CFP Committee to Add New Strength-of-Conference Metric to Playoff Selection This November

The College Football Playoff selection committee is adding a new wrinkle to how it picks the 12-team field. Starting in late November, according to ESPN's Heather Dinich, the committee will use a data point that measures the strength of each conference based on the schedule strength of every team in that league.

The goal, per Dinich, is to separate teams within the same conference that have similar records but different levels of competition. Her example: Penn State doesn't play Oregon, Ohio State, or Indiana this year, so its record needs context that a straight win-loss column doesn't provide. The same data point will also be used to compare teams across different conferences with similar records.

Dinich was clear about the limits. "This is an inside baseball type stat that won't trump quality wins, schedule strength and record strength and what the committee sees on film," she wrote. "But it will put a number to answer the question: how tough is the daily grind in each league?"

What's actually new here

The committee already factors in strength of schedule for individual teams. What's new is a conference-wide number that gets applied on top of that, specifically to break ties between teams who never played each other. FanSided noted the mechanics aren't public yet: "How exactly that numerical value will be scaled has yet to be revealed."

The timing matters. This is the SEC's first season playing a nine-game conference schedule, up from eight, and the league now requires every team to schedule at least one nonconference opponent from a Power Four league, according to College Sports Network. That's a real structural change that could plausibly justify a tougher-grind number for the SEC, independent of any bias.

The backlash

Breitbart called the move "a massive win for the SEC," arguing it will artificially inflate two- and three-loss SEC teams simply because of the conference they play in. The outlet also pointed out ESPN broadcasts the SEC and holds the CFP's television rights, calling the arrangement a conflict worth flagging. Breitbart went further, predicting the change will push other conferences to band together and accelerate a move to a 24-team playoff.

Fan reaction compiled by College Sports Network ran hot in the same direction. One fan called it proof "this is how the SEC and ESPN cheat." Another dismissed it as "a nothing burger" given the SEC's existing advantages in committee rankings. A third joked about "sEcSPN" calculating its own metric.

Those are opinions and predictions, not established outcomes. No source has shown how the formula will actually score conferences, and Dinich's own reporting frames the tool as descriptive, not determinative. Whether it ends up boosting SEC teams over, say, a two-loss Big Ten or Big 12 team with a similarly rough schedule is something that won't be testable until the committee applies it in late November.

The case for the change

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian has argued, including after the Longhorns' win over Ohio State this year, that teams shouldn't be punished for playing difficult nonconference games. "I hope Ohio State does not get punished for that game Saturday night," Sarkisian said, according to On3's Tyler Horka, adding he hopes the committee credits the Buckeyes for playing in Austin even if they finish 9-3.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart made a related point on the SEC coaches' teleconference, tying scheduling decisions directly to trust in the committee. Georgia and Clemson scrapped a scheduled four-game series set to run 2029-2032 this spring, and Smart said the committee's inconsistent weighting of strength of schedule was a factor. "If people feel like the best teams are being included regardless of win/loss column, we'd probably open [the scheduling] up," Smart said. "It's always been preached about to us... that things are going to be taken into consideration. Doesn't seem like that happens."

Saturday Down South's Braden Ramsey pointed to a concrete 2025 example: Texas A&M went 7-1 in SEC play but only one of those wins came against a team that finished in the top half of the conference, Missouri at No. 7. Under a strength-adjusted system, that resume gets weighed differently than it was last year, when Vanderbilt finished 10-2 and Texas finished 9-3 and both still missed the playoff, according to On3.

The committee hasn't said what number, scale, or weighting it will use, and won't apply the metric until the field is set in late November. Until then, whether this helps the SEC, hurts it, or lands closer to neutral than either side of Thursday's argument wants to admit remains an open question the committee itself hasn't answered.