SEC rightfully reigns in inaugural College Football Playoff rankings, but change is inevitable

SEC bias?

No. It’s not bias. It’s the best league by such a wide margin that the computers, the voters – and, most important of all, the College Football Playoff selection committee – all agree the Southeastern Conference owns the sport at present.

The key words being “at present.” As of Tuesday night, Oct. 28, 2014. It will change, as the SEC West cannibalism accelerates in the coming weeks and other plot twists occur around the rest of the nation.

But for now, a single division of a single conference owns three-fourths of the playoff bracket: No. 1 seed Mississippi State, No. 3 Auburn and No. 4 Mississippi. The lone outsider is No. 2 Florida State. (The committee and I are in 75 percent agreement on the field at this point; on Sunday I had the Bulldogs, Seminoles, Tigers and Oregon in my Fab Four, with Ole Miss just on the outside.)

For folks suffering SEC fatigue, this is nauseating news. But it’s the reality of the moment.

The first bracket revealing illustrates the level of triumph SEC commissioner Mike Slive has achieved. Not only did he spearhead the advent of the playoff, he’s the one who fought hardest against limiting the field to conference champions only. Thanks to winning that argument, his league has an opportunity to gobble up as much of the glory and massive financial windfall as it can handle – up to and including 100 percent of it.

It won’t come to that, of course. But if Slive had lost that battle and the playoff were limited to conference champions only, we’d be looking for the moment at a field of Mississippi State, Florida State, Oregon and TCU. The Horned Frogs are seventh in the first selection committee rankings, which means several more accomplished teams would have been left out in order to hand out participation ribbons to more leagues.

This is the better way. The fact that it benefits one league far more than the rest is simply the lay of the land at the moment. I have no major disputes with the committee’s rankings, and very few minor disputes, either. At first glance, they have reinforced my belief that they’ll do this the right way and select the right teams.

Some other rapid reactions to the first rankings:

• The committee is far less in love with Notre Dame than the poll voters are. The Fighting Irish are sixth in the AP poll and seventh in the USA Today coaches poll, but 10th in the selection committee rankings. The committee seems to have put plenty of emphasis on qualify wins, and Notre Dame has none. Stanford’s regression and Michigan’s flop have hurt the Irish resume – and losing close to Florida State is still a loss.

• The lowest-ranked league leader among the power-five conferences is Michigan State and the Big Ten. The Spartans weigh in at No. 8, one spot behind TCU of the Big 12, three being Oregon of the Pac-12, six behind Florida State of the ACC and trailing a mere four SEC representatives. This is only a surprise if you have engaged in wishful thinking or willful denial of the Big Ten’s performance nationally to date. The league hasn’t done enough to merit anything higher. That said, the Spartans are hardly out of the playoff mix; they simply will require some help.

• Related to the above point: the committee nailed Ohio State’s place. It is 16th, three spots lower than where the Buckeyes are in the human polls. The polls are infamous for ranking on laundry and name recognition, not actual resume. The committee saw through that and was unswayed by a team that lost at home to the last-place team in the ACC Coastal Division and has beaten nobody who ranks in the Sagarin top 40. The Buckeyes have done nothing remarkable, and their lone loss is a really bad one. That simple.

• Auburn still has three games left with teams ranked in the selection committee's top 11: No. 4 Mississippi on Saturday; No. 11 Georgia on Nov. 15; and No. 6 Alabama on Nov. 29. Survive that gauntlet and the Tigers’ reward is a potential SEC championship game rematch with Georgia. That’s insane, and likely not survivable without a loss. But, hey, if anyone can make a case for inclusion with two losses …

• TCU’s position is an attractive one. At No. 7, the Horned Frogs have multiple teams in front of them that are guaranteed to lose at least once. The next two weeks could tell the tale for the Frogs – they’re at selection committee No. 20 West Virginia on Saturday and then host No. 9 Kansas State on Nov. 8. Get past those, and the remaining slate is Kansas, Texas and Iowa State – a combined record of 7-15.

• Duke is the lowest-ranked one-loss team at No. 24. Blue Devils have a long way to go.

• But not as far as Marshall. The Thundering Herd is undefeated and unranked.