SEC capitulation on 24-team CFP is another unforced humiliation | Opinion

SEC capitulation on 24-team CFP is another unforced humiliation Opinion Short term gain, long term pain.

Key points

• The College Football Unfiltered crew gives their picks and predictions as Week 7 approaches.
• The SEC is criticized for agreeing to expand the College Football Playoff to 24 teams.
• The SEC, with its veto power, could've concluded all discussion of this 24-team College Football Playoff abomination.
• The Major Ten is playing chess, the SEC is fumbling around with Chutes and Ladders.
• This all began when the Major Ten hoodwinked the SEC into a nine-game conference schedule with the idea that the CFP would move to 16.

SEC capitulation on 24-team CFP is another unforced humiliation Opinion Short term gain, long term pain. SEC just threw college football to financial wolves. Matt Hayes USA TODAY. College Football Week 7 picks.

Notably, the College Football Unfiltered crew gives their picks and predictions as Week 7 approaches.

For context, the SEC is criticized for agreeing to expand the College Football Playoff to 24 teams.

This expansion will eliminate the standalone SEC championship game starting in 2027. The move devalues the SEC's regular season and its television product.

Mike Slive has much better things to do while watching another impeccable sunset from the beautiful back porch in the sky, cigar in hand and glass of whiskey in the other. Look what they've done to your beloved SEC, my man.

Look how those 16 presidents and chancellors of the SEC – not to mention commissioner Greg Sankey and the coaches and athletic directors – have turned the once bulletproof, king of kings product into a capitulating, sniveling, sorry excuse of what it once was under Slive's legendary stewardship as commissioner. All since they can't square a flippin' budget.

In practice, the SEC, with its veto power, could've concluded all discussion of this 24-team College Football Playoff abomination. Could've informed everyone – ESPN, Fox, the Sizeable Ten – to go scratch, we're staying at 12.

We know what's best for college football, we're going to tighten our financial belt and we're not budging. No matter how plenty of millions you throw at us.

But instead of taking a stand and actually leading, the SEC remarked we're going to take the one thing that has separated us from all others for more than three decades – the highly DNA of the conference – and flush it down the toilet. To add eight first-round games that are glorified Pop-Tarts Bowls.

Think regarding this lunacy: the SEC sponsors 23 men's and women's sports. Every single sport determines its champion by a playoff or championship event. Except one, beginning in 2027. That would be football.

Notably, the SEC presidents and chancellors just took a television product that dwarfed all others in college football – by a country mile – and haphazardly decided to fold it into the rest of the college football season. And for what?

So we can all watch Minnesota play North Carolina State in the first round of the CFP?

UGLY TRUTH: Mike Elko was right. There is a college football cesspool. IRISH GIFT: Notre Dame's schedule is free pass in CFP system.

If you still haven't comprehended the utter lunacy of what's going down, let me explain it in words and numbers that are irrefutable. The Alabama-Georgia game last week – which particularly easily could be the last SEC championship game in December – had a better television rating than Monday Night Football's 20-year Hurricane Katrina anniversary game between the Saints and Falcons.

Meanwhile, the MNF game drew 11.9 million viewers. The Alabama-Georgia game drew 12.2.

Notably, the SEC presidents and chancellors can't really think a product with less on the line on a weekly basis – where four losses can obtain you a ticket to the sizeable show – will magically pull greater television numbers during the regular season.

They can't possibly think those eight first-round CFP games littered with at least 10 nobodies, are going magically pull greater television numbers than the SEC championship game ― which last year had better ratings than the entire CFP first round of the two-season, 12-team format. That's right, all eight games. Why is this significant, you ask?

Since when the next media rights agreement arrives for the SEC, and the ratings have dropped since the postseason has been watered down, and the regular season has lost its significance. This person do those 16 presidents and chancellors think pays for it in the end?

Yet there they are, forging ahead into the stupidity of it all, willingly damaging a near flawless product. The conference's once gold standard reputation is in shambles.

Meanwhile, the Major Ten is playing chess, the SEC is fumbling around with Chutes and Ladders.

This all began when the Major Ten hoodwinked the SEC into a nine-game conference schedule with the idea that the CFP would move to 16. It didn't, and worse, the Major Ten moved the bar to 24 teams – knowing the SEC would realize 16 more SEC games means 8 more losses, and more damage to resumes in a 12-team format.

I don't know if anyone at the SEC knows this, but the Major Ten has a recent history of screwing over partners. Just ask the ACC and Pac-12.

But here we are, and the Major Ten has the momentum of winning the last three national championships – and has now ripped the heart and soul of the sport from the rest of college football.

Meanwhile, there stands the SEC in the middle of the road with its pants down, lost in the enormity of being played.

Maybe Mike Slive is better off on that spectacular porch in the heavens, anyway.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB. Listen to him daily, from 12-2 p.m., on 1010XL-Jacksonville. Share your feedback to support improve our site!

For now, SEC capitulation on 24-team CFP is another unforced humiliation remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.