These are the times that try athletic directors’ souls.

Yesterday I mentioned that “… the question you need to be asking yourself is which [conference scheduling format] results in CBS and ESPN writing the biggest checks.  Because I guarantee you that’s the one the McGaritys and Stricklins will be asking”?

Greg McGarity goes there.  Exactly.

“Many SEC fans have a decision whether to come to our game, or sit at home in front of their 60-inch HDTV,” McGarity said. “Would they be more likely to come to a conference game as opposed to a guaranteed (nonconference) game? I’d probably say yes.”

By the way, could somebody please tell Scott Stricklin to STFU?

Stricklin opposes nine SEC games because it could leave Mississippi State ineligible for a bowl. So he wonders about trying to change the NCAA rule requiring round-robin divisional play to stage a conference championship game. That could produce schedules with five of six divisional opponents, one cross-division permanent partner and two rotating opponents from the opposite division. The drawback, Stricklin noted, occurs if the two best teams in a division don’t play each other.

“You have to figure out what’s more important: Do you just worry about playing everybody in your division, or play everybody as often as possible?” Stricklin said. “I don’t know the answer.”

Another idea Stricklin has for all sports with unbalanced schedules: Play some teams based on the previous year’s standings. For instance, football division champions would always play the next year, as would the second-place teams, and so on.

Read the rest of the article.  There’s almost no common ground between the ADs; they’ve all got their own agendas they’re pursuing.  And there are financial and practical considerations on the horizon that little thought has been given to, I suspect, like this:

Nonconference scheduling is an X factor. The SEC soon could have more trouble scheduling high-profile teams out of conference once the ACC switches to nine league games and an annual series between the Pac-12 and Big Ten starts in 2017.

Mike Slive has his work cut out for him.