“More Losses”: ESPN's Laura Rutledge Warns SEC of Major Self-Sabotage
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The SEC has spent years arguing that its strength comes from depth. That argument is getting harder to separate from the results on the field, though. The Big Ten has now won the last three national championships, while the SEC has gone through a three-year title drought. ESPN’s Laura Rutledge thinks the SEC still has the deeper conference. But she also sees a problem coming.
“I would say that going to a nine-game schedule in the SEC, I just don’t know if it’s going to be the type of thing that is going to benefit the conference,” Laura Rutledge said on the August 17 WRUF podcast. “Because I think it could lead to more losses, and ultimately we haven’t seen a college football playoff committee that’s super interested in rewarding teams that lose even if they think they’re better teams.”
Starting in 2026, SEC teams will have nine conference games on the schedule, plus a power-conference game outside the league. That gives them less room to avoid a tough Saturday. It also means more chances to take a loss. For a conference that has not won the national title since Georgia in 2022, that is a pretty important detail.
The 2025 postseason was even tougher for the SEC. Indiana destroyed Alabama 38-3 in the Rose Bowl before beating Oregon 56-22 in the semifinal. Ohio State defeated Texas in the first game of its 2025 season. So Rutledge is not claiming the Big Ten has superior talent across the board. She is making a distinction between depth and results.
“Right now I would say the Big 10 has the edge, but again, people say it sounds like we’re making excuses,” Rutledge said. “There is a reality to the fact that getting through the gauntlet of the SEC schedule is different than what it is getting through the gauntlet of the Big 10 schedule. The top of the Big 10, of course, is to be reckoned with, and once again will contend for a national championship this year, I believe.”
SP+ numbers back up Rutledge’s point. SEC teams have faced more top-30 opponents than Big Ten teams in each of the past three seasons. In 2024, the average SEC team played 5.1 top-30 teams, compared with 3.3 for the Big Ten. The 2026 projections show an even wider gap, at 6.4 to 4.3. That is the SEC’s best defense. A team can lose a game because it played another outstanding team.
The loss does not necessarily mean that team is worse than a two-loss program that had an easier road. But the playoff committee still has to build a bracket. That could become especially important with the playoff remaining at 12 teams. The SEC wanted its nine-game schedule to strengthen the league’s playoff case by giving its teams more opportunities for quality wins. Instead, there is now a growing concern that the format could spread losses across too many contenders.
CBS Sports reported in July that SEC coaches had begun pushing back on the nine-game model for precisely that reason.
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