The fear of a 12-team College Football Playoff is specifically connected to the worry that Nick Saban and Alabama will go 10-2 yet still make — and win — the postseason tournament.
We wrote about this in January:
“Nick Saban and Alabama were so dominant for so long that when a season like this — the Crimson Tide losing twice and looking ordinary — comes along, people are still afraid Bama would win the playoff.
“Yes, it’s true that Bama would have gotten in, but here’s the other side of the coin: Bama would have had to win three games to win the national title beginning in the 2024 season. That makes life harder for Alabama and Saban compared to the BCS, when it just had to win one game to win the national title. In 2023, Bama will have to win two games.”
This long-seated distrust and fear of the SEC has its roots in the 1978 season, when USC beat Alabama in Birmingham and yet still didn’t win an outright championship. The two polls that season — AP and UPI — were split.
Fear and loathing of the SEC also flow from 2003, when USC didn’t get the chance to play LSU for the national title, and yet LSU fans were quick to proclaim how the BCS national championship was uniquely theirs, as though there was no possible comparison or debate.
USC had the high ground in each of these college football seasons, but SEC teams received more credit than they deserved.
We talked to Mark Rogers at The Voice of College Football:
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