Which SEC football team is most likely to make its first CFP appearance in 2025? Mailbag

OK, people. You’re all tired of the off-field stuff. Let’s talk about some college football. Let’s talk about pure, competitive football, and for at least one story, leave aside all the other …

Ah, just kidding. We can’t escape it. You all asked questions this week about revenue sharing, teams getting rid of spring games, whether Greg Sankey is evil and the never-ending saga of the nine-game SEC schedule. Those queries will be answered.

But first, is anybody up for an actual football question?

(Submitted questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

Can you predict the next SEC football team to make the College Football Playoff for the first time, like Tennessee did this past year? — Jorge A.

The necessary caveat here is that if the CFP were still only four teams, Tennessee would not have made it last year — and Texas might not have either — but there are now six SEC teams that have made what we refer to as the Playoff: Alabama (eight times), Georgia (four), Oklahoma (four, all while in the Big 12), Texas (twice, once while in the Big 12), LSU (once) and Tennessee.

The most notable absences are Auburn and Florida, which have combined for three national championships and six SEC championships this century. However, in the CFP era, Auburn hasn’t been very close. If there had been a 12-team field during the four-team era, the Tigers would have made it only once in 2017 when they were seventh in the final CFP rankings. Meanwhile, Florida would have made it every year from 2018 to 2020, showing that between Playoff expansion and collectives somewhat mitigating in-person recruiting, Dan Mullen got the Florida job a little too early. But we digress.

Other programs probably would have made an expanded field, going strictly by the final rankings: Mississippi State and Ole Miss would both have been in the 2014 field, and Ole Miss would have made it four other times (2015, ’21, ’22, ’23). Texas A&M (2020) and Missouri (2023) would have been comfortably in those years.

But you didn’t ask for a history lesson. You asked for a prediction, and I’ll pick the team not mentioned so far but which still qualifies as the most obvious answer.

South Carolina checks three important boxes: a very good returning quarterback (LaNorris Sellers), what should be a good defense (headlined by Dylan Stewart) and good coaching (Shane Beamer has three winning seasons in four years after taking over a team coming off two losing seasons). The schedule is difficult, but there is a path to another 9-3 record or perhaps better with games against Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, Kentucky at home and trips to LSU, Alabama, Texas A&M and Missouri.

Am I ready to predict the Gamecocks to the Playoff? Not yet. But other than Texas, I’m not ready to predict that about anybody. Everybody has flaws — including the Longhorns — and this conference likely will beat up on itself again. It has gone from a couple of elite teams to a lot more parity, with the field being evened by name, images and likeness and the transfer portal.

That means Auburn and Florida can’t be ruled out. The Tigers have a good defense and play Alabama and Georgia at home. The Gators have a much tougher schedule but are coming off an 8-5 season and have a potential difference-maker quarterback (DJ Lagway). There’s also Ole Miss, which a lot of people expect to take a step back next season but still has plenty of talent and still has Lane Kiffin. Would anybody be surprised if Missouri or Texas A&M made a run?

And don’t forget that South Carolina was picked to finish 13th before last season and almost made it to the CFP. The conference might be wide open next year. The only teams you can discount as Playoff contenders are Mississippi State, Kentucky and (probably) Arkansas and Vanderbilt. Even then, with Diego Pavia, who knows?

Is a spring game for the development of the team, or is it for the fans? Does canceling spring games benefit player development or reduce injury risk more than it detracts from fan enjoyment and enthusiasm? — Gene S.

The spring game itself isn’t a huge source of player development. It’s one of the 15 days teams have allotted for spring practice. The NCAA allots teams three scrimmages, with one of them being the spring game. It’s a good bet that Texas, Nebraska and others “canceling” their spring game are still holding that scrimmage, just away from public eyes, the stated reason being to prevent other teams from scouting their players for transfer portal reasons, i.e., tampering.

Maybe that’s the case. But there’s another theory I’ve heard: It’s to prevent their players from truly knowing where they stand. The spring game is a chance for the fans and the public at large to see the state of their team at the end of spring practice, including who is where on the depth chart.

Most teams put the first-team offense and defense on opposing teams. Sometimes teams mix it up, but either way, there are starters on either team, and players want to be rewarded as starters for the very public, very over-analyzed spring game. And if players don’t like their playing time in the spring game, they may take it as a sign that they should transfer.

By getting rid of that public spring game, a coach could spread out the starts and snaps during those three private scrimmages. There isn’t that one big spring game that tells everyone where they stand, or so goes the theory.

Either way, there are many other coaches who still like seeing how their younger players perform in front of a crowd and consider that a good trade-off for whatever risk exists. There’s also a belief that the players knowing there’s that big, public showing at the end of spring practice offers at least a subconscious motivation that’s worth it.

When the SEC finally goes to a nine-game format, which teams will decide to take football revenue and invest it heavily in other sports? For example, Vanderbilt accepts its football fate and throws extra millions into baseball, basketball and softball, etc., instead of chasing the established powers. — Brett S.

The answer might be all of them and that it’s going to happen even without the ninth game. It’s happening because of the expected House settlement.

Georgia’s athletic director Josh Brooks said last week that because the settlement allows schools to count new scholarships toward revenue sharing, his school was planning on adding “more than 100” scholarships in non-football sports and indicated that many other SEC schools would be doing the same thing. This was a week after SEC ADs met in New Orleans, so there was certainly some sharing of information. We haven’t heard yet whether that involves any football-like, self-imposed scholarship limit for the other sports, but it’s not hard to figure out which sports stand to benefit.

GO DEEPER

Greg Sankey favors 9-game SEC schedule but is concerned about CFP bids

Baseball and softball are two big sports in the SEC, and those two are seeing huge increases from what the scholarship limit was to what the roster limits will now be: Baseball goes from 11.7 to 34 and softball from 12 to 25. Women’s gymnastics, another sport many SEC schools care about, is going from 12 to 20. Women’s soccer is going from 14 to 28 and men’s soccer from 9.8 to 28. Volleyball is going from 12 to 18 for the women and from 4.5 to 18 for the men. (But few SEC schools have men’s soccer or men’s volleyball.) Men’s and women’s track and field teams are seeing big increases, too.

Of course, how long this lasts remains to be seen. It’s not clear if the settlement allows schools to keep counting the new scholarships every year, or whether it’s not considered new in the second year. And on the back end of the roster, some teams are already having to tell athletes there isn’t a spot for them next year. But on the front end, you’re going to see a lot of schools pour new scholarships into sports they care about.

GO DEEPER

How much will Georgia, SEC schools pay football players in revenue sharing?

Is there a more pathetic individual in college sports than Sankey? He has no respect for the integrity of competition, always trying to game the system when his conference already has every conceivable advantage. — Phil T.

Tell us how you feel (my guess is you’re not an SEC fan).

Look, there’s a lot I could write about Sankey and what I think of him, but I’ll save most of it for a later story. But two things:

• Sankey has done very well for his specific job — commissioner of the SEC, not any other conference or commissioner of college sports — and the SEC pays his salary. Sankey hasn’t been perfect, with room to criticize the television deal and not hammering through the nine-game schedule. But there’s a reason Sankey, coming up on a decade in the job, is the only power conference commissioner to survive the tumult of the past few years. There’s a reason the presidents and ADs keep him around.

• As for college football as a whole, Sankey did one altruistic thing, helping create the 12-team CFP model, even though his conference was doing quite well in the four-team era. Sankey realized it would be better for the game nationally and that it would make more money. Sankey hoped the expansion would happen in 2023. But then the Alliance — upset about the SEC adding Oklahoma and Texas and not being part of the expansion and television discussions — stalled things. Sankey has never gotten over it and reminds people practically every chance he gets. And his attitude since then has essentially been: I tried to be nice, now you’re on your own.

This isn’t all to excuse but to explain. Again, a deeper dive into Sankey is worth doing soon.

With the coming of the nine-game conference schedule, what will be Georgia’s permanent and rotating opponents? — Brad T.

First off, it’s not coming yet. I would bet on it happening, but I’ve thought that before, including a couple of years ago when these looked like they would be the three permanent opponents for each team:

• Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Tennessee
• Arkansas: Missouri, Texas, Ole Miss
• Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Vanderbilt
• Florida: Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina
• Georgia: Auburn, Florida, Kentucky
• Kentucky: Georgia, Mississippi State, South Carolina
• LSU: Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
• Mississippi State: Kentucky, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
• Missouri: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt
• Oklahoma: Florida, Missouri, Texas
• Ole Miss: Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State
• South Carolina: Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee
• Tennessee: Alabama, South Carolina, Vanderbilt
• Texas: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
• Texas A&M: LSU, Mississippi State, Texas
• Vanderbilt: Auburn, Missouri, Tennessee

Now you’ll notice that within the eight-game schedule the past two years, many of these were included. (By my count, 20 of the 24 proposed annual games. Florida-Oklahoma was an exception, along with South Carolina’s games against Florida and Tennessee and Kentucky against Mississippi State.)

The SEC determined the three opponents based on traditional rivalries and then a formula of the 10-year records for each team, in an attempt to equal things out. Considering two years have passed, the formula could be tweaked.

It could be revisited every four years, so perhaps, don’t call them permanent opponents — we are literalists here, after all — but annual opponents. Anyway, since the schedule would be on a four-year rotation, the conference could revisit the three annual opponents. However, the traditional rivalries would not be revisited unless the schools wanted it: Texas-Texas A&M, Alabama-Tennessee, Georgia-Auburn. Those are games television wants, so for once you can thank television for doing something good.

(Top photo of LaNorris Sellers: Jacob Kupferman / Getty Images)

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