Lane Kiffin Already Giving CFP Committee SEC Bias Ammo, Clemson Could Be Impacted

Clemson has to be careful with SEC bias during the College Football Playoff selection, as Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin already hinted at it.

Oct 26, 2024; Oxford, Mississippi, USA; Mississippi Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin reacts during the second half against the Oklahoma Sooners at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. / Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

From the outside looking in, Clemson seems to be in as good of a position to make the College Football Playoffs as any team in the country.

However, if they don't take care of business, potential issues could arise in the upcoming weeks. There's even a scenario where Clemson could be impacted by losing the ACC Championship Game.

It would feel unfair for them not to make the CFP if they were to lose in the ACC Title Game and only have one regular season loss, but as the committee has shown over the past few years, they aren't exactly fond of putting multiple ACC teams in the playoff picture.

With the 12-team bracket now in place, not having more than one ACC team would be very questionable.

However, if anybody knows SEC bias, it's Clemson fans. The SEC has been the talk of college football for much of the past decade and will continue to be, as they simply get much more love than any other conference, maybe outside of the Big Ten.

Whether that's fair or not is one thing, but this is a situation Clemson has to watch out for. If they give the committee any reason not to keep them around, they'll put another SEC team in there that doesn't deserve to be.

Some SEC coaches, including Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, have even started to hint at it.

“I said when (12-team playoffs) first came out and everyone was excited that you’re going to have a lot of issues at the end when you’re going to have teams with byes that are ranked away below other teams... Definitely a very odd system of the byes and the conferences since realignment has happened. There’s extremely big differences between these four conferences," Kiffin said, according to Dawg Nation.

Kiffin later explained the difference between the SEC and Big Ten compared to the ACC and Big 12.

“These two conferences (SEC and Big Ten) have so many teams up there and so much discrepancy of what a schedule is like in these two conferences,” Kiffin said, “especially this conference versus the other two conferences (ACC and Big 12), how you’ve got to be ready every week in the SEC because there’s no easy games here.”

It isn't that Kiffin is wrong, but let's add some context to this. Ole Miss is currently 6-2 overall and 2-2 in the SEC. They lost to a Kentucky team that is 3-5 overall and 1-5 in the conference.

That isn't exactly worthy of them making the CFP.

The top of the SEC is the best in the nation. There isn't any debate about that. However, it's time to stop pretending that Arkansas, Missouri, Vanderbilt, and a few other bottom-feeder SEC teams are any good.

Maybe they're better than Boston College and UNC, but it isn't a drastic difference.

The more coaches talk about it, the more the committee might listen. For Clemson, taking care of business is all they can do.