Last year the SEC added a ninth conference game to their college football schedules. This fall will be the first year Georgia and the rest of the SEC plays these new schedules.
This decision however is already reshaping college football more than anyone could've predicted even though no one has played these new schedules yet.
Kirby Smart however knew all along that there would be a "fallout" from this decision. At first he didn't know what it would be, but a month ago he warned the college football world that something bad could be coming.
“I don’t think we actually know what the effect of the nine-game [conference schedule] will be,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said via dawgnation.com. “I think it will be very interesting to look back and say OK this is when we did it and what has the fallout been.”
Fast forward to this week and it's never been more clear to Smart that this decision from the SEC may have been a mistake.
“I think everybody was excited, and then they thought that there would be a heavier weight put on strength of schedule in the selection of the playoff teams,” said Smart.
Kirby Smart's warning fell on deaf ears
Since the SEC added a ninth league game the College Football Playoff committee has made it clear that they will not reward teams with more difficult schedules. That's a problem for the SEC because that was the only reason they added a ninth league game.
Now that everyone knows a difficult schedule doesn't matter, teams are cancelling their big matchups against Power Four non-conference opponents. This even includes Georgia who cancelled their home-and-home series with Florida State this week after already cancelling with NC State and Louisville last year.
Sure SEC teams get to play another league game which will be exciting, but was it worth it if teams won't schedule big non-conference games anymore? It sounds like Smart doesn't think it was worth it, but this unfortunately is the reality everyone now lives in.
Add us as a preferred source on Google