There are some SEC meetings going on this week (check out the seating chart and tell me you don’t want to know what nonsense the Kiffin/Leach/Drinkwitz brigade is pulling on poor Shane Beamer), and the most newsworthy development is that the whispers about an SEC-only Playoff are, in fact, founded. The conference is, per Brandon Marcello, considering it. Newsworthy development, right?
Before my fellow Big 12 fans in the room go scattering for cover: This isn’t going to replace the College Football Playoff. At least, not for forever.
There are presumably two forms the SEC Playoff could take, and they’re pretty simple: The first is a conference championship playoff. The second is a national championship playoff. In the case of the first, the SEC might need NCAA approval, since they’d be altering their conference championship structure, but the basic idea would probably be a four-team bracket to decide the SEC Champion, something that would most years get us three good to great football games and further beef up SEC résumés. In the case of the second, yes, the presumption is that the SEC would leave the rest of the country high and dry, with the CFP either imploding or becoming a Group of Nine affair. But again: It wouldn’t be that way forever.
College football is always going to want a national champion. It always has. For decades upon decades, people have wrestled with how to best determine the sport’s best team. It has been an ugly, messy, disingenuous process, and…we’ve gotten a lot better at it over the years, have we not? The CFP is better than the BCS; the BCS was better than the Bowl Alliance/Bowl Coalition; the Bowl Coalition was a major step forward from the polls, the polls are engrossing for a reason. So: Even in the case in which the SEC says to hell with the rest of the country, they won’t be able to say to hell with us for long. The rumblings will grow, the outcry will grow, and eventually the SEC will want to prove itself against the best the rest of the country can offer (which leads us back to a CFP format proposal I made a few months ago, which is to have four or six SEC teams on one side of an eight or twelve-team bracket). We’ll get a true national championship again.
If this simply replaces the conference championship, all the better. We might have some calendar reconfiguration—How attached is everyone to the Iron Bowl and Michigan/Ohio State happening on Thanksgiving weekend?—but if the SEC does it, the rest of the country will follow, and for those who complain about there not being an incentive for fans of the 11th-through-25th-ranked teams in the country to keep caring come November (think: Kansas State), there will be an incentive to care, while for those of us fearful of the dilution of the Playoff causing a bunch more postseason blowouts (think: most CFP semifinals already), we could still have a compact Playoff, and possibly a slightly more competitive one than the one we currently have thanks to a more robust “regular season” schedule helping thresh out the chaff. There’s an element of concern about dominant forces within conferences (think: Clemson from 2016 through 2019) doing a little load management if they become more able to afford a loss, but given the financial incentives of marquee nonconference matchups, a possible increase in home-and-homes between distant powers could well outweigh that.
This does, of course, further exclude the Group of Five, but those leagues should have been working out a Group-of-Five November-long playoff years ago to counteract this. At some point, it’s on them, and while the current setup of forcing teams to provoke interest from a Power Five conference does eliminate potential Cinderella stories, a structure which incentivizes building your program and school into a level at which you are an asset to your peers is far from a terrible structure.
Will the SEC Playoff actually happen? I don’t think so. Not immediately, anyway. The national focus on scheduling changes is telling—college football has a too-many-boring-games problem—but there are well-enough-developed plans to adjust the approach on that front that they’ll likely take precedent over something that more legitimately shakes up the sport nationally, like an SEC Playoff would. Also, Greg Sankey’s probably going to get his 12-team playoff eventually, should he want it. The rest of the country needs the SEC badly enough for the SEC to win this game of chicken. It’s reasonable to view the SEC Playoff idea as leverage. But again: It would be pretty fun. Check out some possible matchups in a two-division-champs-and-two-wildcards format over these last ten years:
- 2021: Georgia vs. Kentucky, Alabama vs. Mississippi
- 2020: Alabama vs. Georgia, Florida vs. Texas A&M
- 2019: LSU vs. Florida, Georgia vs. Alabama
- 2018: Alabama vs. Florida, Georgia vs. LSU
- 2017: Georgia vs. LSU, Auburn vs. Alabama
- 2016: Alabama vs. LSU, Florida vs. Auburn
- 2015: Alabama vs. LSU, Florida vs. Mississippi
- 2014: Alabama vs. Georgia, Missouri vs. Mississippi State
- 2013: Auburn vs. South Carolina, Missouri vs. Alabama
- 2012: Alabama vs. Florida, Georgia vs. Texas A&M
Like we said: Fun.
The New York Rangers!
The Rangers beat the Hurricanes last night, and they did it soundly, jumping to a 2-0 lead in the first eight minutes, extending it to 3-0 late in the second, and never letting the game get closer than that again. The first two goals were Power Play goals, and I wonder what the win percentage is of teams who convert on their first two Power Play opportunities, as well as what the win percentage is of teams who only convert one, teams who don’t convert either, teams who allow two Power Plays in the first ten minutes in the first place, etc. Basically, I wonder how much larger the boost from a 2-0 lead is when it comes by taking advantage of opportunities like the ones the Rangers had in Raleigh.
It was a surprising result—the Rangers have now won five elimination games these playoffs, the Hurricanes finish the postseason with a 7-1 home record and an 0-6 mark on the road—but it wasn’t altogether shocking. Gelo had the two as nearly a perfectly even match, and the Rangers only finished the season six points behind the Metropolitan Division champs, with an overall win-loss record just two games worse than that of their opponent. Now, they get the Lightning in the Eastern Conference Finals, and while the Lightning are the deserved favorites, the Rangers do have home-ice advantage, which matters.
Elsewhere, the Western Conference Finals begin tonight at altitude, with the Oilers heading down the Continental Divide to Denver to take on the Avalanche. The Oilers’ initial task is fairly simple: Get out of Colorado with at least one win over these next three nights. Could be tonight, could be Thursday, but if you’re Edmonton tonight doesn’t feel like it matters as much in itself as it does as a precursor to Thursday. Of course, all games count the same, but the holding serve/breaking serve dichotomy does hold some weight in these NHL and NBA playoff series.
Drafting Their Statements
The NBA Draft withdrawal deadline is tomorrow night, and with no great way to handle covering a mix of presumed and surprising decisions, we will again simply direct you to Jeff Goodman’s list of who’s staying in the draft and who’s returning to college. I will say: I don’t think we’ve yet covered Kenneth Lofton Jr.’s decision to stay in the draft, nor have we mentioned Patrick Baldwin Jr. staying in it.
Lofton was among the most fun players college basketball’s ever seen, and college basketball sees a lot of fun players. Listed at least at one point at 275 lbs., and therefore eighty pounds heavier than Chet Holmgren despite yielding five inches of height to the phenom, Lofton led Louisiana Tech to two strong seasons these last two years, one of which ended in the 2021 NIT Final Four. He was among the biggest stories from the Draft Combine, shooting up the radar and flipping from a presumptive returner to college (and a big transfer portal target) to a “well, maybe” to hiring an agent and committing to go pro. Is he going to get drafted? I don’t know. The decision implies that he will be, or that he’s getting some bad advice, but you can make good money playing overseas if the NBA doesn’t work out. The risks are many—getting hurt, getting stuck in the G-League (where the money isn’t as good as overseas), becoming lost in the Trade Machine through an accounting error and dissolving into a void of ones and zeroes—but there are risks to staying in college, too, even if Lofton’s NIL value was probably pretty high.
Baldwin was among the more disappointing players in recent college basketball history, turning heads when he committed to play for his dad at Wisconsin-Milwaukee before limping, both literally and figuratively, to a disappointing exit from the Horizon League, playing just eleven games after playing in only two his senior year of high school due to ongoing ankle issues. It wasn’t surprising that Baldwin stayed in the draft—that was the assumption around him—but maybe it should have been? It’s almost less of a vote of confidence in oneself to go pro if oneself is an oft-injured forward who didn’t play that well when oneself was playing. You could rebuild your stock in college. Your family has some money and coaching connections to maintain some security and find a good landing spot. You decided to go pro when your value was its lowest. Maybe it’s the right decision, but it waves like a white flag.
Speaking of White Flags
Oof. What a doubleheader from the Cubs.
There was a moment, between the push notification that Anderson Espinoza was entering for Drew Smyly and Pat Hughes & Ron Coomer describing Smyly exiting the field touching his side, when I thought the Cubs had traded Smyly in the middle of a start. It was wishful thinking—trading for a pitcher in the middle of said pitcher’s start is pretty nuts—but I thought it!
Turns out, it’s an oblique injury, which means Smyly’s presumably headed to the IL. Meanwhile, the Cubs have designated Robert Gsellman for assignment and officially added Brandon Hughes to the 40-man roster. Gsellman wasn’t bad for the Cubs—4.25 FIP in eight appearances, actually recorded one save—but for the Cubs’ calculus, the upside must have not been there in enough quantity to justify the cost of keeping him in one of those 40 spots on the roster. As we saw yesterday, the Cubs have plenty of longshot starting pitcher projects—Matt Swarmer kind of dazzled in the first game, Espinoz was solid in the second—and with those on hand, Gsellman must either be more likely to clear waivers than I realize or one where the combination of years of club control remaining and potential future contributions just aren’t good enough for the front office’s taste.
Among possibilities to replace Smyly on the active roster, Chris Martin is probably the simplest expectation. He’s a pitcher, he’s on the bereavement list at the moment, those stays are usually fairly brief (best wishes to Martin and his family, of course—don’t want to be callous talking about the bereavement list). If the timing isn’t right, we could see another Conner Menez up-down, or we could see Espinoza brought up for real, as he was just the 27th man yesterday. Jason Heyward’s return from the Covid IL might also be imminent, but that would require a 40-man move and would leave the Cubs down a pitcher if they let him be the one to replace the lefty. We’ll find out fairly shortly, I’d imagine, if news isn’t already out by the time you read this.
Carlos Correa Is Only 27?
I know I’ve known this before, but seeing that Correa is just 27 (in the writeup about him testing positive for Covid) is always striking. I associate him more with Jose Altuve, who is 32, than with Alex Bregman, who is 28. I think that’s because I remember Bregman’s debut pretty vividly, and Correa already had a (very) productive season under his belt at that point? Whatever the case, Correa has Covid, and Royce Lewis just went on the IL, and you could say things aren’t going well for the Twins but they just beat the Tigers in the first half of a doubleheader and moved to ten games above .500 in the process, leaving them five games up in the Central and third overall in the American League, which is great. Phenomenal, really. The Twins are having a great year despite a ton of headwinds, and with the White Sox in a treacherous spot made more treacherous in the public’s eyes (rightly or wrongly) by their inflammatory choice of manager, it’s easy to picture Minnesota running away with this thing.
In the spirit of that, the White Sox designated Dallas Keuchel for assignment yesterday, and after a strong 2020 (1.99 ERA, 3.08 FIP, 4.27 xERA), his time on the South Side has ended fairly disastrously (2022: 7.88 ERA, 6.20 FIP, 4.50 xERA; those xERA numbers are pretty close but FIP is also important).
Keuchel was only briefly an ace—in 2015, with the Astros, he managed a 2.91 FIP and 2.83 xERA over a staggering 232 innings of work—but he was long reliable, and even his struggles last year were acceptable back-of-the-rotation results, albeit at a high price. He’s owed something like $12M more over the course of this year, but he’s pitching below replacement level and the White Sox are not in a spot where they can afford to hope on someone like him figuring it out, especially with his upside no longer that dreamed-of return to 2015 (which probably looked more alluring than it should have after a good-but-lucky 2020).
Starting pitching remains a strength for the Sox—Johnny Cueto has been sensational in his three starts, there’s a strong youth corps between Giolito/Cease/Kopech, Lance Lynn’s return isn’t too far away—so this isn’t exactly a death knell for the team, but it does serve as something of an emblem for the ongoing struggles, which could reach a dark place over the next ten days as the team visits Toronto and Tampa Bay before hosting the Dodgers. It’s a five-game gap right now. It could be a lot larger by midseason.
Finally, closing out an AL Central-dominated news day, Kody Clemens will likely debut for the Tigers in the second half of this doubleheader. Clemens, a utility man, isn’t too much of a prospect, but it’s fun, especially since Roger Clemens had kids young enough and pitched old enough for those kids to be something of a story while he was still more in our focus.
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Viewing schedule tonight (second screen rotation in italics):
- 7:05 PM EDT: Angels @ Yankees, Syndergaard vs. Montgomery (TBS)
- 7:07 PM EDT: White Sox @ Blue Jays, Giolito vs. Gausman (MLB TV)
- 7:45 PM EDT: Padres @ Cardinals, Snell vs. Wainwright (MLB TV)
- 8:00 PM EDT: Oilers @ Avalanche, Game 1 (TNT)
- 8:05 PM EDT: Brewers @ Cubs, Lauer vs. Steele (MLB TV)
- 9:40 PM EDT: Braves @ Diamondbacks, Morton vs. Castellanos (MLB TV)
The Diamondbacks are pretty fun these days.
