Why strength of schedule doesn’t matter … and never really has

During what former coach Steve Spurrier called “talking season,” many have taken to talking about SEC teams’ strength of schedule, which is borderline ridiculous.

Because they are in the league they have a mine field already strong enough.

Honestly, what do you want? In a world where getting to play for the championship is a popularity contest as much as anything, why anyone in the SEC would WANT to play a big time non-conference opponent is ridiculous.

In Arkansas’ case, they got a break a few years ago when Michigan paid off the UA so it could play Notre Dame. That meant they get some folks they can beat in a time of rebuilding.

Ranking the SEC’s schedules back in May, CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli had a valid point that “Arkansas’ schedule gets a slight boost because, unlike its SEC West counterparts, the Hogs don’t have Arkansas dragging their SOS down a bit.”

Yes, it is at that level right now.

Still, it’s fourth in the league in the rankings behind South Carolina (they play Clemson, Alabama and Georgia in the same season), then Georgia (Notre Dame plus Auburn and Texas A&M from the West) and the Aggies are third (Alabama and road games against Georgia and Clemson).

Clemson could have more SEC wins than some teams in the league.

Alabama is dead last in the league’s strength of schdule with, uh, Duke as the headliner out of conference. Yeah, well, that’s what every coach in the league should be doing, in my opinion.

You can talk all you want, but in the end the strength of schedule doesn’t matter one little bit if you have two losses at the end of the year. There’s still no guarantee a two-loss SEC team will get into the four-team finale.

That includes an A&M loss to, say Clemson and Alabama, then the Crimson Tide stumbling twice in the league. That would put the Aggies in Atlanta and, based on the College Football Playoff’s selection history, they would be in a bowl game that didn’t matter.

It’s easy to say what the CFP SHOULD do, but there’s no precedent for them putting a two-loss team in the Final Four.

Under the previous scenario, for example, you can see where A&M wins a SEC title game matchup against an undefeated Georgia team and it’s the Bulldogs playing for a national title. While the CFP has conference title as a “factor,” it’s not a “requirement” for deciding anything.

Oh, I’m not saying there wouldn’t be a complete uproar in the league and across the college football world, but it’s a possibility I honestly could see happening.

It’s not out of character. Alabama won a national title in 2017 after not winning the league’s championship game, but deciding the league crown in the overtime win over Georgia.

You want more than four teams to play for the national championship? Let that scenario play out.

Which is, actually, good for college football.

It’s the one sport where there can be arguments made almost every single year that the best team didn’t win the national championship.

And it’s been that way for, oh, more than a century.

It’s also the biggest college sport for about the last 150 years or so. A lot of that popularity has been fueled by arguments about an arbitrary process for the history of the sport in choosing a national champion.

Do you think that’s an accident?