As the landscape of College Football shifts, programs and head coaches are adjusting on the fly as the sport continues to change. After the first year in the 12 Team College Football Playoff format, teams will takeaway what they learned this season and adjust their future plans accordingly. The 12 Team College Football Playoff allows teams to lose a game or two while still making the playoffs.
The new format has made Conference Play important while in many ways making Non-Conference Play less valuable. There's an argument that Non-Conference games should be against the easiest opponents now as a loss out of conference makes the tightrope walk of SEC Play or Big Ten play even tougher.
On the Triple Option show hosted by Rob Stone, Mark Ingram II, and Urban Meyer, Matt Rhule made the argument against tough Non-Conference scheduling on the heels of canceling their game against Tennessee.
"Why in the world would a Big Ten team who’s already playing nine conference games, why would you ever play one of those games?"Matt Rhule
While most College Football fans won't want to hear it, Matt Rhule's way of thinking is the correct way to approach it. There's no reason to risk taking an early season loss when all you need to do is lose two games or less in Big Ten or SEC Play.
Look at what LSU and Clemson are doing next season, the teams will both debut as Top 15 teams with College Football Playoff expectations and they'll face off while some of their counterparts play boring games against far inferior opponents. Either LSU or Clemson will put itself in a massive hole next season and for LSU it could be much tougher as they'll still face a daunting SEC schedule.
The way that team's will be incentivized to play tougher games will be through rewarding the SEC and Big Ten with more guaranteed bids into the College Football Playoff. The conversations are already underway for that change but, it also could become an issue if either conference has a significant down year.