Find yourself something or someone you love as much as Lane Kiffin loves making excuses for things that haven’t even happened yet.
Kiffin’s first season as head coach of the LSU Tigers has been a bit of a roller coaster. They’ve at times looked dominant, like the opening weekend demolition of Clemson, then struggled in a loss to what should have been an overmatched Kentucky team. The loss at Ole Miss, in a highly charged, emotional return to Oxford was understandable on the face of it, and yet was exactly the type of game Kiffin was hired to win.
Now, with two losses in the first seven games, LSU still has a tough schedule remaining. The Tigers have upcoming games against Auburn on the road this weekend, a home game against Alabama, followed by Texas in Baton Rouge, a road game against Tennessee, and a season-ending trip to Arkansas. For a program that entered the season with aspirations of reaching the College Football Playoff, Kiffin needs to win out to feel good about finishing in playoff position.
LANE KIFFIN IS ALREADY SOMEHOW BLAMING THE SEC’S NEW CONFERENCE SCHEDULE FOR LSU’S INJURIES
And he’s already got his excuses ready for if they don’t.
In a news conference this week, Kiffin explained to reporters that he opposed the SEC’s new nine-game conference schedule, and detailed how the math guarantees the SEC an additional eight in-conference losses.
“And they kinda said when it was proposed, they said, ‘Well, okay, you’re going to take on eight more losses. I mean, that’s going to be real, there’s no way of changing the math, that’s going to happen. So you see that, I think somebody said there’s two SEC teams in the top-10 right now, and I said before it started, I said, ‘Take away the first SEC game that you play because that’s going to be brand new, the ninth one came early and got added and replaced an early win, you know where’s that going to put you?’
“Look at this team [Auburn Tigers], if you took away their first SEC loss, and it was just a win versus a Group of Six team, they’d be a top-10 team right now. They’d have one loss, on the road at Tennessee to a really good team. And somehow now, because of adding an extra game, they’re not even ranked and they just beat the number one team in the country.”
He concluded the answer, “It’s just where football is, and they can’t see like they do in basketball or baseball, metrics, so it is what it is.”
The reason Auburn isn’t ranked is because they don’t deserve to be, win over Georgia or not. And the reason the SEC has just two teams in the top 10 is because they keep losing. When asked a follow-up, whether there were any positives to the nine-game schedule, Kiffin was short: “No.”
“You’re … just seeing teams with more losses, more beat up. And there’s so much into it more than just the losses. You know, it’s at a time when because of it, I’m not complaining, I’m saying what it is, because of the [transfer] portal that you can leave every year and NIL, you see players going from teams for more money, and they go to another team in conference.
“And that’s fine, it is what it is, but at the same time that you see that, that it’s so hard for teams to build depth after their top players … don’t add more conference games. Because now you’ve got what you got.”
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The problem with all of this is that it is exactly the argument other conferences were making when the SEC had the advantage of an eight-game schedule. You had programs that scheduled themselves four free non-conference wins, found themselves ranked because of their record, then provided “ranked” wins and losses in SEC play. That was a tremendous boon for the entire perceived strength of the conference and helped create the “depth” argument.
Now that the advantage has been removed, Kiffin is rushing to complain about it. Yes, the SEC is going to have eight extra losses this year, and it’s going to show up in the standings and the polls. Just like it does for everyone else.
One other important point from his argument is that we don’t have “metrics” in college football like we do in basketball or baseball. And he’s right, there are no official NET ratings like there are in basketball. But we do have “metrics” in college football, they just don’t always tell the story Kiffin and others like to tell.
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According to ESPN’s SP+ rankings, which evaluate team efficiency on offense, defense and special teams while adjusting for competition, the Big Ten has nine teams in the top 30, compared with seven for the SEC. Turns out, this season at least, the Big Ten’s “depth” is better than the SEC. Seems unlikely that Kiffin would be adamant that the Big Ten’s nine-game conference schedule is dragging down their results.
That Auburn team he referenced? They’re No. 42. Because they’re not actually at the level of a ranked team, it’s just that the gaps between the best and the mediocre is smaller than it’s ever been. Texas A&M is No. 33, Oklahoma No. 34, Florida No. 38, and Mississippi State No. 48. Yes, the SEC is getting a lot of benefit of the doubt when it comes to human poll voters relative to objective metrics.
Speaking of that preferential treatment, it’s obvious when looking at just wins and losses too.
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There are currently five teams from the SEC ranked despite having two losses. There isn’t a single two-loss team in the top 25 poll that isn’t from the SEC. That’s correct; not one other conference has a ranked team with two losses. Just the SEC. They’re already getting rewarded for their schedules, even if the “depth” in this year’s SEC is not as strong as it’s perceived to be.
Don’t worry though, Kiffin will still find something to complain about.