Why are you trying to introduce logic? Since when is politics logical?
It isn't about conference champs. It is about no 2 SEC teams. How hard is that to understand?
TCU has no business even being in the discussion, but in case you have not noticed, they are only one place behind us. Won't take much arm twisting for the committee to bump them one spot.
So, why are they only one place behind us? You explain that to us. (Hint: politics.)
They can put us at 6, and pray that we don't win out. Which is what they did, and what they are doing, starting next Saturday night.
This would all make a lot of sense, if they didn't put Miss. State at #1, Auburn at #3 and Ole Miss at #4. If this was indeed set up to prevent 2 SEC teams, guess what? They wouldn't have ranked Ole Miss so high! They moved them well above where they are ranked in the AP, they didn't have to, there was no pressure on them to do that. The coaches poll has Ole Miss behind Michigan State, Oregon, and Notre Dame.
The fact is the AP, the Coaches, and the playoff all have 3 SEC teams in their top 4, the difference is who they chose. You can argue they want Alabama out, but I've been consistent with what I've been saying. They'd have to show their hand, they'd paint themselves into a corner, and they have. I didn't expect the quality win stuff, but from here on out they become much more predictable.
I'm not positive why TCU is ahead of Michigan State, Kansas State and Notre Dame. But, each of those teams has one quality win, and there's not much separating those four teams from each other on paper. I'm positive politics played a role, I'm sure that played a role. But, the committee already lost their chance to let politics rule the day.
ESPN has multiple blowhards that had only one or two SEC teams in their top four. We had several posters here who repeatedly predicted committee rankings that were along those lines. That's not what we got. You can say it's political, and sure it is political to a degree, but precedent matters and they've set the precedent.
They simply can't say ok, 6 beat 1 and 7 beat 9, so I'm going to move 7 ahead of 6. They don't have the cover politically to do that.
I hate the playoff, I hate the committee, but the committee doesn't have the means to screw the SEC over in every scenario and this happens to be one of them. The SEC will probably do that for them, but they've set things up so that two one loss SEC teams can most certainly make it into a playoff.
This likely becomes a non-issue anyway though, and I find that disappointing because I don't want to let the committee slither away from this and then, on a later date, when they can act more subtly feel emboldened to screw over the SEC. Only Oregon, TCU and Michigan State have any sort of a hope to rival one loss SEC teams. Of those three, the odds are in favor of more than one of them losing.
There's already room for one of them, so if two lose it won't even matter if two SEC teams have one loss, because there won't be anyone else left to claim that fourth spot. On the other hand, two one loss or better SEC teams becomes a long shot, which either involves Auburn and Miss. State winning out, Georgia and Miss. State winning out (with Georgia winning the SECCG), or Alabama and Ole Miss winning out. That's the only scenarios I can come up with off the top of my head that allow for that scenario, the rest involve SEC team's accumulating two or more losses and being out of consideration anyway.
So, for all this fuss, the statistical probabilities really don't favor this even becoming an issue.