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It's true that BYU's conference, the Big 12, just hasn't been elite in college football - not last year, not in the past decade, not for a long time. The Big 12 isn't winning national championships or playoff quarterfinals or semifinals. The conference has a lot to prove. Yet, the SEC hasn't been very good the past three seasons. The league hasn't won a national title since 2022. The past three seasons have witnessed a steep drop-off for the SEC, which has to re-earn trust in its own right. Yet, college football metrics favor the underperforming SEC over the underperforming Big 12. Ben Criddle of Cougar Sports and ESPN The Fan talked to Locked On Big 12 podcast host Drake Toll about ESPN's Football Power Index favoring the SEC:
"I think it boils down to ESPN's financial investment in the SEC," Toll said. People will say, 'Well, ESPN doesn't own the SEC.' Fine. But if you owned $100,000 in Home Depot stock, you're probably not shopping at Lowe's. If you owned Apple stock, you're probably not carrying a Nokia. ESPN has a multibillion-dollar investment in the SEC. Naturally, they have every incentive to elevate the value of the product they're paying for.
"Here's what drives me crazy. If the No. 9 team in FPI plays the No. 14 team in FPI—both SEC teams—the winner barely moves and the loser barely falls. Maybe one goes from No. 9 to No. 6 and the other drops to No. 17. But in the Big 12, if the conference's top-rated team is No. 15 nationally and it plays another Big 12 team ranked in the 70s by FPI, that game barely helps you. Even beating a Power Four opponent doesn't carry much value because the preseason numbers were already stacked against you. The system is built so SEC teams rarely leave the Top 20. Then, at the end of the season, the College Football Playoff committee uses ESPN's strength of schedule and FPI metrics as part of its evaluation. Those July assumptions stay baked into December decisions.
"Fans just want football to be decided on the field. But Big 12 teams like BYU, Texas Tech, Houston and Utah are fighting an uphill battle before they even kick off."
Again, it's not as though this or any other metric should cater to the Big 12, but the SEC certainly doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt based on its underperformance over the last three seasons. That's not too much to ask.
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This article originally appeared on BYU Cougars Wire: Big 12 doesn't deserve benefit of the doubt, but neither does the SEC
