The SEC has long been considered the gold-standard conference in college football, with the vast majority of the sport’s national champions emerging from that league over the last two decades.
However, as the sport has changed and evolved in recent years, the narrative surrounding that league has remained the same, and to some extent, it’s justified.
The SEC does produce NFL talent at a greater clip than any other conference, and there’s no arguing that the league’s football tradition and pageantry is unmatched — but that doesn’t mean that it deserves more favorability when it comes to the postseason.
Year in and year out, the SEC gets the benefit of the doubt when compared to similar teams from other leagues. In most circles, a 9-3 SEC team is automatically given the nod over a 10-2 team from the Big 12. Why?
Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman wonders the same thing.
“Other teams can lose in other leagues and that league is really good. We lose in [the Big 12] and this league stinks. I don’t understand that,” Klieman said during his press conference on Monday.
“As a conference, we need to get together and figure some things out,” Klieman said. “Because for a bunch of teams to be (10-2 or 9-3) and us only get one of those teams in the College Football Playoff, then we’ve got to cancel one of these games. I don’t care what people say, we go to eight games in league play. Or we stay with nine but play an FCS team or play a Group of Five team.”
Every team in the Big 12 is required to play nine conference games every year, in addition to at least one game against a Power Four opponent in nonconference play. Hypothetically, this should create a tougher schedule and give teams from the Big 12 an edge when comparing resumes with an SEC school that plays just eight conference games and also gets an FCS team in mid-November.
“I don’t care,” Klieman said. “Say what you want, 10-2 looks better than 9-3. We’re going to visit at this year’s conference meetings, and we have to do things to benefit our league in regards to the 12-team playoff, not to just benefit our league in general.”
If the Big 12 is going to take advantage of the new 12-team format and get multiple teams into the field of 12, they’re probably going to have to make some adjustments to how they’re approaching the schedule — especially if they hope to keep up with the Big Ten and SEC.
“We need to be able to get two or three teams in the Big 12 into the playoff,” Klieman said. “The carnage that you’re seeing is going to allow for one team, most likely. I wish we would get two, but it’s probably going to allow for one. We can control that. I really believe that. We just have got to get everybody on the same page.”
