Tuesday was an awesome day. The afternoon was filled with giddiness after Marvel’s event, in which it announced nine new movies. After hearing about a two-part Avengers: Infinity Gauntlet, I decided that, until 2020, I’m basically giving Marvel and Disney permission to take my money.

But the point of this Thursday column is college football. And college football, like Marvel, also delivered Tuesday night by releasing the first-ever College Football Playoff rankings. As predicted, criticism was aplenty.

Yet, the criticism was confusing because just about everyone expected SEC teams to be ranked high, and they were. There are four SEC teams in the top 10, with a potential for more or less, depending on how much the conference cannibalizes itself in these coming weeks.

Is there an SEC bias? Oh, no doubt. But it’s a deserved bias after the conference’s performance the past decade, which has triggered an arms race within the conference.

The SEC has also dominated its out-of-conference opponents, though, truth be told, not all have equal out-of-conference opponents.

It’s because of this bias that, even though the conference beats itself up, one-loss Alabama is still in the playoff hunt after being ranked No. 6, and one-loss Notre Dame sits at No. 10, essentially left behind after coming within a controversial call of upsetting Florida State.

But where much of the criticism I see is in relation to other team’s rankings. TCU is ahead of Baylor, yet Baylor defeated TCU. According to Jeff Long, a CFP committee member, this was due to Baylor’s weak strength of schedule.

The committee seems to be placing a higher emphasis on schedule rather than head-to-head matchups. In another, maybe confusing, instance, Long specifically said though Oregon lost to Arizona at home, Oregon had quality wins against Michigan State and on the road against UCLA.

Ultimately, you should not be upset the SEC has teams ranked as high as they are. Instead, be upset at the schools that schedule weak nonconference opponents. Baylor’s opponents next year are Southern Methodist, Northwestern State and Buffalo.

Baylor, a Power Five team, does not deserve to make the playoffs by scheduling three schools that currently have a combined record of 7-16. And Northwestern State is an FCS school.

This is not to say SEC teams don’t schedule cupcakes, because they do. But they are afforded that opportunity because so many conference games have high stakes and the teams, above all, are better. Move a two-loss LSU team to the Big Ten, and they are immediately better than most of the conference.

Until the rest of the Power Five schools start winning convincingly, they will always play second fiddle to the SEC.

However, not all is lost for non-SEC schools. Due to scheduling, there is a probability one SEC team makes it to the playoff. Mississippi State, Auburn, Ole Miss and Alabama still have games against each other in the coming weeks.

So, in conclusion, Marvel is taking my money, and rankings are dumb.

And I’m okay with both.

Erik is a senior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @e_prada.