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Greg Sankey pumps SEC’s strength of competition in ‘careful’ comments on CFP rankings
By Crissy Froyd
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Greg Sankey isn’t the only one who seems to have a quibble — blatant or not– about the latest release of the College Football Playoff rankings. The SEC commissioner recently aired his thoughts when asked about the topic, as well as what the SEC Championship Game could look like.
He’s chosen his words deliberately and seemingly with a little bit of caution regarding the CFP, which some could argue has been unfair in some facets to SEC teams. Perhaps especially Georgia, which sits at No. 12 in very controversial fashion.
“I’ve been careful, except for my Sesame Street comment last year on GameDay… I’ve been careful about commenting as the committee deliberates,” Sankey said during an interview with Paul Finebaum. “It’s still early in the process, we still have 3 games to play. I’ll just speak to the reality of the depth of our conference, looking at where teams have played ranked teams. Where teams have played against opponents some on the road in nonconference games. One was on the road against the defending national champion that’s not ranked. Our league has not backed down from rigor.”
"Our depth is beyond anything that I've experienced."@GregSankey with some extended thoughts on the SEC Championship game and the @CFBPlayoff pic.twitter.com/Rb0QAk6bQQ
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) November 14, 2024
SEC Network analyst Paul Finebaum was also among the many who recently gave his opinion on the CFP rankings, though he was, in typical fashion, much more blunt and straightforward than just about anyone else.
One of the biggest concerns with the rankings and the way they have been done is that the committee’s decision makes it appear they don’t give any credit to teams with some of the toughest schedules in college football. Georgia may have the worst of those.
“You have to start by saying that what the committee said last night was a complete travesty,” Finebaum said in an appearance on ESPN’s First Take. “ They sit in a room at a five-star resort ordering caviar and champagne and sit around and talk about college football when they have 4,000 members to look at. So, I don’t know how they came up with these numbers.
“Georgia started the season against Clemson which has been ranked in the top 10 at the time. Their road schedule has been the toughest of anyone in the country, as you pointed out. They went to Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss. They’ve all been ranked in the top 10. They also went to Kentucky, which is very poor but they did beat Ole Miss, which is ranked inside the system.”
It will be interesting to see how things continue to shake out as teams make their final push through the last handful of games of the season — and if the committee can make more reasonable decisions when they put together the next edition of the rankings.
Crissy covers SEC football news for Saturday Down South.
