How Nick Saban's retirement, expanded College Football Playoff could affect SEC perception

With college football playoff expansion coming next fall with a move out to 12 teams, and maybe even 14 in the future, these major conferences will finally be able to settle the annual debates over which conferences is best.

On the On3 YouTube channel Thursday morning, Andy Staples explained why the expanded field allows SEC haters and SEC fanatics to finally get answers as to whether the conference is overrated, underrated, or perhaps, rated just right.

“The SEC has gotten the benefit of the doubt in playoff selection, probably because the SEC has won the most playoff games,” Staples laid out. “So, what does it mean going forward? Will the other conferences show that the SEC was getting preferential treatment? That the SEC didn’t deserve (the benefit of the doubt)?”

With 12 teams, Staples says we’ll find out.

“That theory will either be proven or disproven in the next few years, because if the SEC teams that make this expanded playoff dominate the teams from other leagues, well, then everybody was right about the SEC.”

Staples also explained that there’s no controversy over which league has the best players. People paid to rank high school recruits, like our friends at On3, or any service, universally have SEC teams at the top of the rankings. Furthermore, NFL teams draft and employ far more SEC players than players from any other conference. There’s no question the SEC has the best talent.

“My question is, though, do they have the best teams?” asks Staples. “We’ll find out. My guess is we’ll find out that the SEC has really good teams because the SEC still has the best players. It is not a vast media conspiracy that the SEC is good. It is good. It has the best players. It has had the best teams.”

While the SEC did dominate the four-team playoff, that’s such a small sample size, per Staples, and usually, it was the same team winning over and over again.

“Here’s the thing: I don’t think the four-team playoff even gave us enough size to figure it out. The SEC was going to continue getting the benefit of the doubt. Now, you have all these auto-bids, I don’t think it matters. But I do like that we’re going to get to see it play out on the field.”

Now, with more teams in the mix and Nick Saban off the throne, there’s room for everybody to take a bite out of the pie.

“You’re taking a guy out of the equation who won six of the last 15 national titles. That does change the math a little bit. It could be that someone in the SEC picks up the slack, but more than likely, that gets spread over everybody. That piece of it, more than anything else, could change the numbers.”