Well, sort of.
The SEC hastily adopted a new tiebreaking formula Friday that would use, if needed, the Bowl Championship Series standings to determine who plays in the league's Dec. 6 title game.
During a conference call, SEC athletic directors unanimously adopted the new rule so they wouldn't be put in the position of voting on which team SEC East team Florida, Georgia or Tennessee goes to Atlanta.
In the event of a three-way tie, the highest team in the BCS standings would represent the East, with one caveat. If the top two teams are within five places of each other in the BCS, the head-to-head winner would go to the title game.
``Subjectivity in a decision of this magnitude was not in the best interest of the league,'' commissioner Mike Slive said. ``Whenever you have a league like ours so competitive, so strong, with some parity you really want to have an objective standard.''
Slive felt it was important not to rely solely on the BCS standings, a complex system that takes into account polls, computer rankings, strength of schedule and quality wins.
``We could see a situation where, for example, a team was fifth in the BCS and another team was sixth in the BCS,'' he said. ``What if they were separated by two-tenths of a point and No. 6 had beaten No. 5. None of us thought that was an appropriate way to pick a champion.''
Georgia athletic director Vince Dooley preferred a slightly different formula, pushing for using head-to-head meetings if the difference between the top two teams was no more than three places.
``It was appropriate that we took the subjectivity out of the decision by turning to the BCS ranking as the criteria for breaking the tie,'' Dooley said. ``I would have preferred three places as a better number, but the majority wanted five, and we were unanimous on the final vote.''
For now, the new tiebreaker favors Georgia, though things can change in the final weeks of the regular season.
The Bulldogs (7-2) are 10th in the BCS, while Tennessee is 13th and Florida 17th. Using the new system, Florida would be eliminated and Georgia declared the division champion because of its 41-14 victory over Tennessee.
Then again, if Florida beats Florida State on Nov. 29, the Gators could narrow the gap with the Bulldogs enough to win the tiebreaker based on their win over Georgia last week.
No matter what, the ADs seemed relieved to put the matter behind them.
``I think it is fair,'' said Tennessee's Mike Hamilton, reached by telephone after arriving in south Florida for Saturday's game against Miami. ``We need to go out and get done what we need to get done.''
If Georgia, Tennessee and Florida win their remaining conference games, they would wind up in a three-way tie for the East championship. The first six tiebreaker steps would not break the deadlock.
``I think it is important to go back and note that when we originally set the guidelines for tiebreakers in our league, the BCS had not yet been established,'' Hamilton said. ``And of course when you set the guidelines, a lot of times you don't anticipate you are going to make it all the way to the seventh tiebreaker.''
Still, the SEC had come under criticism for not adapting a more complex tiebreaking procedure when it split into divisions and launched the championship game in 1992.
The seven-step process calls for a vote of athletic directors as a last resort, but league officials didn't have the foresight to adapt some of the methods used by the NFL, such as point differential and net touchdowns.
The new seventh tiebreaker using the BCS standings permanently replaces the AD vote. Slive doesn't plan any other action on the system.
``I think we're through,'' he said.
Georgia, which fell to 4-2 in the conference with its 16-13 loss to Florida, finishes its league schedule with home games against Auburn and Kentucky. Tennessee (3-2) has games against Kentucky, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt, all teams with losing records. Florida (4-2) will take a three-game winning streak into games against Vanderbilt and South Carolina; the last time the Gators lost to either was in 1988.
Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley won't comment on the decision ``until it's relevant,'' spokesman Steve McClain said.
Gators coach Ron Zook also refused to discuss the tiebreaker. ``It doesn't make any difference,'' he said this week. ``The only thing we have any control over is (Saturday's game against) Vanderbilt, and that's all we're talking about and thinking about.''
Slive took a similar tact.
``We don't even know if this tiebreaker will come into play,'' he said. ``There's a lot of football to play.''
http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/11/169559