CFP Predictor: SEC wanted its own Playoff. It created one every Saturday - USA Today

The threat has always been there with the SEC, just in case things don’t work out how they should.

Take your ball and go home, and have your own SEC playoff.

Well, boys, you’ve got it right now; It’s called the regular season — and it’s the most undervalued television property on the planet.

Every week, every game funneling into a 12-team College Football Playoff that may as well be shrinking by the week for the SEC.

“It’s on to next week, it’s what you do in our conference,” says Texas coach Steve Sarkisian. 

Texas and Georgia are the elite, for now. They’re on top of this week’s USA TODAY Sports Playoff Predictor, but for how long?

Alabama and Florida are surging, and LSU and Ole Miss aren’t going anywhere. Meanwhile, there’s Mississippi State with the most exciting player in the league (Kamario Taylor) this side of Trinidad Chambliss.

Alabama, playing its best in three seasons under coach Kalen DeBoer, gets to make the short drive Saturday to the snake pit that is Starkville, and deal with Taylor and the cow bells. 

Austin Simmons still hasn’t thrown an interception at Missouri (and has 11 TDs), and he and Tigers were on the short end of Taylor’s magic. They get Florida in Columbia on Saturday. 

Tennessee had Texas reeling, and couldn’t close it out. The Vols next get Auburn, which beat previously unbeaten Vanderbilt. And on and on it goes, week after week.

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.