Is the playoff going to hurt the SEC?

Previous years there were 2 teams vying for a title.

Now there are 4.

It may or may not help, but I dont' see how it hurts.

The Computers really helped the SEC. Taking away the Computers will hurt the SEC.

youll never see an all sec championship game. one only from the conference.

Given that strength of schedule no longer matters, I think there's a very good chance that it will. I also think that combined with the push for supposed P5 matchups/P5 superiority, it may well wind up killing off a lot of marquee OOC matchups instead of increasing them. Teams will schedule the Wake Forrests of the world and that will be enough. Why schedule a good team when you can schedule a team that simply has the right membership?

The BCS had unbiased computers to weight who you played and who you lost two against the opinions of polls which rely a great deal on last year or even year's of reputation and simple Ws and Ls - those alogrithims checked the quality of a win or a loss and balanced things against popular opinion/polls. Humans simply don't operate that way and ultimately the selection committee will be under pressure to represent multiple conferences regardless of more unbiased ways of selecting teams as well as under pressure to select teams multiple tv markets -- and don't think catering to more eyeballs on tv sets won't influence selections because it will.

Until the committee actually shows us what it thinks by releasing inseason standings, it's silly to make assumptions about how SoS will be treated. I think it is most likely the committee will want to avoid rocking the boat, and their rankings will not be significantly different than the polls, but it also wouldn't surprise me if Baylor was a good 5-10 spots lower than in the polls as a statement against our nonconference schedule. A&M could see this kind of backlash also. As the season continues both schools would see their SoS go up a lot, and at this point I don't see how an undefeated Baylor or an 1-2 SEC champ A&M (or any other SEC team) doesn't end up easily in the playoffs. BYU is another matter. Notre Dame has a good schedule and would deserve consideration if they did well.

It's gonna become clearer, what was it? week 12 last year and 4 teams were still undefeated?

At this point, with the big10 self destructing and the Pac12/ACC both making their premier programs look vulnerable the SEC already looks as likely to get two teams in as it is 1, and zero teams in is inconceivable. If Auburn knocks off K-State this thursday, the SEC will be the only conference to get to conference play without having a loss in a game they weren't heavy dogs in.

yes.