I had to blog and run yesterday afternoon, so I didn’t get to spend time on the real story about next year’s SEC scheduling. Fortunately, Jon Solomon does a fine job of laying that out here. What’s striking is how seat-of-the-pants the whole thing comes off as.
Today’s release of the 2013 SEC schedule shows those new “permanent” games aren’t happening next season. And it’s not clear if Arkansas-Missouri and South Carolina-Texas A&M will become permanent starting in 2014 or if that will ever happen.
“That’s possible they’ll be permanent, but not definite,” SEC Executive Associate Commissioner Mark Womack said. “We’ll continue to look at that and see what issues that may create going forward.”
Womack said the change occurred due to the difficulty of finding a quality game for Texas A&M and Missouri on the final weekend. Instead, they’ll play each other Nov. 30, 2013, meaning South Carolina and Arkansas resume their annual cross-divisional game they’ve played since 1992.
“We’re trying not to have a team stuck out there without someone to play on that last weekend,” Womack said. “It’s harder to schedule nonconference games at the end of the schedule.”
Of course, most of what Womack and his cohorts struggle with would cease to be a problem if the conference’s decision makers would get their collective heads out of their asses and adopt a nine-game conference schedule. But that would make too much sense. Instead, we’re asked to keep hope alive.
Womack said he hopes this is the last “bridge” schedule before a 12-year schedule shows which teams rotate on and off annually.
For the SEC, that’s a plan.
Get The Picture 
Why a nine-game schedule won’t happen: we’ll NEVER have coaches standing for having more road conference games than home games.
Everyone would have to have a neutral-site game in there to make nine work.
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How ’bout a 10-game schedule?
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Am not a fan of a nine game schedule myself.
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Too bad. I usually agree on your positions. Another SEC game on the schedule would insure the best representatives to the SECCG.
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The only way to insure a true conference champion is for every team to play every other team in the conference each season.
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What?!? Did someone just point out that Bammer will miss UGA, FU, and SC two years in a row? Wow. I wouldn’t expect that to sprout wings and get all memey on us, though…
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+100
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A&M’s problem is they share a home state with a primadonna program who won’t keep an in-state rivalry. Works in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. No reason it can’t work out there other than Texas itself, right?
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If UT doesn’t want to play, why doesn’t A&M dance with another program?
TCU is now in the BCS league, and there are D-I programs falling off every other tree in TX.
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The fightin’ Bobcats of Texas State are ready for anyone, anywhere, anytime!
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I agree, Senator. Heck, Saban has already come out in favor of a nine-game schedule, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the 2013 schedule became another unplanned “bridge” season at the same time that TV renegotiations and the formation of the SEC Network are still ongoing.
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I suspect the unspoken message here is that CBS and the SEC are in a pissing match over TV money. The SEC wants more and the network won’t give it without more product.
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Perhaps Saban has already brokered a deal to ensure that Missouri, Texas A & M, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi always get the 5 away game schedules. Forever.
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It is interesting that we face LSU again and not Bama since they were the team dropped last year. No one from the west seems to be bring that up.
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Had a meeting with the Kharmic Bitches late last nite…dey told me talking about shit that happens next year when you got Kentucky coming up is not a good sign. I told em we got Kentucky, everybody says so…we are pacing ourselves for the next week….they left the meeting laughing.
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Do the Kharmic Bitches have Mary Juana in their membership? That could ‘splain why they left laughing. We are getting together this evening to address glaucoma treatment and to laugh nervously about Ken. I think she’s dating him on the sly.
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Nope, none a that…although I did have some friends….I spec they were laughing at us getting ready for Florida. But that is a second-tier observation.
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Admittedly not very smart here- but doesn’t this suggest they got 2 more teams brewin’ to go to 16 & then have to reschedule again anyway?
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hmmm…that’s an interesting possibility
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If the SEC expands to 16 teams IMHO they will to go straight to 10 conference games. Each team would then have 5 SEC home games and 5 SEC road games (except for Georgia which will have 4 home games in even numbered years).
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9 games definitely the way to go. Never have understood why it’s an obstacle to anything, just as I’ve never understood the deep commitment to multiple cupcake games. One, mayyyyybe 2, but 3? 9 SEC games, + Tech, + another “real opponent” and a cupcake, that’d do it for me, and, Hell, you could skip the cupcake far as I’m concerned. Let’s be honest: most years, there’s a built in conference cupcake or 2 anyway, and those wins actually mean something.
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Exactly, more and better football games should be the driver. Empty seats and a less than exciting atmosphere from silly mismatches will ruin CFB.
Going a step further, I wish there were a commissioner of CFB who could decree if you want to play in the big money bowl games and the coming playoff there would be no more games with 1-AA schools. A rotation should be established where all conferences must play teams from all other conferences every 3-4 years. Let’s mix it up and get some interaction between all teams that want a spot in the big money games, no backing in.
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I thought the Master of Emmert was the commissioner of CFB…that’s what Penn State understood.
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While I agreed with Emmert’s decision to impose sanctions on State Penn, I think he has been a weak President.
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Well, I guess next year is the year of the Cat.
Clemson, LSU, Mizzou, Auburn and for good measure, Kentucky. Yikes.
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Here kitty. kitty. Plays perfectly into a dog’s fantasy doesn’t it? Hopefully a Dawg’s fantasy too.
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9 games is definitely the way to go.
All the bitching about “team X’s schedules is easy this year” and “team Y’s schedule is easy next year” or “team Z gets 5 conference home games this year and we only got 4” are pathetic excuses for losers. Things have a tendency to even out over time.
Additionally, the notion that because we are in the same conference, we have to play the teams more often, overlooks the historical fact that until the last 20 years, SEC teams only played 5 or 6 conference games a year, generally against 4 “permanent” opponents (ours were Auburn, Florida, Kentucky and Vanderbilt, and later Ole Miss), and 2 “rotating” opponents – which is why we’ve played so few games against Alabama, LSU and Tennessee, despite the fact that we’ve been in the same conference for 80 years….
College football fans, in general, need to chill and not look at everything through such a short-term lens.
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I don’t get all the clamoring for a 9 game schedule on the part of Georgia fans. We’ll still play Tech and then 2 cupcakes. SC and Florida will play their non-conference rivals as well. Then the rest of the conference will play 3 cupcakes like they do today. The 9 game conference schedule puts UGA, Florida and SC at a large disadvantage which is why we’re the ones behind closed doors fighting against it.
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