting blown out by a weak Oklahoma team didn't do them any favors, and they still were the first team out. SMU wins that ACCCG and Bama is in no questions asked. Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
Yep, it too bad it took us so many games to get to where we could compete in this conference. But as far as scheduling goes... why make our schedule harder if these people in the playoff committee will simply ignore that metric? But as a fan...it sucks that we have to think about playing crappy teams, just because these few people in a committee are not doing a thorough job of finding the best teams. I like playing the best teams. That was the only descent thing abouyt the 2020 seaons. It was an all SEC team season schedule.
We need to pick up next season where we left off this year. Bama needs to count their blessings with a hot or cold QB this year and concentrate on next year. We used to wait til next year a lot. They need to get used to it.
I like the byes, Top 4 CC, deserve a break for playing the extra game and winning their conference IMHO. I wonder how the BCS formula would have lined it up. That always seemed to be pretty transparent.
I'll go one step further: If they don't lose to OU they're either enjoying a bye or hosting a playoff game this weekend (remember they would have been in the SECCG in this scenario).
