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6 SEC teams ranked in AP top 7 shows who still runs college football
By David Wasson
Published:
It wasn’t all that long ago – like last year, if I remember correctly – that the college football mouth-breathers all were griping and moaning about how a 1-loss Alabama team getting into the College Football Playoff over the undefeated ACC champ Florida State Seminoles was a capital crime.
The system is beyond repair, they yelped! SEC bias, we heard echoing from the backwoods of Leon County! We need a fairer way to get more non-SEC teams in this thing like yesterday, said everyone who had a heart three sizes larger than their brain!
Flash forward about 9 months. Armed with a brand-spanking-new 12-team Playoff opportunity, let us gander at the current AP poll to see how the SEC is fairing in the New World Order of college football.
Wait, what? Six teams in the top 7?!?
It just means more, people. When are you going to get it through your thick heads? It doesn’t matter if ESPN expands this thing to 16 teams or beyond, SEC programs are going to find a way post haste to gum up your seemingly well-thought plans faster than you can say “Mike Norvell is overrated.”
Yes, we know we are only through Week 2 of the current season. Plenty of ball left, etc. But really, do you think with a right mind and clear heart that the SEC isn’t going to continue dominating the polls the later we get in the season?
Georgia has a stranglehold on the No. 1 spot, and likely would only relinquish it with a road loss to either No. 4 Alabama on Sept. 28 or No. 2 Texas on Oct. 19. The Dawgs dropping 1 of those 2 would just elevate the other to the top spot, and not move Kirby Smart’s gang all that deeper.
Ditto for the Longhorns, who are so far back Vince Young is thinking about torching USC all over again. Steve Sarkisian’s bunch just need a Red River Survival against No. 15 Oklahoma the week before a Georgia showdown, and based on how they completely hooked Michigan for 60 minutes, that will be a pedestrian task.
The Tide get the Dawgs at home, then likely will light a cigar all over Tennessee in Neyland before catching a red-hot Missouri team (wait what, Mizzou is good too?!?) at Bryant-Denny on Oct. 26.
Fifth-ranked Ole Miss? They get an easy trip before the Sooners visit The Grove on Oct. 26, and don’t get Georgia until the end of the gantlet on Nov. 9.
We say all that to say this: Pretty much no matter the permutation of losses (after all, someone’s gotta lose all these great vs. great games …) between the existing top 10 SEC programs, all the conference will do is nudge the winning team up and shuffle the losing team back – with the net result likely being a huge status quo.
That is among the new calculus of college football, people. The rich (read: the SEC) gets richer, while the knuckle-draggers of the ACC are left wanting – regardless of available playoff spots. Given that the Big 10 and Big 12 will also have plenty to say about this before the shouting is over, the ACC finds itself desperately rooting for Miami (currently ranked No. 10) to win the conference so they get at least 1 shot out of 12.
Because incredible as it sounds, if the Canes fall in the ACC title game to say, a 3-loss Clemson team that ends up being ranked No. 22 you’re looking at once again no ACC representation in the 12-team playoff. Like our guy Chris Wright overreacted to on in Week 1, if 2 Group of 5 champions are ranked higher, they’ll be in and the dinged-up ACC champ will be (stop me if you’ve heard this before…) out.
And how great would it be, parity and all, for Northern Illinois or Memphis or Boise State end up being ranked ahead of the ACC champion? The hyperventilating will be so intense out of Tallahassee, Clemson and beyond that a whole new set of lawsuits will be filed in further attempts to bolt out of the conference.
This might feel like new math, y’all, but in reality it is the exact same cipherin’ you learned as a wee tyke. Ball knows, and no matter how you jigger the system trying to get unworthy teams in – they can still just end up flaming out like taco shells left in the oven too long.
The SEC ain’t going anywhere, you simpletons. The best is the best, regardless of who you line up to knock them down.
An APSE national award-winning writer and page designer, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.