Many expressed feelings that Greg Sankey acted too quickly in officially changing the SEC's scheduling model. There had long been pressure for the league to move from eight to nine conference games.
Sankey took it one step further, not only moving to a nine-game conference schedule, but forcing every SEC team to also play an out-of-conference game every year against a Power Four opponent or Notre Dame.
Sankey did this as an act of good faith that strength of schedule was going to be a major factor in future discussions for playoff inclusion.
That was despite direct evidence to the contrary last season when Alabama was left out for the likes of SMU and Indiana when number of losses was the only metric that was counted.
On Tuesday, the College Football Playoff committee proved once again that who you lost to matters more than who you beat.
The CFP committee is Lucy holding the football, and Sankey is Charlie Brown excitedly running to kick it with nary a thought that it might get pulled out from under him again.
And yet, here we are again. Sankey is lying flat on his back with cartoon birds circling around his head, wondering what exactly happened.
Alabama went from the highest-ranked one-loss team at No. 4 to the third-highest-ranked two-loss team at No. 10 because it dared to drop a game to a Top 10 opponent by two whole points. A game in which the Crimson Tide was - by a wide margin - the unluckiest team to lose a game last week.
The playoff committee cited the loss to Florida State and inconsistency with running the football (???) as the biggest reasons for the six-spot drop. Both of those things were on the Tide's resume prior to the loss to Oklahoma, but weren't a factor until now.
The reality is that the committee is going to make up whatever metric they want to excuse ranking teams however they want to rank them.
Alabama's drop is to set up a way to avoid allowing five SEC teams in the playoff. Because it's not about which teams are better or more deserving; it's about "fairness" to the other conferences and avoiding a Big Ten hissy fit when the SEC gets five teams to the Big Ten's three.
The SEC should hold a vote of no confidence and remove Greg Sankey from office
What has become clear in this new era of college football is that Greg Sankey is not the man to lead the SEC forward. He has made countless mistakes, consistently bending to the will of the Big Ten and other leagues.
While moving to a nine-game league schedule always felt inevitable, doing so without proof that this year strength of schedule would actually matter was foolish.
Alabama's SOS is 4th, according to ESPN's FPI. Notre Dame's is 29th. Alabama has beaten four teams the CFP committee ranks in THEIR OWN Top 25 to Notre Dame's one. But Notre Dame ranks higher because...reasons?
The job of the SEC commissioner should be to set the league up for success now and in the future. Instead, Sankey has made things more challenging for member institutions to make the College Football Playoff field in the future.
He has sat idly by and watched the rest of college football laugh in his face and conspire against him. And he's done nothing about it.
Alabama fans should be angry at the 12 committee members who made the nonsensical decision to drop it to No. 10. But Greg Byrne and company should be angrier with Sankey for allowing it to happen.