Should the SEC Change How Championship Game Participants Are Determined?
Times, they are a-changin' in college football.
In one short decade, we've seen conferences expand, a playoff system created, schools move up to FBS from FCS and even one FBS program—UAB—abandon the sport completely.
Get ready, because there could be more structural shakeups in the future.
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According to CBSSports.com's Dennis Dodd, legislation governing the structure of conference championship games is expected to be deregulated by 2016, which would allow conferences that don't have at least 12 teams and play round-robin schedules within each division to stage conference title games.
The move would directly impact the 10-team Big 12, which is the only Power Five conference that doesn't stage such a contest. But Dodd also mentions that the ACC helped develop the deregulation legislation, and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby has a theory as to why.
"I think there's some belief that ACC would play three divisions, have two highest-ranked play in postseason," Bowlsby told Dodd. "Really, nobody cares how you determine your champion. It should be a conference-level decision."
Now, it's not really Bowlsby's place to tell anybody what the ACC's plans are, but it does kick the can further down the road. If the ACC is thinking about changing how championship game participants are determined, should the SEC?
Without a doubt, the answer is yes.
This opens the door for every conference to figure out what's best for them, and as evidenced by the rather downtrodden SEC East over the last few years, incoming commissioner Greg Sankey should take this opportunity to re-evaluate what's best for the conference.
Does winning a geographically determined division automatically make a team title-worthy?
Nope.
We saw this in 2010, when SEC East champ South Carolina (9-3, 5-3 SEC) entered the Georgia Dome to play unbeaten Auburn for the conference title, despite the fact that the Gamecocks would have been tied with Alabama for fourth in the SEC West based on their conference record behind Auburn, Arkansas and LSU.
That shouldn't happen.
So how should the SEC fix it?
Sankey could throw a giant 12-to-6 curveball and completely revamp the way the conference is formatted. SportsDayNow.com's Chadd Scott suggested completely abandoning the divisions, establishing scheduling partners and rotate other teams on and off the schedule. The two teams with the best conference records could then play in the SEC Championship Game.
Is that too aggressive for your taste?
A simpler solution would be to keep the divisions and long-term scheduling format as is and incorporate a stipulation that SEC Championship Game participants must meet certain thresholds in order to play for the title:
- Division champs will play in the SEC Championship Game unless the one division champ's conference record is three or more games better than the other. If that's the case, the two teams with the best conference record regardless of division will play for the conference title.
- A title game participant must finish over .500 in conference play (this almost always is the case anyway, but better safe than sorry).
This way, the SEC Championship Game would reward the best two teams with some built-in precautions that would protect the game from getting a stale matchup while still allowing a division title winner with a tough strength of schedule based on cross-division matchups to be rewarded to a point.
There's no rule that states that geographically determined divisions have to determine champions. Sure, that's the case in virtually all major sports around the country, but there could be a better way.
With deregulation now possible, the SEC should take the opportunity to go back to the drawing board and attempt to not only change itself but become a trendsetter and change the way sports operate.
Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats are courtesy of cfbstats.com unless otherwise noted, and all recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports' composite rankings.
Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and college football video analyst for Bleacher Report as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on Sirius 93, XM 208.
Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.
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