SEC Coaches Weigh In On 4-Team Playoff

by Larry Leo

May 30, 20120 Comments

Coaches from the SEC were in unison Tuesday that they want a proposed four-team playoff to include the best teams in the country, and not be tied to conference champions. Les Miles said...

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“I think the event is spectacular," "Any play that is tournament-style and ends with a championship is preferred."

"I want to be the team that wins the conference, plays the best teams that they can play, sees the best team in the championship game and wins it for the championship," Miles said. "Simply put: We wanted to play the best team in the country when we got there. And doggone it, we did."

Florida coach Will Muschamp said...

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"I think it needs to be the four best teams in the country,""I don't think it needs to be the conference champions because in our league we might have four of the best teams in the country."

Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said...

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"We're so much closer to having the best teams play," "Every single game is so critically important in college football and we should embrace that. You can lose six games, eight games in basketball and still win a national championship. You can't do that in college football. I think we're very close."

South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said...

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"Do you know who's won the Super Bowl the last two years?" "Weren't the Giants 8-8? And the Packers didn't even win their division the year before and got hot in the playoffs. It just depends on how much importance you want to place into a playoff system, a tournament. I know there have been a lot of NCAA (basketball) champions that didn't necessarily win their conference but they got hot in the tournament..."I don't know how it will play out."

Georgia coach Mark Richt said...

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"I don't know. The way we do it now?" "Just take the top four teams in the BCS instead of the top two. That's one way of doing it. It's already in place. You wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. Change is here, it sounds like, I suppose it's worthy of discussion as to how to do it. But I'm not for making it a prerequisite that you have to be the winner in your in league. I wouldn't make that part of it."

"If you take the top four teams, I think we'd all be in favor of that in our league. If you take four teams that have win a conference championship, it would guarantee that only one of us could go. If you had it the other way, we'd have a shot at two going. You can say it any way you want, but that's what everybody is talking about."

Bama coach Nick Saban said...

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"It's just like politics and self-interest," "Somebody wants to create a circumstance that's going to help their situation or conference. That's not in the best interest of college football."

Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said...

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"I'm not a fan of a four-team playoff if it only includes conference champions," "That's a negative for our conference. Our conference has proven it's possible that we should have two teams in it. So, I'm not in favor of anything that rules us not having more than one team in (the playoff)."

Filed Under: SEC Sports