SEC bowl projections after Week 6: Has Georgia done enough to make Playoff?

Does anybody want to be the fourth-best team in the SEC?

That’s not exactly the type of job a head coach applies for, but somebody has to take it. Right?

On Saturday, Florida lost at home to an LSU team coming off a home defeat against Troy. Kentucky just barely hung on to beat bottom-dwelling Missouri. Mississippi State took the week off so it’s hard to fault the Bulldogs there. And South Carolina did what it needed to do Saturday, though the Gamecocks already have two conference losses before even playing Georgia or Florida in the East Division.

Texas A&M actually might have made as good of a case as anyone on Saturday, oddly enough. Yes, the Aggies lost to Alabama, but they kept it closer than most anticipated (oddsmakers installed the Crimson Tide as a 26-point favorite). It’s still hard for A&M to shake that opening collapse against UCLA, but the Aggies have looked better since.

Now to address the looming issue involving the SEC’s top three teams: No, Georgia is not projected for the College Football Playoff here yet, even after Oklahoma’s shocking loss to Iowa State.

Here is the logic: First, remember that these projections are a prediction of where teams will land at the end of the season, not where they are now. The thought here is that Auburn has just enough talent, and homefield advantage, to edge Georgia on Nov. 11.

Then in the SEC title game, Bama (assuming that’s the West winner) has enough to get past a strong Georgia team as well. The CFP committee has already set a precedent (in a small, three-year sample, but that’s all we have to go on) of preferring one-loss teams with comparatively iffy resumes over two-loss teams that might be just as talented.

So, for now, the call here is for an Alabama-Washington rematch in a CFP semifinal.

Jim Tomlin

Longtime newspaper veteran Jim Tomlin is a copy editor and writer with SaturdayDownSouth.com.