With the discussion generated by Michael Elkon’s post on Georgia’s scheduling, I thought I’d take a look at one final item – travel.
Not that I think it’s that big a deal overall in determining a school’s strength of schedule, but when’s the last time each SEC school went outside of the Confederacy to play a regular season road game against a school from another major/BCS conference?
Here’s the list:
- Alabama: 2002 (Oklahoma)
- Arkansas: 2005 (Southern Cal)
- Arkansas: 2002 (Southern Cal)
- Florida: 1991 (Syracuse)
- Georgia: 1965 (Michigan)
- Kentucky: 2005 (Indiana)
- LSU: 2005 (Arizona State)
- Mississippi: 2006 (Missouri)
- Mississippi State: 2007 (W. Virginia)
- South Carolina: 1991 (W. Virginia)*
- Tennessee: 2007 (Cal)
- Vanderbilt: 2006 (Michigan)
*not a member of the SEC that year
Yeah, that 42+ year thing kinda jumps out at you. The good news is that the streak will end in ’08, as the Dawgs are one of three SEC teams leaving the friendly confines of the South to play schools from other BCS conferences (Auburn and Tennessee are the others). That will leave Florida and South Carolina (which has never played outside of the South as a member of the SEC) at the top of the leader board.
One other thing: the SEC’s record in those games is 2-10. The only two winners were Georgia and LSU.