The SEC is the best conference in the country, but that argument should only go so far when the College Football Playoff begins its deliberations next month. Florida demolishes Ole Miss. Missouri bludgeons Florida.
It's one thing for the middle and top teams in the league to battle back and forth in one-possession games, but watching the hottest team in the conference flounder on the road in a blowout one week after shining against a top-10 team seven days earlier should not feed the metric machines with overly positive data for the SEC. Florida, Ole Miss and Missouri are at the center of that storm. Fresh off an emotional win against their former coach at LSU, the Ole Miss Rebels were shellacked on the road by 24 points at Florida on Sept. 26.
Many, including yours truly, overreacted and slotted the undefeated Gators inside the top five following their fourth straight 50-point performance and win. Then Florida laid an egg – do Gators lay eggs? – in a 45-17 loss Saturday at Missouri, a team that was barely hanging on at the bottom of the top 25 following a loss at Mississippi State the week prior. Does any of this actually hold water, or are we simply witnessing the fallout of that legendary "gauntlet" conference leaders love to talk about — the very grind they cautioned would intensify once the nine-game league slate arrived?
And does that really mean we should hand SEC teams a mulligan after a blowout loss? I can tolerate the league's push to squeeze an extra program — even potentially a three-loss squad — into the playoff field, but that narrative falls apart when statement victories are instantly erased by embarrassing road slumps. Wild results happen every Saturday, but elite contenders in college football's premier conference shouldn't look this volatile, including the Gators' 52-point, week-over-week swing from win to loss.
Maybe it's just a blip, and the nail-biting games will return in the SEC. Or maybe there are only three elite teams in the conference – Alabama, Georgia and Texas – and everyone else is overrated. Either way, brace yourselves for an endless barrage of mental gymnastics and aggressive lobbying from league brass when the College Football Playoff Selection Committee meets in November.
Debating a good loss against a bad win is not healthy. The sport has transformed into silo thinking, a land of unexplained advanced analytics and eye tests, where lobbyists and suits thrive rather than box scores, results and common sense. Kalen DeBoer can't catch a break from fans or the media as he continues to lead the Tide in the post-Saban era.
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