He made the Southeastern Conference a pioneer in college football by putting the league in unchartered waters in 1992 with a conference championship game.
People thought Roy Kramer was crazy as the SEC Commissioner from 1990 to 2002, but he made the league the most exciting one in the sport and created the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system. Every conference in college football wanted to be like the SEC after seeing what Kramer did. Conference title games meant something because it added to pageantry, entertainment, competition, and ultimately, fans got an extra game of football before the bowl matchup or national championship game.
Alabama AD pleads case for final CFP spot after SMU falls to Clemson
Kramer is 95 years old now, but he is about to see the framework he created for college football change.
The College Football Playoff Committee has a critical decision to make on Selection Sunday.
ESPN will air the discussion at 11:00 a.m. CT as the University of Alabama (SEC) and Southern Methodist University (ACC) are fighting for one at-large bid to get into the 12-team playoff.
SMU suffered a 31-34 loss to Clemson in the ACC Championship Game over the weekend.
The Mustangs made the game interesting in the second half, tying the matchup at 31 with seconds remaining in regulation. Clemson made a 55-yard field as time expired to win the contest. If SMU would have won the game, the Mustangs enter the playoff as the ACC Champion and Alabama goes in as the at-large bid.
If Clemson would have blown out SMU, the Tigers go in as the conference champion and the Crimson Tide is still the at-large bid.
However, it was a close matchup between the Mustangs and Tigers.
Clemson goes in as the ACC Champion, but the CFP Committee has a situation on its hands with Alabama and SMU.
The committee says one of its principles is strength of schedule or strength of resume.
It values who teams have played throughout the season based on the toughness of its schedule.
Alabama had one of the toughest schedules in college football entering the season. It faced five programs in the preseason AP Top 25 and is 3-1 currently against teams in the CFP Top 25.
Georgia, who defeated Texas to win the SEC Championship, lost to the Crimson Tide earlier in the season.
Alabama has victories over the Bulldogs, South Carolina, and Missouri — all of which are ranked.
SMU is 0-2 against schools currently ranked in the CFP Top 25 as it fell to Clemson and Brigham Young University (BYU). If the committee takes SMU over Alabama, then it shatters the criteria of strength of schedule. Teams will play lesser-tier competition because it will look at what the CFP Committee did to the Tide and think ‘why play a challenging schedule when I will get screwed over like Alabama?’
If the Selection Committee choses Alabama, then Kramer’s framework from 1992 is completely destroyed. SMU made it to its conference championship game and took Clemson down to the wire. Should the committee select Alabama, it would mean conference title games have no value. We could even see an end of having a conference championship game if that happens.
The CFP Committee is in a bad spot either way, but it is about to alter college football in a couple of hours.
We are about to see what happens soon enough.
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Stephen M. Smith is the senior writer for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can “like” him on Facebook or “follow” him on Twitter, via @CoachingMSmith.
