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Danny Kanell fires shot at Paul Finebaum, accuses SEC of strong arming College Football Playoff committee

by: Alex Byington09/24/25_AlexByington
Danny-Kanell-calls-out-Arch-Manning-over-TD-taunt-vs-Sam-Houston-State
Screengrab from 'Crain & Company'

Danny Kanell has long been considered an unabashed SEC critic, and is usually among the first to revel at the first sign of weakness. But after the SEC revealed how its new nine-game conference schedule format will look on Tuesday, the CBS Sports analyst called out the league — and ESPN firebrand Paul Finebaum specifically — for attempting to “strong arm” the College Football Playoff selection committee with its super-charged scheduling.

Kanell quote-tweeted a video of ESPN’s “Mouth of the South” issuing a stark warning to the CFP selection committee during Tuesday night’s ESPN2 reveal of its future conference opponents through 2029, in which Finebaum explicitly said the SEC “laid a marker … at the feet of the CFP and they better deliver.”

“This should concern everyone not in the SEC,” Kanell’s social media post began. “We already know they rigged the system with the new ‘enhanced metrics,’ but now Finebaum admits they openly are trying to strong arm the committee into selecting more SEC teams … which is ridiculous.”

Kanell’s concerns about the SEC aren’t necessarily unfounded. Since the league was limited to just three teams in last year’s inaugural 12-team CFP field, the SEC hasn’t been shy about its desire to better appeal to the CFP committee’s selection criteria in an effort to get as many teams as possible into the Playoffs.

As Kanell mentioned, the SEC was behind an offseason effort that led to the CFP selection committee’s August decision to add advanced metrics that will further highlight a team’s strength of schedule and how they perform against their schedule, both of which should help the SEC’s already-strong SOS.

But his suggestion that the CFP’s decision was a way to “rig” the selection process in the SEC’s favor is unfounded and mere speculation on Kanell’s part.

Paul Finebaum offers stark warning to College Football Playoff selection committee

Of course, the SEC overhauled its conference scheduling format — moving from an 8- to 9-game slate — to better align with the other Power Four leagues like the Big Ten and Big 12, and thus appeal to the College Football Playoff selection committee’s ranking criteria. The ACC has since followed suit by announcing its own move to a nine-game conference schedule earlier this week.

But with Tuesday’s SEC conference schedule reveal through 2029, it’s clear there was a concerted effort by the league to create what SEC commissioner Greg Sankey described as the “best set of conference games in all of college football.”

Not only will each league team have nine conference opponents, but they’ll also have to schedule a Power Four opponent on top of that. That’s up to 10 high-quality games on the slate.

Finebaum pointed out that these changes make the SEC a potential juggernaut. That is, if the changes to make the schedule harder are, in fact, rewarded by the College Football Playoff’s newest metrics.

“I’m not making threats, because I don’t have any more control over it than anybody else, but I know some people who do,” Finebaum said. “And if they screw this up, they will be paying for it. I don’t know how or will but they should, because this is unequivocal what the SEC has laid down tonight.”

— On3’s Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this report.