Eight plus one

The SEC presidents and chancellors got together today to discuss football scheduling.  In case you’re wondering how things turned out, let LSU’s Joe Alleva clue you in.

#LSU AD Joe Alleva: "Very disappointed leaders of the SEC disregard competitive advantage that permanent partners award to certain schools."

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) April 27, 2014

The end result?  The status quo, with a twist:

But beginning in 2016, each school will be required to schedule at least one nonconference game against one of the four other major conferences. That’s not a change for teams such as Georgia, which already plays Georgia Tech every year. Florida already plays Florida State, South Carolina has Clemson and Kentucky has Louisville.

In fact the only SEC teams in 2014 that aren’t playing another major-conference team are Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.

Slive said the change would “bolster our collective annual nonconfernce schedule” while also maintaning flexibility for each school with the remaining three games.

“The concept of strength-of-schedule is based on an entire 12-game schedule, a combination of both conference games together with non-conference games,” Slive said. “Given the strength of our conference schedule supplemented by at least one major non-conference game, our teams will boast of a strong resume’ of opponents each and every year.”

This has Slive’s Solomonic approach written all over it – a little something for everybody (I doubt Alleva agrees, but…):  no ninth conference game, but a requirement that every school make a nod in the direction of strength of schedule, to keep the playoff selection folks satisfied.  No ninth game, but the key rivalry games are preserved.  Throw in some discomfort over unbalanced home/away schedules and a desire to use non-conference scheduling to maximize bowl opportunities, and there you have it.

“Tradition matters in the SEC, and there is no denying that tradition was a significant factor in this decision because it protects several long-standing cross-division conference rivalries,” Slive said. “It has been a hallmark of the SEC over our history to be able to make continued progress while also maintaining traditions important to our institutions.”

Of course, the other part of that tradition is that there are going to be long stretches when certain teams from the East don’t face certain teams from the West.  That’s the price you have to pay for progress to preserve the right to play Wake Forest and Indiana.  (It’ll be interesting to see what happens if a SEC school can’t find a major college dance partner in a given season.)

The bitching from certain quarters will continue.  That’s another tradition.  But the real upshot to take away from this cobbled together course of action is that Slive wants to keep his powder dry on the subject of inventory for the SEC Network.  He’ll go to that ninth game when somebody’s ready to make it worth his while. Meanwhile, he’s got a consensus that no SEC school plays four games against teams from lesser conferences/divisions anymore.

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UPDATE:  As an interesting side note, look what got voted down.

“I understand Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia for the history, but that’s only four schools,” Alleva said. “The rest were voting in their own self-interest. They could have kept those games and the rest of us rotated. That was brought up but voted down.”

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UPDATE #2:  This is mighty big of ’em.

Spoke to SEC, #NotreDame is an "acceptable" opponent to meet requirement of new SEC Big5 conference schedule mandate starting in 2016.

— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) April 28, 2014