The College Football Play-off Selection Committee may have a golden opportunity to make a grand statement to the SEC next Tuesday evening. Right now, the Committee has Alabama ranked 2nd in their standings (one spot ahead of Ohio State).
But the Crimson Tide will be playing an FCS team (Charleston Southern) the same day the Buckeyes will be facing Michigan State. The Spartans are currently ranked 9th in the CFP standings, incidentally. At this point in the season, when every little thing is being so thoroughly scrutinized, that's patently unfair.
Alabama isn't the only SEC team that has a cupcake scheduled this week. During this season's iteration of the SEC's now infamous "Chickenshit Saturday", # 8 Florida will play Florida Atlantic. Other games of note featuring unranked SEC teams include: Idaho v Auburn, Georgia Southern v Georgia, UNC Charlotte v Kentucky and The Citadel v South Carolina.
While there have been some rare upsets of note over the years - by and large, FCS teams are literally not on the same level as FBS teams. It's like having a second bye week late in the season without calling it that. Going in to the post season, Alabama will have played essentially, an 11 game schedule compared to Ohio State's 12.
The "mighty" SEC should be embarrassed by this. They should, at least, be called out on it
Granted - every team schedules an out-and-out cupcake most seasons. For instance, this year the Buckeyes hosted Hawaii. But there are significant differences. Hawaii is an FBS school - and that game took place in September.
The SEC shouldn't be able to brazenly schedule FCS level cupcakes in late November without suffering some consequences. That's where the committee comes in to play. Playing an FCS team after the committee has started to convene (in November) should result in some sort of a penalty - and the committee is in a perfect position to do just that.
The committee should agree to automatically drop any team that plays an FCS team in late November at least a spot or two in their rankings. If Alabama was to drop out of the top four due to this weekend's game - regardless of the outcome - "Chickenshit Saturday" would come to an abrupt halt -
