So I posed this question yesterday in the Mumme Poll, and it’s a near split between the two scenarios:
- Go to the SECCG, win, and Get a First Round Bye in the CFP
- Avoid the SECCG, still Get a First Round Bye in the CFP
Based on last year’s results, it would seem that time off leaves a team rusty, or there’s no certainty that the off time would yield fewer injuries and better game planning. Each team that had a first round bye in the 2024 playoff lost their first game, and the eventual championship game featured two teams that had to play the full bracket…but they did avoid the conference championship games (albeit Notre Dame wouldn’t have one of those, would they?).
On the other hand, it was the first iteration of the “new normal” and last years’ results could be an anomaly.
What’s your choice? Why?
If you play in the SEC, you play against the baddest mofos playing college football.
If you win the SEC, you are the baddest mofo in college football.
You play to win.
Go Dawgs.
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Agree. For years I’ve always wanted the SEC trophey more than the national natty.
I would just as soon avoid the game.
Avoid the SEC Championship game.
Believe it will help the team get as healthy as possible. Do understand the possibilities of being rusty.
I’ve been considering this question for awhile now, and I’m leaning toward it being better to skip the Championship game to give guys time to heal and to eliminate the possibility of additional injuries that might arise is a tough SEC Championship battle.
Wonder what the players want. Guessing the chance for a trophy and an extra game. They still get a week or so of rest with a bye. I’m good with that. With a 9 game schedule coming they should crown regular season champ and make the last game a play-in for automatic berth in CFP but other conferences would have to follow suit effectively making the CFP a 24-28 team playoff depending upon how many conferences need to participate like this. I imagine Disney execs are salivating at this idea.
I think the logistics of having that many games scheduled with less than a week’s notice would be pretty tough….
I wonder how much of “rusty” was the make up of the team last year vs. this year.
This team might put in work in December. We could get a lot healthier and build some depth, especially on defense with the extra time.
Besides I don’t know how much an extra week changes things. I think playing at home the weekend before Christmas helps. (That’s not in the cards unless we lose a game.)
Two weeks prior on a neutral field? Not sure it makes that much of a difference.
Either way, I will be pulling for Texas and Auburn and Mississippi State and hoping we find a way to back to back games in Atlanta and a third game there in the playoffs.
SEC titles are important. I’d say even more so now that NC’s are being are being decided like a damn basketball tournament.
Win out and probably a 3 seed worse case. Don’t play again until 12/31 or 1/1. That’s a long time off. I was kinda liking the #5 seed – 2-3 weeks off, hosting & then on to new years.
If it’s in the cards that we play in ATL first weekend of Dec, then so be it. A small obstacle for this Never Say Die team.
I’m ambivalent. I expect the team wants to play because:
a) Kirby ain’t giving them days off
b) Kirby practices are reportedly brutal
c) It’s a lot more fun to play than practice
d) With the current model a scrimmage versus South Florida sounds a lot more fun than “Bloody Tuesday”
If they don’t play in The SECCG?
a) Kirby ain’t giving them days off
b) Kirby practices are reportedly brutal
c) It’s a lot more fun to play than practice
d) After beating on each other for 4-5 weeks Gawd help whoever’s standing in front of them when they open the chute. If that happens to be Alabama? Cool.
After thinking it through I’m perfectly fine with another chance to watch them play. Go Dawgs.
South Florida lost. They are out.
Ohio State won it all last year by skipping their conference championship. Probably would be nice to have a nice cupcake as the 5th seed at home, but that is not happening unless we mess up with Tech.
Kirby will make sure we don’t get complacent, but it would be weird to go almost 4 weeks without a UGA game.
As much as I like watching the dawgs play and as awesome as it would be to win the SECCG, I think it would be better to win the next 2, stay out of the SECCG, and have plenty of time to heal as many people up as possible.
If I could wave a magic wand and make one of the two options happen, I’d take the risk that we are rusty with the longer time off by not playing in the SECCG and getting a bye over the risk of injuries and losing in the SECCG dropping our seeding in the playoffs.
Replying to my own comment, I also meant to add: The extra time off didn’t seem to hurt our chances in 2017, 2021, 2022. I don’t think last year’s ND game had anything to do with being rusty because of the extra time off.
I would add in that in regards to last year that the way they seeded the playoff likely played a big part in the teams that were off losing their games. The top four seeds were not the four best teams. I think that happening is much less likely with the new seeding structure.
Agreed. While certainly it didn’t help Georgia for Beck to get injured on the last play of the first half of the SECCG, I don’t know how much it mattered in the playoff. The four teams with a bye didn’t get beat necessarily because they had “too much time off.” Oregon ran into a buzz saw with how Ohio State was playing. Boise State wasn’t close to as good as Penn State. While Arizona State came within making a play or two of beating Texas, Texas was clearly the more talented team all over the field except at RB. And Notre Dame was simply playing better football than Georgia. You just have to tip your hat to the Irish that night.
I am a slight lean toward avoiding. Given how the SEC conference schedules are so different and now create easier paths to get there for some compared to other other teams, I just don’t think it is really much more than a money grab by the conference instead of a legitimate effort to identify the two best teams. TAMU, though not their fault (and they do have a nice road win over ND), has played 7 of the 8th lowest placed teams in the conference. Now compare that to UGA, UA, OK, or UM. I think I would rather rest and host a first round game instead. Last year we got our starting QB injured playing in this game, while missing the B1G championship game seemed to work out fine for OSU.
I did notice a lot of the first round byes last year lost their first tournament game (I’m not calling it a playoff). I voted to win out and skip the SECCG, but I’m sure Kirby and the players want to play.
Win them all!
That two week difference between first and second round games gives me pause, but . .
It’s interesting that all four bye teams lost their first game last year but I don’t think it’s enough data to support a general conclusion. Notre Dame didn’t exactly run us out of the building. Much as we are down on Carson Beck, he could have made a difference.
So . . . Rest vs. Rust. I have no idea what to think.
The four first round byes weren’t the necessarily the best four teams in the playoff last year. Boise State? Arizona State? Oregon was probably one of the four best but got the worst possible draw with Ohio State. Whether Georgia was one of the four best was up for debate but losing their starting QB in the SECCG certainly didn’t strengthen Georgia’s argument for a bye.
This year should work out differently since the byes go to the best four teams (or at least what a committee thinks are the four best teams) rather than the four highest ranked conference champions.
Healthy OT’s would have made a bigger difference than Beck I believe
Play to win them all and let the chips fall where they will.
I do see logic in both possibilities.
If you don’t go to the SECCG, you take a week off, get a home game against likely less competition.
If you go to the SECCG and win, you get a week off after the SECCG, and go to a Bowl. In the SECCG you would face a great physical team. If you don’t win the SECCG, you’re playing the next week on someone’s campus, assuming you’re still in.
I am a slight lean to skipping the SECCG, to get a home playoff game likely against the group of 5 invite. Time to get or stay healthy, helped with playing a less physical team without the fatigue of travel. If I could pick it….
Given current scenarios in play, pulling for A&M to win out and Auburn against all odds to win the Iron Bowl. I want A&M over Ole Miss or Bama in the SECCG. OU upsetting Bama while humorous, didn’t help my preferred scenario of skipping the SECCG, which I am very much ok with.
If Georgia wins their next two games but doesn’t get into the SECCG, Georgia will likely still get a bye in the first round. If Ohio State and Indiana win out and play in the B1GCG, both will still get byes unless the winner absolutely drags the other team so badly that it is impossible to justify. If aTm and Bama play in the SECCG and aTm wins, Georgia gets a bye. The only way Georgia doesn’t get a bye if they win their next two games but don’t play in the SECCG is if Bama beats aTm in a very close game and the committee keeps aTm in the top four and jumps Bama way up into the top four.
I’ll just slightly edit and repost what I did yesterday in the Mumme poll– I’ve always wanted to win the SEC championship more than national championship. SEC bragging rights top all the other games and national media polls.
As this season progressed, I was hoping to backdoor into the SEC championship because I thought we could win that one, and at the same time did not believe we were ready to win a national championship. Just did not feel we were built for it.
But now here I am, after watching this team get better and better, I’d rather just skip the SEC championship and rest up for an improbable national title run in this new NIL portal world while Bama and A&M beat up on each other. (*sidenote- I hate how this NIL portal world has amorphously grown, but if I have4 to live in it, I might as well find ways to enjoy it until I no longer can)
I know…that’s a total 180 mindset, but just how I felt waking up Sunday morning, still enjoying the Big 12 has-been beatdown.
I think this team gets better the more games it plays and it’s getting hot. Playing in the SEC championship will help them develop further.
It’s all a high risk high reward dichotomy. If Georgia makes the SEC championship game it ties the consecutive appearances record currently held by Spurrier’s fu teams. Winning the league championship is a great achievement. Last year’s win cost the team its starting QB and any real chance at winning the NC. tOSU avoided the league championship and won the NC.
The game comes right behind a physical GT game. There’s not the depth of quality players now to overcome key injuries. The safe bet is don’t risk injuries by playing the extra game. Going for it on your own 36 on fourth and one or following a key TD with an onsides kick isn’t playing it safe. Win the SEC championship then you get three weeks to get healthy. It may not be always the correct decision but my money says if given it’s the Kirby Smart decision. It’s his vision of the Georgia Way culture.
Scoob, you convinced me…I was on the fence and was wanting to split the baby, but last year’s injuries did impact us in the CFP…I’m now a lean to skipping the SECCG…which is something I’d never thought I would type.
It’s fun to talk about. It’s not like there is a choice to be made. The league rules will take that decision. Like you I never thought I’d believe not playing in an SECCG was a good thing.
Now that there are no separate divisions. I think the conference championship game isn’t needed anymore. It could be decided like it always was before they created the divisions. That worked great for decades.
It’s still here only because it’s a big tv money maker for the league. With the new playoff format winning that championship. It just means more …..pun intended.
I don’t get why we still can’t have divisions. Put Bama and Barn in the east, UT and OU in the west, with 2 rotating cross-division opponents. Done.
(off subject..my apologies)..I was just peeking into what is the latest disillusion hovering over the Gump Nation…as displayed in RBR. They are downplaying the loss to OK as if they really didn’t need or want to win that game anyway…”OK was just lucky…blah, blah, blah..” But what caught my attention was Gumps’ claim that they beat UGA “handily” (there is some real disillusion..it was a 3 point win with Kirby eschewing the tying FG )..”and since UGA beat Ole Miss pretty bad and Ole Miss wore out OK…the loss to OK doesn’t count.”
Never mind that Bama has been lucky as hell in a few games too. Georgia, Mizzo, SC.
Gus Mahlzone may have left the state , but his horseshoe stayed in the state but moved to Tuscaloosa.
As Bama privilege continues to wilt on the vine (it isn’t really dead yet) the disillusion is going to boil into discontentment and we know what follows discontentment with the Gumpers.
They’re really hanging on to one thread…that they “own” UGA. When that changes we’re going to need a lot of popcorn.
I’ve watched almost all of bama’s games since they beat us. Talk about a lucky rabbit foot– one play here or there and nearly all of them could’ve been lost.
I was warming up to the idea of hosting a playoff game from the 5 spot. Historic first home game in December, getting to see the guys an extra time, hosting a cupcake we’d be criticized for buying a win from in the regular season and putting an ass kicking in everyone’s mind (sort of like Ohio State last year). At the end of the day just line up and beat the opponents – something we’ve seen this program do before. If we get a bye and no SECCG so be it. #GoDawgs
Believe the 9/15/01 game (Houston, maybe?) was played in December….
I voted for win out and win the SEC championship game. I think raising that trophy still means more.
If we win the next 2 and don’t go but get a bye, I would be ok with that as well.
The reason we lost a quarterfinal last year is the seeding was all jacked up with 2 teams that should have been toward the bottom of the bracket getting the 3 and 4 seeds.
So correct me if I’m wrong, but this year a conference championship team doesn’t get an automatic top 4 seed and bye? Right? In other words, we could miss out on the SEC championship and still get a top 4 seed with a bye?
That is correct.
It isn’t automatic but…. this year IMO is a given.
A 1 loss non SEC champ might get the bye which would be 2 weeks off? Not sure, I’d like that. So again, win them all and see where the chips fall.
The way the playoff is structured now, if we can get a top 4 seed (that we most likely currently have) you are disincentivized from playing in the SECCG. Nothing to gain in the big picture other than some bragging rights. SEC championships mean a lot to all of us old guys, but taking the emotion out of it, we could be better off in the quest for the NC without it this year.
I’d love to play Bama again in the SECCG and pay them back for stopping our home winning streak, but I’m good with not playing in that game and then play a home game in round 1 of the CFPs. Getting a CFP bye is just longer without UGA football and that sucks.
We should always want to win the SEC. Hope we get in again and will cheer for Texas next week.
I’d rather win the SEC than the tournament. I may be in the minority though.
(Kdawg05)
I’m all for skipping the game and if rust starts to set in WD-40 Kirby is on it.
SEC needs to cancel the Championship game. Award the winner based on regular season results. Give out co-champs with teams finishing at the top with tied records unless they played head to head.
ESPN pays for the ratings associated with that game. It isn’t going anywhere.
I think this is where it’s headed eventually, especially with 9 conference games and the inevitable expansion from 12 to 16 playoff teams.
No way the SEC cancels their championship game unilaterally. ESPN/ABC needs programming especially in December.
I doubt the broadcast partners will want to cede a weekend to Fox if the Big10 and BigXXII are still hosting championship games.
Plus the SEC game makes $$$ for the conference and it provides a nice little touristy weekend for Atlanta and the state. There would need to be a financial make up from someone for the conference.
The only way I can see the championship game going away would be if the head coaches started complaining that playing the championship game is keeping SEC teams from winning the NC. But right now, other than CKS, what coach in this league has that sort of gravitas to their voice? Saban is working for ESPN. Sark has been to 1 SEC game, lost and went further in the playoff than UGA. No one else in the league has even made the game. Even if the coaches got involved, I think it is really small chance it would pressure the conference to drop the game.
However, I could see a few things that change up the system. First thing that could happen would be an expansion of the CFP from 12/16 up to 24 teams. With the expansion, the process would be streamlined with set AQ spots for participants. The selection committee will only handle seeding. The B10 & SEC gets 6 spots each, with 4 for the Big XII/ACC. Group of 5 teams and Independents would get 4 total to be determined by the 4 highest ranked teams.
The CFP agreement would state that Power 4 conferences can choose their own criteria for selection/use of the automatic qualifiers but it must include the conference champion. In that case, the SEC decides to designate the conference champion as team with the best regular record. They then turn the SEC championship game into a “wild-card”/”play-in” game (similar to the promotion playoff used to determine teams going up to the Premier League in the UK.)
I do think when the CFP expands, you will see coaches start to complain about playing a conference championship game that doesn’t get a bye reward.
For the 2025 season, it’s pretty certain that Texas A&M, Georgia, and Ole Miss are in the 12 team field. aTm and UGA are “seeded” top 4 as of today (my guess on the playoff reveal tonight) Ole Miss is probably around 6 or 7.
Alabama is on the bubble but is probably going to get in especially if they win their last two. Oklahoma wins their last two and they are probably in as well. Vandy is on the bubble and I guess Texas could get in if they beat aTm. That’s seven teams.
If the field is 24 with the 6 highest ranked SEC teams getting in, would a “championship” game really be that compelling for TV. It might determine a seeding but unlike in the 4 team playoff or even the 12 team playoff, it doesn’t have as much significance.
However, if you convert the championship game to a neutral-site “play-in” game, think about how much more compelling it would be for two “bubble” teams playing for the opportunity to get in the field.
To those out there thinking a top four seed is almost guaranteed, you’re forgetting Texas Tech. They win the rest of their games and the Big 12 championship, they may skip over a Georgia team that doesn’t play. They would have only one loss, and would have won their league. Not saying it will happen, but given the committee I could see them loving the eye candy Texas Tech provided all year, plus their build-in excuse of not having their starting QB for the one loss. That’s the only reason I would support Georgia in the SEC Championship – to ensure we get a 4th seed (or better) with a win.
I voted for winning the SEC Championship as I believe in the theory that winning the conference championship means something and it will bring confidence for playing well in the playoff.
I don’t think we can extrapolate 2025 outcomes based on what happened in 2024.
Any team that is put in the position of replacing their starting QB who has taken all of the most significant snaps for a team during the season is going to have a drop-off during the playoff. Perhaps the most “miracle” of all NC winners in this century was that Ohio State team that caught lightning in a bottle with Cardale Jones.
I’ve thought alot about this. In ’21 we lost the SECC & won the NC & it was my greatest season as a fan since Hershel skull dragged ND’s defense around the Superdome with only one arm. Last year we won the SECC & got knocked out of the playoffs quickly primarily due to injuries from that game. The SEC title was great but the seasons end felt disappointing. This years team has been snakebit by injuries & it seems every game has come with one or more players dinged up. This final thing though is the thing for me. This isn’t the same SEC Championship I’ve been watching every year since ’92. Now it’s a mix of the SEC and Big 12 conferences and to be honest it just doesn’t hold the importance to me that it used to. I don’t give a rip about playing TX, A&M, OK, or Miz for the SEC title. I’d love to pull the 3 or 4 seed this year without the extra game & see where it goes. I know Kirby & the team would disagree & they’re probably right. What if we play the SECC & lose, then play in the first round. That’s 5 postseason games to win a title, more than any NFL team plays, and we no longer have that kind of depth. My views have changed to where I’m all about the natty and that includes whatever path gives us the best chance at it.
Honestly I don’t care either way. Just win the games that you get to play and we’ll be fine. Better than fine.
Not arguing with anyone who has previously posted, just late to the conversation. If a win gets us in the playoffs then I’m in favor of it. If it doesn’t matter then why risk the injuries. For the record, I put in for SEC Championship tickets because like going but it doesn’t seem likely or necessary at this point so I’m good with resting and recuperating for the playoffs.
I’ll take it if we can get it (which statistically seems unlikely barring upsets of aTm or Bama) but the idea of a 3rd or 4th seed without having to play SECCG seems like a good deal to me.
If we can go straight to the quarterfinal bowl site without playing in the SECCG, that would be the preferred route given that depth ain’t what it once was. I do not want to risk losing an offensive lineman again if we don’t have to.
The thing I noticed and loved, is that Kirby has gone all in on “we want to be in that game.” Brilliant for team psychology since we have zero control over whether we are there……..don’t want the team and staff mentally skipping the calendar date and going into relax mode after the Friday Tech game.