Was the South Carolina-Georgia game filled with drama and excitement, or what? College football is something special. Some wise ex-coach said, “We play to win the game.” It would profit some professional writers greatly to turn off their computers, get out of the office and experience a real game.
Keep your eye on Baton Rouge, Tuscaloosa, Tallahassee, or Morgantown this Saturday and witness the genuine game.
The SEC West will have a playoff to see who gets into the four-team playoff. If we were to have an eight team playoff this year, considering the outcomes of the first 3 weeks, the SEC would make up one side of the bracket. Four teams from the SEC West, two from the Big 12 and one from both the ACC and PAC 12 would be in the playoff.
At this early stage, here are some facts: Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Texas A&M and Ole Miss will play four top 10 teams. And Oklahoma, Oregon and Florida State only play one apiece.
From the current top 25, Auburn plays seven , Texas A&M plays six. LSU plays five, Alabama and Ole Miss both play four, Oklahoma & Oregon both play three, and Florida State plays one. When you add opponents such as Mississippi State and Florida to the SEC mix, it is easy to see that any kind of reasoned thinking would put two SEC teams in a four-team playoff.
The problem is that most of the power polls and projections with fingers in the wind and blindfolds are not seeing the SEC as it is. The College Football Professor would place Alabama, Auburn, Oregon and Oklahoma in the four-team playoff if it had to be decided today. This probably will not happen because of the easy road Florida State has to travel.
Beyond all of these projections, though, we must remember that most of this will work itself out because the season is just beginning. It is way too early to predict which will be the top four teams in December.
The most intriguing feature of the future view of this college football season is the SEC-West playoff. It will happen and not because prognosticators and pundits vote it so. Remember the old saying that a wink or a nod makes no difference to a blind mule?
Let’s focus on these great September, October and November games. These natural rivalries are just as exciting and have as much drama as contrived games in January. It would not be a surprise to see a team in the top four at the end of the season that no one presently has on their radar. Some team will trip up, and some team will pick it up. Don’t sleep on Notre Dame; they play one top 10 team and five games against top 25 teams. Enjoy the season — the whole season — and don’t discount any game, not even one like USC-Boston College.