For years, the SEC has considered moving to a nine-game conference football schedule. The league will take up the issue once again during spring meetings in Miramar Beach, Fl., this week, but this time with a new data point.

According to commissioner Greg Sankey, the College Football Playoff’s snub of Alabama, along with South Carolina and Ole Miss, could have an impact on the decision.

“I think the CFP selection process has become a much bigger deal,” Sankey said.

The Crimson Tide lost three games last season, against a Tennessee team that made the CFP field, and Vanderbilt and Oklahoma squads that were nowhere close. SMU, which fell in the ACC championship game but had no other losses, made the field ahead of all the three-loss SEC teams.

Immediately, Alabama cried foul, noting its strength of schedule far outpaced the Mustangs. UA athletics director Greg Byrne said immediately that the snub could change how the Tide scheduled future non-conference matchups.

Now, it could even have a lasting impact on the conference schedule.

“You can’t just run down a College Football Playoff selection idea without thinking about, ‘Well if we play eight or nine games, what are the impacts?’” Sankey said. “So that’s the depth of analysis. We also look at, and we’ll go through this tomorrow, whether people want to agree with it or not, that’s up to them, we can go through the analytics and who the rigor of our schedule is different than anyone else’s, period.”

Sankey bemoaned the idea of teams having to ditch difficult non-conference games, saying he felt it was bad for the on-field product. However, he said the teams getting snubbed provided a lesson to the league moving forward.

“One of the things we learned is, you’re not gonna divorce your regular-season schedule from College Football Playoff selection,” Sankey said. “In fact, I think there’s more of a feeling that regular-season scheduling is governed by College Football Playoff selection.”

The SEC will continue spring meetings Tuesday. The meetings are scheduled to run through Thursday in Florida.