It isn’t much discussed around the Georgia football facility.
Perhaps, then, it’s because it is implied; expected.
“We don’t talk much around here about Playoffs or that kind of thing,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said this week. “We’re very technical in our approach. We look at a game and say what did we do well, what did we do poorly. How do we get better at it?
“We don’t really talk about the Playoffs much.”
Around much of the rest of the Southeastern Conference?
Yes, league coaches aren’t avoiding discussion of the expanded, 12-team College Football Playoff that’s set for its first rollout of rankings early next month and selects its participants six weeks from Sunday.
Among Power 4 conferences, only the SEC no longer has at least one undefeated team.
So, losses and their impact on potential CFP berths and/or seeding are undeniable talking points.
“I don't think that the Playoff has derailed any of the energy, you know, from fans and the importance of every game,” said fourth-year Tennessee coach Josh Heupel, whose second-straight home win against Alabama last week has his Vols still deeply in CFP contention. “And, you know, it's different that you can stub your toe and still have a chance to get in.
“But, there's still such great urgency and in this league man, you got to come to play every single week. You just look at how everybody in this league, top to bottom, is really playing.”
Hyperbole from Heupel? Absolutely not. The SEC has nine teams ranked in this week’s AP Top 25; four of the top eight. Texas A&M hosts LSU Saturday night in a game pitting one-loss teams – with neither program’s loss coming in league play.
The winner overwhelmingly increases its odds of an SEC Championship game appearance, and the industry-wide consensus is an appearance in the SEC title bout is a de facto automatic ticket into the CFP’s inaugural Field of 12.
Brian Kelly, a two-time CFP participant from his run atop the Notre Dame program prior to arriving at LSU before the 2022 season, believes the CFP expansion continues to enhance the sport’s regular season.
“Well, I think that that's the genesis of this whole change in format is that, you know, we would get into late October and November, and there would only be 12 to 15 teams in the discussion,” said Kelly, his LSU team ranked No. 8 by the AP and winners of six games in a row since an opening neutral-site loss to USC. “Now, now you've got 30, you're doubling it, and maybe even more (teams in contention) if I took the moment to really consider it. So, it's just good for college football. It now allows the interest level and the notoriety of the game to go from coast to coast.
“And, certainly, the conferences do now. So, why wouldn't you want it to have teams from coast to coast to be involved in the playoffs? I just think it's good for the game. It keeps the interest at a high level, making each game going into late October and November so much more important.”
If not outright playoff contests, games are absorbing playoff-elimination vibes. The loser of Alabama-Missouri Saturday, fair or not, faces daunting odds to do anything other than perhaps earn an invitation to the Citrus Bowl at season’s end.
Fifth-ranked Texas remains in fine position to return a second-straight year to the CFP, but the Longhorns’ tilt at Vanderbilt this weekend carries drastically enhanced significant after the Horns’s loss at home last Saturday to current No. 2 Georgia.
“I think everybody way back in the old format, you felt like, you know, prior to College Football Playoff, you were doing everything in your power that you could do to try to go undefeated and hope you guys voted us No. 1 in the country,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said this week on the SEC’s coaches’ teleconference. “Then it went to the four-team playoff. And then you were, okay, you're fighting like crazy, and you could maybe endure one loss, maybe depending on that, you know, when that loss occurred. And if you were conference champion and things of that nature. And now, it being a 12-team playoff, I actually was just talking to an NFL executive about this. It's got a little bit more of an NFL feel in that you can afford a loss, you can afford, maybe, not to be your best. Maybe you have some injuries that that cost you where you're not, you know, at 100 (percent), and you don't play your best, and you lose a ball game?
“I think one of the challenges is for fan bases. Now, understanding that as well, you know, I think everybody wanted for the longest is just go undefeated and a little bit more now is you're gonna get a little bit more high profile, I think, non-conference matchups. Obviously, with conference realignment, being in the SEC, the expansion that that the Big 10 has done. You know, there's some really quality teams that you have to play throughout the season and you can afford a loss and I think in some cases, maybe two, and still have an opportunity to get into that (CFP). We lost to a really good Georgia team Saturday that I had to remind myself, was already coming into that game with a loss. And so how we respond and how people respond to that loss, I think, is what's as critical as anything.”
First-year Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer, a year after guiding then-PAC 12 member Washington to the CFP title bout against a Michigan program under NCAA investigation, believes even a broader field doesn’t address the inherent discrepancies within the sport.
“I think it's a combination of, you know, these two conferences (SEC and Big Ten), so many teams up there (in the rankings), and
so much discrepancy of what a schedule is like in these two conferences,” DeBoer said, “especially this conference versus the other two conferences (ACC, Big 12 also get an automatic bid for its conference champion), and how you've got to be ready every week in the SEC, because there's no easy games here.”