From the moment the clock hit zero in Saturday’s SEC championship game, the lobbying began.

Georgia’s loss to Alabama shouldn’t exclude the SEC from the College Football Playoff, many argued. Alabama should be in as the champion of the strongest conference in college football, others said.

But one analyst isn’t so sure.

CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm said he’s not convinced the SEC is all that strong this year. The College Football Playoff committee isn’t likely to give an automatic pass to the SEC champion.

“First of all, they’re not evaluating the SEC; that’s a conference,” Palm said during an appearance on CBS Sports All-Access. “They’re evaluating these teams individually. And this year Texas beat Alabama, and now Alabama beat Georgia. This was not a great year for the SEC. You may remember that they didn’t perform all that well in non-conference play. The best win in non-conference play the SEC had was Mississippi State over Arizona, maybe Ole Miss over Tulane.

“The big wins that you normally see SEC teams getting in non-conference play didn’t happen this year. So this was a relatively down year for the league. They feed up on a ton of tomato cans as they always do. But in the big games this year, they didn’t perform as well as they usually do. So the SEC is not the SEC this year.”

As the unbeaten champion of the Pac-12, Washington is almost assured a spot in the four-team playoff. Michigan of the Big Ten and Florida State of the ACC could well join them later Saturday.

It’s that Texas win over Alabama in September — 24-14 in Tuscaloosa — that hangs over everything, Palm said. It doesn’t seem possible for the 12-1 conference champion Crimson Tide to jump ahead of the 12-1 conference champion Longhorns, he said.

“Their ceiling is Texas,” said Palm, who rose to fame projecting the NCAA basketball tournament bracket but has recently branched out into football. “… Texas beat them at their place. So that’s an important factor for the committee, head-to-head. These are important factors for the committee. They’re both conference champions but Texas beat them, head-to-head, at their place. So that’s been a ceiling for them.

“Georgia will be behind Alabama; they will all be ahead of Ohio State. So right now it looks like Texas 4, Alabama 5, Georgia 6 depending on Michigan and Florida State still in action later tonight. … If Texas wasn’t in front of Alabama, Alabama would have a clear path to the playoffs. But I don’t see how this committee is going to put Alabama in and not Texas.”

Asked what he’d say to Nick Saban and Alabama if they’re left out of the playoff, Palm had a four-word response.

“Better luck next year,” he said.

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