re: If your team doesn't make the playoff next year, how disappointed are you gonna be?

The chance of a three loss team making the playoffs is slim. There are eleven slots to fill since the top G5 team is in. If you look back at the last 5 years, there are very few 3 loss loss regular season teams that were in the top 11. There were a total of 7 in the five years from all conferences. And a regular season three loss SEC team will not make the SEC championship, so they would be stuck at 9-3.. This year LSU would not have made it at 9-3 despite all three of their losses being to top 10 teams. Throwing out 2020, here is who would have made it into a 12 team playoff the last five years with 3 losses (after conference championship games.)

2018: #9 Washington 10-3; #10 Florida 9-3; #11 LSU 9-3
2019: #11 Auburn 9-3
2021: #11 Utah 10-3
2022: #8 Utah 10-3; #9 Kansas State 10-3
2023: none

So in 5 years, or a total of 55 slots, only three 3 loss SEC teams would have made it. And none of them played for the SEC championship. All of the other 3 loss teams did play for their conference championship and got a big bump from beating higher ranked teams. If an SEC team has 3 losses, odds are they are out.