Six SEC programs showed up in a campaign-style video asking for College Football Playoff votes, and Arkansas wasn’t one of them. That’s understandable.
A team playing the way the Razorbacks have this fall doesn’t get written into anybody’s script.
LSU, Ole Miss, Texas, Missouri, Alabama and Kentucky all got a turn to make their case before ballots go in on Dec. 6. Most of them spent that time taking shots at each other instead of talking about themselves.
LSU went first and leaned on tradition, asking voters to look at its whole season. The Tigers even owned up to “a couple of setbacks” before Ole Miss cut in.
The Rebels wanted to talk about Sept. 19, the day they beat LSU in Oxford. They tossed in a dig about the $91 million they said LSU spent, and Lane Kiffin’s dog got a mention too.
For Ole Miss, it comes down to head-to-head results when two-loss teams get stacked up against each other. That argument didn’t hold up for long, though.
Another team jumped in to say it had beaten the team that beat LSU. Its point was that quality wins should matter more than one head-to-head result.
Texas and Missouri take their lumps
Texas kept its pitch short. The Longhorns listed wins over Ole Miss, Tennessee and Ohio State and said that proves they can beat the best teams in college football.
That’s when the Florida game came up. A rival was quick to remind everyone it had beaten that same Florida team by 28 points, which didn’t do Texas any favors.
Missouri tried a different angle with a joke about arches. The Tigers said the arch in Austin is really just a gateway to the ReliaQuest Bowl.
That one backfired. Missouri caught grief for an offense that didn’t show up much and for its loss to Mississippi State, which a rival called the worst one in the group.
The Tigers argued the Bulldogs were “still good” when that game happened. The reply was that Mississippi State never fell off at all and simply stopped playing Missouri.
Missouri didn’t get another word in after that. Alabama was up next.
Alabama and Kentucky make their pitch
Alabama opened by pointing out it has more playoff appearances than any other SEC program. The Crimson Tide asked for a vote that would make it 10.
A rival grabbed that number right away. It said 10 is more points than Alabama scored against Indiana the last time it was in the playoff.
Alabama said that was a different team. The answer back was that the roster may have changed, but the offense still looks about the same.
The jabs didn’t stop at football, either. One team was accused of hurting college sports by putting NFL players on its roster, and it said it was just putting unemployed athletes back to work.
Kentucky had the last word and kept things light. The Wildcats said it’s time for new blood instead of blue bloods and asked voters to go for two with Big Blue.
Little old Kentucky approved that message, and that’s where the video wrapped up.
Arkansas gets the silent treatment
The Hogs didn’t come up once in any of it. Rivals usually don’t waste jokes on teams they aren’t worried about, and right now Arkansas isn’t giving anybody a reason to worry.
That’s a tough spot for a program used to being part of these SEC conversations.
Even Mississippi State got mentioned, and the Bulldogs weren’t one of the teams making a pitch.
Ryan Silverfield hasn’t done much to change the picture. He’s had plenty of cliches to offer this season but not much that sounds like a real plan.
Fans would like to hear how he plans to turn this around and whether he’s counting on recruiting to do most of the work.
So far, they’re still waiting.
