The two biggest college football results from this weekend were LSU’s upset loss to Mississippi State and Missouri’s loss to Indiana. LSU’s loss mattered on a local scale–it seriously hurts their early College Football Playoff aspirations. Missouri’s loss, on the other hand, matters on a global scale. Namely, that loss can have ramifications for the entire SEC.
Week 4 CFP Implications: SEC’s Turn to Stumble
Whenever a team plays an in-conference game, the conference as a whole goes 1-1. Therefore, the fact that LSU lost to Mississippi State will not affect the schedule strength of an SEC team (actually, it will very slightly because of the lack of a round-robin conference schedule, but the effect is negligible). People might think that this hurts the SOS of teams in the SEC West, but it really doesn’t. Whatever “SOS points” (for lack of a better way to describe it) SEC West teams will lose from playing LSU, they will gain right back from playing Mississippi State. And while technically upsets are bad for the overall SOS of a conference–more on that in a later post–in this case it won’t really matter because Mississippi State will go undefeated in nonconference play, barring a shocking loss to FCS UT-Martin in November. It might hurt a tiny bit in terms of the perception of SOS, but in reality it doesn’t hurt anyone’s chances at the CFP but LSU’s own.
Missouri’s loss, on the other hand, is not self-contained in the SEC. Every team that Missouri beats in conference play this year will be weaker by virtue of having lost to a team that lost to Indiana. When teams lose non-conference games to good teams, it will not hurt their conference opponents so much. But let’s be clear: Indiana is not a good team. This is a team that, even with this result, may still struggle to make a bowl game–and that is with games against North Texas and Purdue remaining! This game just knocked Missouri down a few pegs on the prestige ladder and it will do the same to any teams Mizzou beats in-conference.
Now that we are four weeks into the season, we can see trends developing throughout the country and start to get a feel for what a team might need to do to make the CFP. And remember, in the end that’s what this is all about–teams, not conferences. It’s simpler to look at conferences and lump all of the teams in that conference together, but we have enough information now to begin to make nuanced points about who is likely to be in under which circumstances.
For example, it has been easy to say all year that a 1-loss SEC champion is all-but guaranteed a CFP spot. Now, though, we can say that if Missouri runs the table and wins the SEC at 12-1, they are far from a lock. They did not challenge themselves with their non-conference schedule (and that’s quite an understatement) and failed to win all four of those games. Combine that with the fact that they only play one expected powerhouse in cross-divisional play (they get Texas A&M and Arkansas) and that is not a schedule that screams “lock” at 12-1, even with the SEC Championship Game factored in.
On the other hand, we have been easily able to say that a 2-loss Big XII team would be in trouble come CFP selection time. Now, though, we can look at West Virginia and say that they would have a solid resume if they ran the table from here. They would have tight losses to Alabama and Oklahoma and would have solid wins in conference, in addition to a non-conference victory over Maryland. And yes, that means that their schedule includes 11 power conference teams. That would be a solid resume from anyone and would certainly put West Virginia at the head of the 2-loss group, something no other Big XII will be able to say this year.
Now, these last two examples are not meant to be predictions. In fact, they are both very unlikely. However, they very strongly reflect the point that we now have (almost) enough information to start looking at the chances of individual teams. We no longer have to lump all conference teams together because separation is beginning to occur–both in terms of nonconference resumes and because conference play has begun. We have to now evaluate each and every team on their own merit, not on which conference they are in.
I would just like to add one more point to discuss. Each year, one champion of a mid-major conference is guaranteed a spot in one of the New Years’ Six bowls. East Carolina is a very good team this year. They went out and scheduled tough, defeating Virginia Tech and North Carolina in non-conference play. They also impressively stayed close to South Carolina (but then again, so did Vanderbilt). They have built a strong resume and a good football team. They can probably even afford a loss in American Athletic Conference play and still have a much stronger resume than any other mid-major. In fact, the only mid-major that could potentially challenge them is Boise State if the Broncos run the table. Barring that, though, ECU is almost a lock for a major bowl as long as they win the AAC.
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