At 2025 SEC Media Days, the most powerful football conference in the country revealed its deepest insecurities, not about competition, but about fairness. As the College Football Playoff expands and the SEC weighs the merits of an eight-versus-nine-game conference schedule, coaches are asking tough questions: Who is picking the Playoff teams? What do they value? And is the system rigged against the SEC’s own strength?
No one summed up that tension better than Kirby Smart.
“Forever I was a nine-game proponent because it was better for our fan bases. It was better for television. It was better for increasing revenue, which is a huge demand right now on college athletics,” Smart said. “So I like the idea of nine. My concern with the idea of nine is: How are we picking the 12 or 14 teams? Who’s picking them? What do they value? Because I don’t think we saw value in adding nine more losses to our league last year in terms of the way they picked the teams.”
Lane Kiffin took it a step further, quoting an unnamed peer to question how SEC strength is perceived compared to other leagues. “I had a coach that played Clemson last year say, ‘Put Clemson on my schedule every week compared to playing SEC teams,’” Kiffin said. “But there might be years that also the ACC really does have real teams.”
Shane Beamer emphasized his support for expanding access to the Playoff, but also warned against diluting the value of the regular season. “I want to make sure we have the greatest regular season in any sport in college athletics,” he said. “It’ll still make a lot more games meaningful in the month of November… but I want to make sure that the other teams in this league aren’t playing nine SEC games and then playing three games that they should win, because that’s not very smart as the head coach of South Carolina to be doing that if that’s what the other teams in this league aren’t doing.”
Brian Kelly added a different angle, suggesting that balancing a schedule doesn’t have to mean loading up on bluebloods. “Why not play the schools from your own state and share in the revenue?” Kelly asked. “We’re gonna play Louisiana Tech and Southeast Louisiana this year, and we’re excited about those.”
Josh Heupel and Steve Sarkisian in past comments have highlighted the importance of tradition and fairness. “I think the rivalries, the special games … are a huge part of what fan bases look forward to,” Heupel said. Sarkisian added, “Eight teams are going to win and eight are going to lose [with a ninth SEC game]. Nobody wants to get punished playing another game.”
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey acknowledged the debate is far from settled. “We have to understand how strength of schedule is being evaluated by the Playoff committee. That will ultimately drive our decision,” Sankey said. “But we’re not going to put our teams at a disadvantage just to say we play nine [conference] games.”
As college football evolves, the SEC remains defiant, willing to schedule tough, but demanding a selection process that respects it. Until then, expect the conversation to continue. After all, as Smart said, “This is the talking season.”
Maybe the SEC shouldn’t play cupcakes next to last week of the season. Make your last 8 games all conference games just like everyone else. Move your in state rivalry games somewhere between weeks 2 and 5.
Skip Bierman Despite pulling for a nine-game conference schedule I do favor your proposal for SEC schedule and it looks fantastic.
As a Georgia supporter I would not mind Georgia-Georgia Tech play between weeks 2-5 & have Georgia-South Carolina play on Thanksgiving weekend & I am very open minded for any changes in SEC.
The “difficulty” of the SEC schedule is not the reason that the SEC didn’t get 4 or 5 teams into the playoff last year, it was the terrible loses to below-average teams for the teams on the cusp that cost them the spots. Ole Miss lost to Kentucky (which was Kentucky’s only SEC win) and Alabama lost to Vanderbilt (a team that hadn’t beaten them in 50 years). Their current scheduling model of 1 FCS – two Group of 5 – one Power 4 will give most of the SEC teams 4 out-of-conference wins annually and will be successful in getting them 4 – 6 teams with 10-2 records in most years.
You got that right! And just how many of those 4 OOC games are AWAY? The SEC teams tend to favor 3 home OOC games and a possibly a neutral site OOC game. Gotta pile up the wins.
SEC still crying because 3-loss Alabama didn’t get into the playoffs. “They deserve it, they played a tough SEC schedule!” um, two of the teams they lost to wouldn’t have been bowl eligible had they not beaten Alabama (Vanderbilt and Oklahoma by 3 touchdowns in November). Lose ‘only’ one of those and they would have been in.
The bottom SEC teams get into bowls going only 2-6 in conference games by beating four cupcakes OOC. That’s part of the motivation to stay at 8 conference games.
You got that right! Although sometimes SEC teams, like Ole Miss this year schedule no P4 OOC games….not to mention all 4 are at home. Great way to become bowl eligible.
How about this, no more championship games, everyone and I mean everyone plays 9 conference games, all conferences, play 13 games, 4 being non conference games. Then have 16 team playoff. Higher seed hosts first round. Then bowls host. This way it’s all equal and everyone keeps those God important Thanksgiving weekend games.
sounds good to me
Support your idea Illninoles97.
Conference games are heart & soul of CFB.
Agreement with Brian Kelly – OMG what has my world come to?
Real Housewives of Birmingham….these dudes are dramatic, Herby Smart plays like 2 games outside of the state of Georgia per year. maybe the SEC will break off and just play themselves so we can get back to normal
“Herby Smart” and his team typically play 2 power conference teams per season, with 2025 being an exception because the UCLA series was canceled.
Herby Smart should have second thoughts of playing UCLA now with proposal of Big Ten-SEC match up.
They play a non-con in the Georgia Dome and a triple option acc team with Russell Athletic jerseys from Georgia #gauntlet
You could just look at their past and future schedules for proof. Or, you could continue trolling.
Kevin Kelley July 17th, 2025, at 8:02PM
Excellent post & good sense of humor.
I still think it’s best to have the week before championship week be a tough out of conference game. That way the league has two weeks knowing the matchup for the conference championship. That’s always been the advantage for a Georgia or more recently now Florida, playing a P4 that’s a bit of a cupcake in Georgia Tech and Florida State respectively.
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Alabama and Auburn have always had the toughest path, because the iron bowl the week before the SEC championship is a tough stretch. And before the G5 cupcake rotated in the week before, Auburn used to play Georgia just before Alabama — that’s why we called it Amen corner… Georgia, then Alabama, and if you made it through then the SEC championship.
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So back to the idea of finding mostly tough ooc games the week before championship. Why not have all the conference teams play that 13th game. Pair it up where possible since one is playing two, do the rest in tournament seeding style: 3/16, 4/15, 5/14 etc. with the higher seed moving up until they have an opponent they haven’t played. With the exception of the championship game then nobody is facing a team they’ve already played, and for the same reason I want to see nine-game conference schedules in the SEC, is because it’s a conference. What’s the point of a conference if you don’t play a lot of the teams in your conference? Only eight games when you’re a 16 team conference? Let’s give the Big 10 some credit for playing nine conference games when you’ve got 18 teams in the conference….
So Brian Kelly is “excited” about playing La Tech and SELa.
Is that supposed to be comedy?
And is he more or less excited about these two games than he was about playing Nicholls, Grambling and Southern the past three seasons?
As a Georgia Bulldogs supporter hope you do not mind me using word like because I like Georgia playing in state small schools for OOC games.
Playing in-state smaller schools is an “acceptable” thing to do, but I don’t think it’s something the larger school is supposed to get “excited” about.
Another thing about the quote is that BK acts like it’s some type of revelation that the rest of college football hasn’t figured out, which is preposterous.
That guy can work over a pickle more vigorously than anybody.