While ESPN has become an absolute agenda pusher for the SEC and its college football superiority complex over the past few seasons, occasionally, someone steps out of line.
Rece Davis, of College GameDay fame, spoke about the SEC and Big Ten’s new College Football Playoff expansion plans and mentioned that he was not a fan of the latest proposal.
“I’m not a fan of the automatic berths for the SEC and the Big Ten,” Davis said on the College GameDay Podcast. “Because there are going to be years, and the 12-team field this year is a good example, where if you were required to put a fourth SEC team in, there’s not a clear-cut answer there.”
The initial proposal from the SEC and Big Ten, if passed, would allow for each league to field four auto-id teams into the playoff each season, which would leave the Big 12 and ACC with two each, one for a Group of Five school, and one at-large bid. If that plan had been implemented in 2024, Missouri or Ole Miss would have made the playoffs despite each providing countless examples of why they didn’t belong in the field.
“If you are required to put a certain number of teams from a conference in, the upside of it is that they will likely play their way in, in some fashion. Whether it’s the model some people have talked about – 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5 play, and the winners get the automatic berth. People will like that. It will be compelling. But there will be years where 5 and 6 in that league really aren’t Playoff teams, but they pull an upset in a game and they get in at the expense of someone who perhaps was better.”
“So, there are a lot of difficulties with it. Just generally speaking, I don’t think it’s great to have the automatic berths, but I do see there is some value in it,” Davis continued. “I can’t get there where I’m saying this is a good thing. I feel like it’s really not, because I think more times than not they’re going to get those berths anyway. But requiring them, depending on how you play it off, I do see how it could be compelling theatre. I just don’t feel good about doing it that way, and that might be the traditionalist in me.”
Regardless, the SEC and Big Ten aren’t going anywhere soon, and if one thing is for sure, it’s that Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti do not care about their public perception when it comes to ruining college sports.
