SEC Football: How Many Teams Could the SEC Get in the 2024 College Football Playoff? – Dive Deeper into the Schedules

With just a month to go before the 2024 college football season kicks off, one of the storylines that will dominate headlines all season long will be the new 12-team College Football Playoff. For the G5 teams, this means an automatic shot for someone. It also means an automatic berth for the winner of the Big 10, Big 12, ACC, and SEC.

For the Big 10 and the SEC, however, the question is not which team makes the playoffs, but how many teams participate.

Some have suggested that the SEC could send four teams to the playoffs (the SEC Champion auto-bid and three at-large).

Eliminating divisions makes everything more complicated

Of the 12 teams, five are automatic qualifiers, leaving seven teams that are at-large from the rest of college football.

The assumption is that the Big 10 runner-up will get an at-large spot no matter what, leaving six spots. How many of those six spots can the SEC expect to get? That’s where things get a little complicated.

In the past, the SEC had divisions and only 14 teams. Because of this, there were only a limited number of mathematical ways for a team to get nine or 10 wins. In other words, if Ole Miss, Alabama, Texas A&M, and LSU played each other, seven combined games would result in seven losses. Regardless of how the wins/losses were split, at least two teams would be excluded from 10 regular-season wins.

Now, without divisions, things get complicated.

Will the SEC take losses of the highest level into account?

With divisions, it was pretty easy to compare each SEC East team to every other SEC East team. In a way, their two cross-division games were almost non-conference games. Georgia, Florida, and Missouri all played each other, along with the other six SEC East teams, which gave a pretty good basis to look at schedules.

The top teams can be examined. These teams are expected to do very well this year and compete for a national championship. They include Alabama, GeorgiaLSU, Ole Miss, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas A&M, and Texas. That’s not to say other teams can’t rise to that level (Missouri did last year), but those are the teams that are currently at the top.

Will the College Football Committee penalize these teams for losing when they play each other? You would think they should, but since Texas, Georgia, and Alabama all play four of these opponents, Missouri only plays one of these teams. Will the committee penalize Georgia for playing four of the top teams when they are tied at 2-2?

Breaking down the numbers

Just like last year in the SEC West, there were mathematically seven losses between the top three teams, but there are some scenarios and losses between certain teams to consider. The following games will take place during the season:

• Alabama vs Georgia
• Alabama vs. Missouri
• Alabama vs. LSU
• Alabama vs. Tennessee
• Georgia vs. Texas
• Georgia vs. Ole Miss
• Georgia vs. Tennessee
• LSU vs. Ole Miss
• LSU vs. Texas A&M
• Missouri vs. Texas A&M
• Texas A&M vs. Texas

Between these eight teams 11 losses are shared somewhere. In addition there are games such as:

• LSU vs USC
• Georgia vs Clemson
• Texas vs. Michigan
• Alabama vs. Wisconsin
• Texas A&M vs. Notre Dame

Let’s be generous and say the SEC goes 3-2 in these games. Unless there are more surprises (which there will be), that’s still 13 losses to be spread among the eight teams.

Mathematically, some teams in the mentioned matches are eliminated from participating in the play-offs.

A funny chart that really shows how difficult SEC schedules are photo.twitter.com/1zUwWCGjWH

— Blake Byler (@blakebyler45) July 18, 2024

Prediction

Of the eight teams currently “in contention,” three will eliminate themselves in games against each other alone. Another team or two will suffer an unexpected loss in their other SEC games. Remember, games against Oklahoma, Kentucky, Auburn, and Florida aren’t even considered, but there will be games that these four teams win out of the eight teams in contention.

When it’s all over, there will be:

• 2 teams with 11+ wins
• 2 teams with 10+ wins
• 3 teams with 9+ wins

Any team in the SEC that goes 10-2 is in the Playoff. Depending on the team, a team could be considered 9-3 if the circumstances are right. No 9-3 team is going to outrank a 12-0 G5 team, 11-1 Big 12/ACC team, or 10-2 Big 10 team, but if there are still spots open after those criteria are met, a team like Alabama, LSU, or Georgia that plays a lot of tough SEC games would be heavily considered.

My final prediction is that the SEC Champion makes it and that there are at least three other teams that get at-large bids. I also predict that there is a 50% chance that a fourth at-large team makes it. I believe that the committee will be overly fair to the other conferences this year after the backlash they got last year over Florida State.

“Well, we have seven teams from the Top 25 on the schedule, so it’s probably a much better year than it normally would have been.” #WPS

Sam Pittman spoke today at SEC Media Days about the schedule, the team and much more. Watch the full interview below ⤵️⤵️https://t.co/6dguTDjROA photo.twitter.com/usOm1OuCGg

— Pig Trail Nation (@PigTrailNation) July 18, 2024

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