The College Football Playoff committee announced on Thursday that they will start factoring in a new strength of schedule metric into their rankings, and this could've saved Georgia's four-game series against Clemson that was just canceled.
Two days ago Georgia and Clemson mutually agreed to cancel four upcoming matchups. Kirby Smart himself said that this decision was made because the CFP committee didn't factor in strength of schedule enough to make these games worth playing, but this new strength of conference metric they will begin using to help rank teams could cause Georgia and Clemson to put their canceled games back on their schedules.
NEW: The College Football Playoff committee will now consider a strength-of-conference metric in its selection process, @CFBHeather reports.
— On3 (@On3) September 24, 2026
The new metric will help determine the strength of each conference based on the schedule strength of each team in its league.… pic.twitter.com/0pvOD27l4h
CFP committee open the door for Georgia to get Clemson back on their schedule
This new criteria will reportedly help the committee better compare teams in different conferences with similar resumes. They apparently will reward conferences whose teams faced more difficult schedules, so in theory if SEC teams played more challenging schedules than Big Ten teams they would get a better seed if they have extremely similar resumes.
This could entice teams to schedule more challenging non-conference games which schools have begun moving away from. Georgia has been one of the leaders in canceling non-conference games as they've done away with four series in the last year which includes the four games against Clemson. This new criteria might make Kirby Smart and Georgia reconsider their stance though.
Georgia has room in their future schedules to add Clemson back. They originally canceled games against Clemson in 2029, 2030, 2032 and 2033, but the CFP committee doesn't seem like a reason to not play these games anymore. Georgia already has three non-conference games scheduled in 2030, but they have space to add Clemson in 2032 and 2033.
College football is better when these games are played, so it's up to Georgia and Clemson to make it happen.
One problem exists with the CFP's new strength of conference metric
This change overall feels like a smart move by the CFP committee. Ranking teams from different conferences with similar resumes is challenging, so if they have more data they can use to help make their rankings better that is a good thing for the sport. Introducing this in the middle of a season doesn't seem right though.
There are likely more than a few teams out there who had marquee non-conference games scheduled this season that they canceled because they felt the committee didn't factor those games into their final rankings enough. Had these teams known about this new criteria before the season began maybe they wouldn't have canceled those games.
Georgia falls directly into that category because they were originally scheduled to play at Louisville this season. Louisville is currently ranked No. 16 in the country, so if Georgia would've kept that game on their schedule and won they'd figure to be in a better position in the committee's eyes with this new criteria.
Overall this is a good change for college football even if they implemented it in the middle of a season. Hopefully teams will be more willing to schedule big non-conference games now, and hopefully that includes some games between Georgia and Clemson.
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