No. 6 Florida's stunning loss to unranked LSU on Saturday night encapsulates the very argument SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Clemson coach Dabo Swinney made this past week.
The more teams play, the more they risk.
"Any time you step in between the lines in the game of football, there's a lot that can happen," Swinney said on "The Rich Eisen Show" earlier this week. "A lot. In 2017, we lost to a three-win or a four-win Syracuse team and still went to the playoffs. Anything can happen. Guys can get hurt. We're going to have 11 games as well as the SEC teams. You look at Florida, Texas A&M and Alabama -- these teams are going to have 11 games this year, it's incredible. The Big Ten had the same opportunity, and they chose not to play."
The sleeves are rolled up -- 'tis the season to fight for your spot in the College Football Playoff.
While Swinney's knock on the Big Ten raises a fair question for the committee about how important the number of games will ultimately be in its final ranking on Dec. 20, he also said it during what amounted to a bye week before facing Notre Dame in the ACC championship game. Both teams were off Saturday after the ACC canceled Notre Dame's game against Wake Forest and did not reschedule Clemson's game against Florida State.
Sankey told Rece Davis on Saturday morning during ESPN's College GameDay show that the SEC gave no thought to doing the same for Alabama and Florida this weekend before they face each other in the conference title game.
"None," Sankey said. "Playing games matters. The selection committee for the College Football Playoff has said that, and we have a chance to demonstrate the excellent football in the Southeastern Conference today, and I really didn't have any pushback from our teams. They're ready to play and have these opportunities. Playing games matters."
In the Gators' case, the risk was far greater than the reward. Florida, which just four quarters ago would have been a lock for a top-four spot with a victory over Alabama in the SEC championship game, is no longer a guarantee -- even with that coveted and valuable SEC title. Saturday was not a "good loss." It would be easier for the committee to justify a one-loss Alabama without an SEC title than it would a two-loss Florida team with one.
"I guess the best thing to do would have been to play less games because you seem to get rewarded for not playing this year," Gators coach Dan Mullen said after the defeat.
The SEC champion has never been left out of the CFP, and a two-loss team has never made it. Either one of those things remains possible in 2020. Would the committee take a two-loss Florida over an undefeated Ohio State that played only six games? Or a two-loss Clemson? Sankey succinctly said what might be the most controversial point of debate for the committee this season -- and quite possibly as long as it exists, assuming (hoping?) the group never again has to decipher between a team that played six games and one that played 11.
Sankey pointed out Saturday morning that Florida has to play eight straight weeks through the SEC championship game against Alabama, while other "conferences aren't even going to play eight games in their schedule."
"The question is, are we going to be rewarded for playing games, or rewarded for not playing games?" Sankey said on College GameDay.
Sankey is of course referring to the fact that by the end of next week, the SEC expects to have played 69 of the 70 games it scheduled for this season, completing a 10-game, conference-only schedule that began on Sept. 26. The ACC, which opted for an 11-game season that began the weekend of Sept. 12, is on track to play 86 total games -- 12 more than any other conference. The Big 12 also decided to forge ahead with a 10-game schedule that began in September and will crown a two-loss winner that will have played 10 or 11 games.
No. 4 Ohio State will play six games -- half of a normal regular season -- presenting quite a conundrum for the committee, considering the Buckeyes might be one of the best four teams in the country if they beat Northwestern to win the Big Ten title on Dec. 19.
And so begins the annual public push to lobby for a spot in the top four -- debates that this season can't be untangled from how each Power 5 conference chose its schedules during the pandemic. There was a stark divide this summer between the approaches of the Big 12, SEC and ACC -- which together tried to stay the course of a regular season in spite of COVID-19 -- and the Big Ten and Pac-12, which first canceled their seasons entirely before reverting to truncated seasons that began in late October or early November.
They took different paths to ultimately wind up at the same spot, decisions that will forever be scrutinized and criticized, but if Ohio State finishes in the top four in spite of it all, it could be the committee that ultimately faces the brunt of it. Its mission, as stated in its protocol, is to select the four best teams. Period. And there is no benchmark to qualify for a CFP semifinal this season. The number of games teams play will matter -- but nobody knows how much.
Swinney lobbed a preemptive strike, telling "The Rich Eisen Show" he thinks the Tigers should be in the playoff even if they don't beat Notre Dame.
"We feel like we're definitely one of the best four teams in the country, and there's nothing that's going to happen in that game this week for Clemson or Notre Dame that's going to change that in my opinion, and that's based on data," Swinney said. "It's almost like you've got to have 120 hours to get a business degree and these people over here only need 60 hours to get a business degree."
Texas A&M will finish with nine games, if it can end its season as expected next Saturday against Tennessee. According to ESPN's strength of record metric, the Aggies have the No. 3 résumé in the country. Their biggest problem is they don't have a shot at the SEC title, but even without it, the computers say Texas A&M's 8-1 résumé would be better than Ohio State's -- and Clemson and Notre Dame at 11-1. According to research by ESPN Stats & Information, in the six-year history of the playoff, no one-loss SEC team has ever been excluded.
This is where it gets trickier than any other season: The selection committee has valued and will continue to value strength of schedule, and every game played is another opportunity to impress the group, but should it penalize contenders who couldn't play because of COVID-19 cancellations? Decisions that were out of their control? Or is it a bigger indictment and penalizing an entire conference for not scheduling more games and starting earlier to begin with?
If none of it sounds fair, it's because none of it is. It's 2020.
There is precedent, though, for how much the number of games has mattered in the past.
In the first season of the CFP, the most unforgettable storyline was about one game that didn't happen -- a Big 12 championship.
One game.
Remember how important that one "data point" was?
It was so important the Big 12 went and hired itself a data company to figure out that if it had a title game, it would have a better chance of finishing in the top four. So now the Big 12 has itself a conference championship.
One. More. Game.
"We've heard over time that every data point's important, which means playing games is important," Sankey said. "We as a league took that seriously. We added games to our schedule in this really strange environment and we're going to finish 69 of 70."
CFP committee chair Gary Barta reiterated Saturday what past chairmen have said: They aren't influenced by the public debate.
"By the time we come together every Monday and Tuesday, committee members are aware of opinions that have been expressed by fans, the media, and, of course, coaches and administrators throughout the previous week," Barta told ESPN. "As individual members, we agree to check our allegiances and any outside influences at the door. We watch and study the teams, have candid debate and conversations, and then create the ranking based on the expertise and opinions of the 13 people in the room."
While the pandemic has made this season most unusual, coaches and commissioners lobbying for their leagues are all part of the show. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year is also when mundane coachspeak takes an interesting twist into playoff politicking.
Last year, immediately following the Big Ten title game, Ohio State coach Ryan Day said from the podium, "I think we deserve to be No. 1," as his team continued to flip-flop in the top spot with LSU.
In 2017, when one-loss Alabama and two-loss Ohio State were in a fierce debate for No. 4, their powerful respective coaches at the time, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer, unabashedly stated their cases on ESPN for a top-four spot.
"I don't know it had an impact on the committee," Saban said that weekend, "but I wanted to put my case out there."
This season, the argument isn't just about who's the best -- it's about who had the most opportunities to prove it.