With the end of the college football regular season fast approaching, it is only to be expected that coaches of teams in contention for the College Football Playoff will start to make the case for their schools to be included in the 12-team field. That's what Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin did on his weekly radio show "Reb Talk" on Wednesday. In the process, he decided to throw stones at the Clemson Tigers.
"We need to play really well, first off ," Kiffin said on Wednesday. "That's what's in our control, and other things to happen. I'm not saying because of us, but it's ridiculous the difference between playing in the SEC and the ACC and Big 12 and see these rankings.
"I'm not even doing the Ole Miss homer thing. You're talking about like Clemson's schedule and who they've played over Alabama. It's stupid. Take some of those teams that are up there who haven't played anybody and put them in the SEC, they're .500 teams."
Relying on the strength of schedule argument is classic S.E.C. propaganda. It is a card that conference has tried to play for years.
It is also the only bullet Kiffin has to fire at this point. His team now sits at 8-3 on the season after an inexplicable road loss at unranked Florida this past weekend. Thus, it appears that the Rebels' hopes of making it into the 12-team playoff field are just a pipe dream.
In this week's playoff rankings reveal, Ole Miss checked in at No. 14, which means the Rebels will need to beat rival Mississippi State this weekend and have plenty of chaos unfold around them to get into the field. Meanwhile, Clemson sits at No. 12 meaning that if the Tigers can get a win over South Carolina on Saturday, they will more than likely earn at least an at-large bid.
That seems to bother Kiffin who is now waiving the S.E.C. flag when it benefits his team the most. However, it is laughable for a coach whose team played the likes of Furman, Middle Tennessee State, Wake Forest, and Georgia Southern to be touting any strength of schedule. What's more, his team's three losses (to LSU, Florida, and Kentucky) are to programs that are currently unranked meaning his team should have handled its business if it truly is worthy of a playoff spot.
Yes, by most metrics, Ole Miss has played a tough schedule with their strength of schedule ranked 5th by TeamRankings.com. Meanwhile, Clemson checks in at No. 31.
However, Kiffin has a problem if he wants to rely on strength of schedule as the primary argument for his team. This week, College Football Playoff Selection Committee Chairman Warde Manuel essentially downplayed the notion that teams should be given playoff bids based on that metric alone.
"You know, it's a great question, and it's one that we debate," Manuel said. "One of the things that we talk about is teams can only play the schedule they have in front of them against the teams that have been, from a conference standpoint, assigned. We can maybe be critical of non-conference schedules and those kind of things, but when it gets to the conference, particularly as these conferences have expanded, there are more teams to play throughout the conference.
"Teams can only play the schedule that's in front of them. They can only play the opponents that they have.
"So we take the stance that we're going to really look at these games, we're going to look at the stats, we're going to look at the strength of schedule, but we're also going to look at how teams are performing against the competition that they have.
"From our perspective, if it was just about strength of schedule, we wouldn't be needed. You could just take at the end of the season the top 12 teams with the highest strength of schedule and put them against each other.
"What we've been asked to do is to judge and to look at how teams are playing against the competition that they have and to rank them accordingly to how we see it, and that's the way I would explain how we take a look and we look at the differences even though the schedules and the opponents may be different."
Taking those remarks into consideration, it appears that Kiffin needs to find a new argument to make for his team's inclusion. What's more, maybe he would be signing a different tune if his team had handled its business against Kentucky, Florida, or LSU.
This week, Clemson plays No. 15 South Carolina and after that, the Tigers' strength of schedule will improve significantly. What's more, if the Tigers get a win, it will likely vault them into the playoff field.
Meanwhile, Ole Miss is likely to remain on the outside looking in and Kiffin knows it. He's simply grasping at straws at this point and it just so happens that Clemson is his latest target. It's an act of desperation from a coach who knows his team has more than likely missed out on a golden opportunity to play for the National Championship.