The Georgia Bulldogs have been near perfect so far this season. Despite some games that the Bulldogs had to pull off late comebacks in, Georgia is an impressive 8-1 so far this season.
Despite their success, Texas A&M is still undefeated in conference play as well as Alabama, who also holds a tiebreaker over the Dawgs. For Georgia to realistically make it to Atlanta, they'll need to win out as well as have Texas A&M lose to Texas in the final game of the regular season. However, with the format of the College Football Playoff being the way that it is, would missing the SEC Championship necessarily be a bad thing for Georgia?
Conference Champion bye in CFP
As it stands right now, the five highest ranked conference champions get an automatic bid into the College Football Playoff. Last year, Georgia received that automatic bid after beat Texas in Atlanta. Along with the automatic bid Georgia also automatically received a bye into the quarterfinals as well. The CFP committee implemented the bye so that the conference champions could have an advantage and have extra time to prepare for their quarterfinal matchup.
However, it did not prove to be an advantage last season. In fact, it could be considered a disadvantage.
Conference champions who received a bye went 0-4 in the playoff last season. Not only that, but the teams who did not have a bye outscored the conference champions 134-76, a very sizeable margin for playoff games.
What about conference champion runners-up? Texas and Penn State were among teams that lost their respective conference championship games but still made the CFP. Both of these teams went further than those who had a bye week did. Not only that, Texas and Penn State were both one win away from making it to the National Championship game.
Though Texas and Penn State lost their championships, both teams had much more favorable matchups because of it. Texas and Penn State both had home-field advantage as they played lower seed opponents in the first round. Then after that, they came into the quarterfinals battle tested and ready. Conference champions did not have that luxury. Instead, most teams hadn't played a game in almost a full month.
Georgia might be better off missing the SEC Championship game
Georgia is currently projected to be the 5th seed in the CFP and play South Florida at home in the first round. If history repeats itself, USF would be a much more favorable circumstance than Georgia going without playing a meaningful game for a full month to face off against a team like Alabama or Texas Tech. If Georgia makes the SEC Championship, they could even risk missing the playoff altogether if they were to suffer a loss.
So Georgia fans should not be discouraged if the Dawgs don't get a shot of repeating in Atlanta. In fact, it could be a good thing if they don't.