College football programs with tougher schedules will be rewarded.
The offseason talk surrounding how the college football playoff committee ranks teams was one of the main talking points for a number of teams across the sport, but clearly, the SEC was leading the charge on potential changes to how strength of schedule was measured.
If you remember, it was Alabama, South Carolina and Ole Miss who missed out on the CFP last season, with the overall sentiment within the conference building in Birmingham being that the committee did not take SOS into account.
This led to plenty of conversations around how the committee should come up with better metrics in how they decide on who makes the postseason, with the argument centered around why Indiana should have gotten in over a team like Alabama, or even South Carolina.
The conversation quickly shifted during SEC Spring meetings, when the conference passed out information to media members in attendance that pointed to how their strength of schedule metrics were in a different league, compared to schools from the ACC or even the Big Ten.
Seemingly, the SEC got its way this week, as the CFP committee announced they would be changing the way they use strength of schedule when determining who should be ranked higher than others.
“An additional metric, record strength, has been added to the selection committee’s analysis to go beyond a team’s schedule strength to assess how a team performed against that schedule,” the CFP release mentioned. “This metric rewards teams defeating high-quality opponents while minimizing the penalty for losing to such a team. Conversely, these changes will provide minimal reward for defeating a lower-quality opponent while imposing a greater penalty for losing to such a team.”
In short, the committee put together two different groups to go over procedures and the policies that come with deciding on who should earn a spot in the postseason.
Also, there is now a different recusal process for committee members in the room, who might have a rooting interest in teams that are being discussed for a spot in the rankings.
“Procedural changes for this year include an update to the recusal policy to establish two separate distinctions: a full recusal, consistent with the previous policy; and a partial recusal, which allows selection committee members to remain in the room for the discussion of teams they are partially recused from, but continue to prevent them from voting during those rounds,” the CFP committee announced,
The SEC got what it wanted when it comes to how teams are analyzed, with strength of schedule becoming a much bigger factor. If a team plays a tough opponent that’s ranked, that will be weighed heavier during discussions. If a team were to win against a ‘lesser’ opponent, there will be ‘minimal reward,’ while wins against higher-ranked opponents will increase their ‘record strength’ moving forward.
At the end of the day, this is a win for teams who schedule tougher games and find success, while those who are winning games against those lower-ranked teams will not be rewarded with a higher jump in rankings like in years past.
Welcome to the next era of the College Football Playoff.
