New 12 Team CFB Playoff Format Puts More Emphasis on Strength of Schedule
Y’all ain’t played nobody!
It might as well be college football’s slogan. Debates about strength of schedule are part of the fabric of the sport, like marching bands, cheerleaders and tailgating.
With the size of the College Football Playoff tripling in size from four teams to 12 this season — including seven at-large bids — expect the arguments over the relative difficulty of teams’ schedules to increase exponentially.
The posturing and politicking has already begun.
“This is the NFL of college football in my mind,” Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said during Big Ten media days. At Southeastern Conference media days, the NFL was also invoked when the topic steered to schedules.
“As coaches we want to play the best. People forget that when you’ve spent time in the NFL, every week was like that,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “So when Texas and Oklahoma came into the conference, every schedule was going to get harder.”
The debates aren’t just about which conferences are the best. With super-sized conferences of 16-18 teams, the differences in strength of schedule within leagues can be significant.
The CFP selection committee uses a strength-of-schedule rating provided by SportSource Analytics that includes components such as wins and losses, scoring differential and game location.
Balancing who you played with how you played will be harder than ever.
“There’s a weight on the committee that’s new. I want to see how the committee processes that,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said during spring meetings. “And my encouragement is that this, ‘Well, we have an undefeated team so they’re in’ is not the standard. It never was the standard. Obviously, that stirred up controversy last year.”
