Lane Kiffin used his SEC Media Days appearance in Tampa to make one thing clear: he does not trust where the College Football Playoff selection process is headed.
The new LSU head coach was speaking Thursday on the final day of the event, and his biggest gripe centered on the SEC’s move to a nine-game conference schedule. Kiffin said the playoff system still needs to be fixed so it properly rewards strength of schedule.
“My concern is the [College Football Playoff] selection process is not fixed until it is truly fixed to reward strength of schedule,” Kiffin said. “If we keep playing each other, we don’t prove we’re better than anyone else.”
He also argued that the committee should be able to judge teams across conferences more fairly, especially when records don’t line up. Kiffin said, “Until we can get into a world where people can actually look at teams and say, that team that is 9-3 with their schedule is a better team than that 11-1 in a different conference, which now I think we aren’t even close to doing that, I think it causes problems.”
That point cuts right to the heart of the current playoff debate. If teams from different power conferences are being compared, record should still matter, and a 9-3 team should not simply leapfrog an 11-1 team without a direct head-to-head result to settle it.
The source also pointed to LSU’s own scheduling decisions, noting the program canceled a future home-and-home series with Arizona State in 2029 and 2030. That sits alongside the broader push for tougher conference slates and more high-level non-conference games.
The concern, though, is where all of this could lead. Last season, BYU finished 11-1 and was left out, then was punished again by losing to Texas Tech for the second time in the conference championship game. The argument here is simple: if the playoff ever starts rewarding three-loss teams, there won’t be much reason left to keep scheduling tough games at all.
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