It’s been a little funny seeing the conspiracy theory takes on Georgia’s generous gesture allowing the Auburn and Tennessee games to be switched for the 2020 season without any apparent consideration. Nefarious motives have been attributed to all sorts of folks — CBS, ESPN, the SEC, Greg Sankey personally, just for starters — although the suggested rationales for their actions remain a bit murky.
To those folks, I offer a gentle reminder. Greg McGarity has a track record, and it’s not one of being a genius super-villain. Need proof?
Lucky for Greg he’s earned some brownie points with the conference in agreeing to move the Auburn game, because he’s going to need every one of them when he lobbies the SEC over Georgia’s October schedule. The sad thing to contemplate is what he’ll throw in the pot when Sankey’s office stops laughing and asks him what else he can do to make that work.
Maybe that’s why he’s working under a one-year contract extension.
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UPDATE: I know we call him Mr. Conventional Wisdom around here, but I won’t argue the point that Tony Barnhart is wired into the SEC office. This is worth reading.
So Greene had talks with the SEC office trying to get some relief.
Now understand how the football scheduling process works in the SEC. Each school has its priorities of what it wants out of a football schedule. Example: For the 2019 season Georgia wanted its two open dates to fall on Sept. 28 (after Notre Dame and before Tennessee) and Oct. 26 (the week before Florida in Jacksonville).
Every school makes its priorities known to the SEC office which begins to circulate drafts of future schedules to the schools. The athletics director at each school consults the coaching staff for its input. Any concerns from coaches are then sent back to the SEC and the process continues until the final schedule is released in September, about a year in advance.
The No. 1 rule of football scheduling in the SEC is: Nobody gets everything they want.
And that’s what happened with the Georgia-Auburn game. The SEC gave Georgia a draft of the schedule that had moved the game to September or October. McGarity sent it to the coaching staff to study. Smart had said at the 2018 spring meetings at Destin that he would like to get some relief from playing both Auburn and Georgia Tech on the road in the span of three weeks every other year.
So at the end of the day, Smart felt the schedule was one he could live with.
Still not seeing a quid pro quo there. Which isn’t to say Barnhart doesn’t see one.
But why, the angry fans want to know, didn’t Georgia just say no? Why didn’t they fight? Why should Georgia do ANYTHING to help the SEC help Auburn? Nick Saban wouldn’t do it. Why should WE do it? What’s in it for us?
Again, let’s take another deep breath.
The answer is the Southeastern Conference asked for help. Georgia is a member of the Southeastern Conference. And it never hurts to have the SEC owe you one. And Georgia was getting something out of the deal by not having to play both Auburn and Georgia Tech on the road in a three-week span.
Those angry Georgia fans have suggested other means to that particular end. Not that it matters.
The real news Barnhart drops comes at the end, and it’s something I immediately wondered about when I first heard about the move Wednesday night.
And let me share this and it is strictly an opinion: The next big battle involving the Georgia-Auburn game is not WHEN it will be played but IF it will be played on an annual basis. I’m getting some rumbles that more and more athletics directors in the SEC are hearing from their fan bases who want to a better variety of conference games in the season ticket packages.
Example: On Nov. 23 Texas A&M will play at Georgia for the first time since the Aggies joined the conference in 2012. If the current scheduling model (which expires in 2025) stays in place Texas A&M will not return to Athens until 2029.
One way to speed up that rotation is the elimination of permanent crossover games from each division. Each team in the SEC plays a permanent team from the other division and the other rotates on a five-year cycle. Georgia’s permanent crossover opponent is Auburn. Alabama’s is Tennessee. LSU’s is Florida (and they ain’t happy about it).
Do away with these permanent crossovers and teams would play against each other on a much more frequent basis. But SEC fans would have to give up Auburn-Georgia and Alabama-Tennessee on an annual basis to do it. That will be an interesting fight.
One man’s opinion is another man’s favor. That has all the earmarks of running an idea suggested by the conference up a flagpole to see who salutes. My bet is that the permanent divisional crossover game is already on very quiet life support. Could saving the series be Georgia’s quid pro quo for the move?
Get The Picture 
UGA @ Bama on 11/21/20.
Auburn, the next week, would be home game for them too.
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Which means Georgia will have swapped Auburn for Alabama. Sheer genius.
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For a year. We gotta go there sometime.
For all any of us know, by doing nothing, we could have gotten all three: Auburn, @ Alabama and Tech in November 2020.
After all we have @Auburn, A&M and @Tech in November 2019, don’t we?
@UT, A&M and @Tech in November is probably a bit easier isn’t it? Maybe we should have done this sooner.
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I’m pretty sure Bama isn’t going to have to play Georgia just before it plays Auburn. You have to remember who the most favored son is.
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We’ll see won’t we?
If they keep the refs in their pocket it doesn’t matter when or where anyway.
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If this is true and we end up playing Bama and Auburn back to back mid-season 2020 because of the Auburn game date change McGarity and Morehead both need to be summarily fired and escorted off the campus by security, I’m not joking.
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So you know Auburn will be appreciably better than Tennessee next year?Whether we play Tennessee or Auburn the week before or after Bama, its a tough stretch, and that’s just reality.
We have to play the teams on the schedule at some point, and we are going to have to have a stretch of 2 or 3 tough games in a row at some point. Do you really want a schedule of cupcake, toughie, C, T, C, T, C, T, C, T, C, T??? I sure don’t.
What these complaints really get at is the disparity in schedules. I am a proponent of all D-1 games, 11 of them, and 2 byes. One can dream!
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Perhaps this move has a slight silver lining – maybe it will provide some flexibility to make our schedule slightly more balanced, and less feast or famine, if the Auburn game is not fixed 2 weeks after Florida/2 weeks before Tech? Lately, we can sometimes go 3-4 weeks without a home game in the middle of the season, which always seems weird (and is obviously do to having Jax)!
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The year we didn’t have a home game in October, it was 70 degrees and sunny for an entire month above an empty Sanford Stadium
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That was just GAWD showing his love for the DAWGS! (he don’t do schedules)
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We must be missing something…
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McGarity is Florida’s answer for us giving them Boom. I’d say they won that battle.
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I’m still unclear about the desire to not have to “play Auburn and Tech both on the road over a 3 week stretch.” That keeps getting thrown around as some awful part of our schedule that we need to stop doing. What am I missing? Yes, Auburn on the road is going to always be tough, but what the hell does going to Atlanta to play Tech two weeks later have to do with it? Lately we’ve had a cupcake in between at home. Is the road game at Auburn so tough that we’re still recovering when we go to Atlanta two weeks later? Should’ve kept the Auburn game where it was.
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Yep … totally agree
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Even though we’ve owned them for 20+ years there, I think they are going to tick up a little bit.
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I think this rotating west team sneaking in before Tech is playing a larger role than anyone wants to admit/address.
If a rotating sec west team is going to be on the schedule the week before tech, don’t you have to adjust to that?
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Are we thinking that Birmingham has (secretly) permanently saddled us with our West Rotator the week before Tech ? FML. If there’s any truth to that, what a disaster of an idea…….giving Jimbo and Kirby a date with each other on November-freaking-23rd-cupcake-week is such a pro State of Alabama move it’s almost in your face.
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That’s where A&M landed. I have to imagine that CKS had that on his mind when Auburn wanted the switch.
Why would we sign up for both sec west team games to be around the 1st of October? That would be pretty damn dumb.
Its possible the idea is to put the rotating sec west game right before Tech or in mid-September. If we risk Auburn/LSU or Bama or A&M back to back, that’s just dumb.
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Right. The only negative was that they’re on the same home/away rotation and moving the game doesn’t fix that and since Tennessee is on the same rotation, the solution isn’t a solution.
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Hooray! We’re going to trade the South’s Oldest Rivalry for an annual game with Missouri, so we can play some other West teams more often. I can’t wait to read McGarity’s (or Williams’s) Minutes to tell us why this is such a great idea.
Florida doesn’t care about its game with LSU, who hates drawing Florida every year. I think Fulmer and Pruitt are more than willing to drop the 3rd Saturday in October to have a better chance to win the East. Alabama, Auburn and Georgia are the only schools that have a vested interest in keeping the schedule as is. The rest of the league doesn’t give a rat’s @$$ as long as the TV money continues to flow in.
At that point, what would the league do if Georgia and Florida decided to jump to the ACC where more natural rivals currently play and they could keep the WLOCP?
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Your last point is never going to happen.
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I don’t think the Georgia Way has the nuts to threaten it for one reason … $$$$$. It will suck the joy out of Georgia football for me if the Auburn game goes the way of Nebraska-Oklahoma (remember that game was ended as an annual affair after Big XII expansion).
I was only asking it as a rhetorical question.
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ee, you are right about the elimination of the Nebraska-Oklahoma game being the catalyst for Nebraska leaving the Big 12 for the Bug 10. I’d bet if asked in the 1990s Bluto would have said that would never happen too.
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The end of that game certainly lit the fuse of Nebraska’s departure from the B12.
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You’re spot on about Missouri and we need to go to the matts on that one. Get McG out for a wartime consigliere that can make it happen. If we don’t do something radical (like Bill Connelly’s pods) in the next format – it’s time to put Mizzou out west.
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…and Auburn will be swayed from our camp once Tennessee/LSU point out that Auburn should (1) not look at it as “losing the Georgia game”, but (2)forcing Alabama and Georgia to play more.
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Agree about Mizzou…what a tradition.
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I thought the SEC already owed Georgia.
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Ha. This is a great thread. So many variables and opinions. I think the phasing out of the Auburn/Georgia annual game is the key. No doubt Florida. UTK and Crackolina are not thrilled with their annual western crossover game and Kirby may be of the opinion that our Auburn rivalry gives them added exposure in recruiting Georgia. I’m obviously all for tradition but I think playing them every year helps them a lot more than it helps us.
The big thing with me is the undeveloped natural rivalry between A&M and Georgia. I imagine that the game in Athens will be the biggest game and toughest ticket in Sanford EVER… dwarfing the ND game. And it’s a shame that fans don’t get to go to College Station which I am sure Kirby is really pushing for to help us recruit the state… what a fantastic rivalry that could be!
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You have to cross 3 1/2 states to get to College Station. It’s never going to be a rivalry. Once again, would I trade our annual affair with Auburn for a game against the Aggies more often? Nope.
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Beat me to it.
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I guess sometimes I feel like auburn doesn’t deserve to play us. and if we handle ND and a&M upsets clemson then it could be a top 3 match up in athens and ND will be a fleeting memory. don’t underestimate what those aggies will do in order to get to athens if they are undefeated.
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Dwarfing the ND game? What is your basis for that assumption? A casual glance at the third party sites has ND tickets going for $500/per and the A&M game going for $166.
I also don’t get pushing a non-natural rivalry with a school 4 states away at the expense of one literally on the border of Georgia. Do I wish we played A&M more? Sure! but to say “I wish we went to Starkville more often” instead of Auburn every year is not worth it. This would be like Michigan and Ohio State stopping their annual series if they were in different divisions.
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You know, Clemson as an annual game stopped before my time (although we played twice when I was in college), but it’s pretty sad that we don’t/won’t/can’t play a tradition rich football school that is so close to our campus you can easily make a 12noon game leaving from your house in Athens that morning.
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Same boat for me. Sat through the hottest game in living memory in my freshman season. Course back then they were a good program, but nothing like they are today. I’m happy doing a home and home with them every decade.
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^^This. The SEC always owes Georgia and never pays off.
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How about a 9 game conference schedule? An idea so crazy it just might work?
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No coach wants it (Saban talks about it, but he’s full of crap), and no AD is going to go there unless the TV partners ante up big time for it.
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It’s the bottom 8 to 10 that will fight that. They want mediocre seasons to end with bowl games. You schedule 4 bad non-conf games and go 2-6 in conference play and you’re in.
Go to 9 and you may have to win 4 conference games to get a bowl. A lot of these teams don’t go 4-4 or better a whole lot.
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Coaches have to get that bowl bonus. Mama needs a new pair of shoes.
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I think the simple solution is to just remove the 6 game threshold for bowl games. Its subjective anyway at this point. Those bowls are going to be filled, even if there are not enough 6-6 teams.
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How about kicking 4 teams out of the SEC and playing a round robin 9 game conference schedule every year? That we get to see every other SEC team each year and every SEC team visits every other SEC team’s campus every 2 years.
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“Do away with these permanent crossovers and teams would play against each other on a much more frequent basis. But SEC fans would have to give up Auburn-Georgia and Alabama-Tennessee on an annual basis to do it. That will be an interesting fight.”
I get that there is a push to eliminate cross over games but I am not sure that leads to a better home schedule. It would make more sense (and would have more support IMO) to increase the conference schedule than to do away with permanent cross over games.
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Agree. I’d much rather keep playing Auburn every year than have A&M, Arky, Ms St on the schedule more often.
Also, the best way for us not to have to travel to Auburn and Atl every other year would be to pay us back that extra home game we gave Auburn.
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Thought the same thing, Senator. I think UGA and Bama, probably Tennessee, are the only teams really in favor of it now.
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My entire Tennessee in-law clan would drop Bama like 3rd period French if given the opportunity. Can’t really blame them, it’s a pretty big coup for Georgia and Florida to have them saddled with that every year.
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If you haven’t read it. Scheduling pods…
https://www.sbnation.com/a/college-football-commissioner/end-divisions
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The answer is the Southeastern Conference asked for help. Georgia is a member of the Southeastern Conference. And it never hurts to have the SEC owe you one
F.T.S.
When has Georgia EVER been given a favor due from the conference?
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no kidding. you’d think the conference would owe us a dozen by now, as many times as we roll over.
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I really don’t like the favors the SEC does for us. Two years in a row at Auburn, terrible refs the last two times we played Alabama, and 5 teams coming off bye weeks before us this year. If we play Alabama and Auburn in a three week span in 2020 I am going to lose my mind. Who needs enemies when you have friends like this?
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The SEC had nothing to do with the officials in the championship game. Say thanks to that prick, Jim Delany, for that crew of blind men.
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Agree, that 2nd half last January was so blatant with critical missed calls that it made me long for SC refs. The Big14 group cost us that title, and there is irrefutable video evidence…and on calls that usually are rarely missed. We aren’t talking about slam/bam pass interference crap here. Odd that they came in a flurry, all in the 2nd half, but it only took that invented offsides on the blocked punt to make the rest matter. Simmons wasn’t just onsides, he was a yard onsides when the ball was snapped.
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Mac, had the game been called correctly, the blocked punt would have never happened. Bama had 2 guys false start prior to the punt snap, killing the play.
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Then It would have at least been a 5 yarder against them instead of UGA..a ten yard differential….and we still may have blocked the punt because a roughing call would not give them a first down..so you can go after it. Also, a possible return. It turned the game. Never doubt it and never forget it.
Georgia had them beat and the refs, with several bad and several missed calls, handed them the game.
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Truer words have never been spoken.
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What the devil does Barnhart mean when he says “it always good to have the SEC office owing you something” or words to that effect. Didn’t they already owe us for playing Auburn back to back at their home?
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And we are already getting shafted with all of these teams able to have a BYE week before us…
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Barnhart is right about one thing for sure. We might as well all take a deep breath. Playing Auburn early will indeed feel weird but the way this shakes out shouldn’t matter to the won-loss column either way. I hope he’s wrong about not playing them every year. Hopping a flight to Mizzou is a lot more expensive and inconvenient for fans than a day trip to east Alabama. Would Auburn agree to play a non conference game if the SEC allowed to preserve the rivalry? I doubt it.
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What about Georgia -Florida going home & home?.Where does that unique idea fit into this debate?
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When J’ville tightens their grip on their money it might. Like everything else tradition might not mean anything to them anymore. The game probably helps South Georgia economy more than J’ville.
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I’m curious why some of you hate the UF game being in Jax so much. Is it because you don’t go? Would you go to Gainseville but not Jax?
It just seems so weird to me that we have one of the best games every year – no matter how good the teams are – national spotlight game. And it seems a fair portion of our fanbase wants to end that. CBS schedules it at 3:30 preseason every damn year. Its set in stone. Its not because Dan Mullen is building a monster. Its because the game has a mythos.
Do OK/Texas fans want to end the red-river shootout? (For reasons other than the game being at 11am every year) We’re sitting here talking about how much ending a tradition sucks and people are like “While we’re at it, lets ditch our other fantastic and unique rivalry game!”
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Agreed, and the only problem I have with Jax is, thanks to an agreement during the CMR era team are not allowed to host recruits.
The home team should be allowed to host recruits, and as mentioned above OU/UTx are the only school which can sell anything close to the WLOCP.
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Playing the WLOCP in JAX gives an advantage to FU. Basically it is an away game for Georgia and a home game for FU every year. We could get away with that when FU was an inferior program prior to 1989 but after FU and the State of Florida became the football hotbed they are now we simply can’t do it any more. What do you think Bama would say if LSU proposed that the Bama-LSU game be played at the Superdome every year? That’s what’s really going on here with Georgia and Florida but too many people now have an interest (financial and otherwise) in the game being played in JAX to stop doing it.
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Careful, Pawwwl. Bourbon Street every year !? I kid, I kid…
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Craziest, long running BS ever. I know you aren’t that dumb, just say you are against it on principle, or that you have an interest in an Athens business that gouges fans on game days. Those are both legit, irrefutable reasons. Everyone has explained how UGA is at zero disadvantage in the actual game. Don’t like it? Fine, but you get wiped out on every point about us having any legit excuse in the game. Florida fans felt the same way before the 90s, now they may start fighting to move it out of JAX again since they aren’t able to dominate. Both are lame reasons for destroying this great CFB tradition.
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But, like Mayor pointed out, it is exactly like the LSU-Bama game being played in NOLA every year, right?
Since the UGA-Florida game is so rich in tradition, perhaps Bama should give up a home game every year for a fat payday and annual “neutral site” game to build their own tradition… oh wait, they do, just not against a division opponent.
I went to Jax once. I didn’t see the appeal. We also lost by a bunch, so maybe that’s why. We went to St. Simon’s for the weekend several years without attending the game (before kids), and that was a blast, but that’s hardly different from just being on vacation with friends during any away game. I don’t really care as I’m not going either way, so keep it, ditch it, whatever. If it helps Georgia win the natty before college football becomes extinct, then do what needs to be done. The tradition-rich game of yesteryear is gone already anyway.
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You’ve made this same damn lame-ass argument on this blog at least dozens of times now, and you’re STILL wrong about it. Neither team has an appreciable advantage in this game due to venue/state. Give it up.
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The stadium is split 50/50.
Georgia flys there so the travel time is not that different.
I’d actually say there’s more Bulldogs that show up in the vicinity of Jacksonville than Gators.
Where’s the advantage for UF?
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For one thing, in even numbered years Georgia only gets 3 SEC home games because of the WLOCP being played in JAX every year. Statistically, Sanford Stadium is one of the toughest places to play in all of CFB. So we give up playing in a place where we win damn near 80% of the time for playing in a stadium where we win only a little over 50% of the time lifetime (winning only about 25% or so the last 30 years). You don’t think from a probability standpoint that hurts Georgia’s chances of (1) Winning the SEC East and (2) Getting into the playoff? The problem is we have so many people who have a vested interest in keeping the WLOCP in JAX (bought a condo in St. Simons just to attend that game, etc.) they overlook the obvious. I think those people are traitors to the program because they put their own self-interest ahead of what’s best for the team. And they get very mad when you challenge them about it because they know it’s the truth.
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Personally, I hope it fits no where…
Jax is my favorite game to attend. I’ve hit at least half of them since around 1981
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Pretty sure the Auburn thing will become rotating instead of annually. Next to go – Jacksonville.
My old school ass remembers and loved FL, AU, and Tech to end the season. However, I have grown to like the idea of opening with Tech each year. Could this help with SEC scheduling? Would TV accept one less “rivalry Saturday” game?
One thing is for sure, things as we know/knew things are changing rapidly….. and not necessarily for the better.
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TV gives not one shit about our “rivalry” game with GT.
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But they should with Auburn and UF further the WLOCP has some uniqueness which helps make it marketable.
Further rivalries make the game, CFB does not have fantasy leagues propping up a crap product getting fans to watch a game they would otherwise have little interest in. The Big12 paid a price for killing a game which fans from coast to coast loved to watch in Nebraska vs Oklahoma. The SEC would be wise not to do the same.
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^^This.
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NINE. CONFERENCE. GAMES. IS. THE. ANSWER.
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CONVINCE. CBS. AND. MICKEY. MOUSE. TO. PAY. FOR. IT.
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Barnhart is offering CYA for Sankey. The absolute truth is Nick Saban reviews, revises and approves the conference schedules.
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I’m curious as to how Tech on the road is a problem. It’s basically like going to Vandy.
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Not even. Mark Richt Field @ BDS is our venue.
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UGA is almost certainly going to play Bama in that September slot after ETSU.
All this durm and strang over Auburn/Bama back to back is such dumbassery .
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You’re right. If there’s one place remarkably free of dumbassery, it’s college football.
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I’m actually coming around to the idea of eliminating the permanent cross-division opponents. We’d still play Auburn, just not every year, and it’d make our opponents have to compete on a more level playing field. Auburn is a tough out every year. Meanwhile Alabama draws Tennessee. Truth is I could stand to have a few more opportunities to visit Baton Rouge for a Georgia game in my lifetime at the expense of a bi-annual trip to Auburn.
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Or we could just go to 9 conference games a year and have the tradition AND the games elsewhere.
Or we could realign the divisions and put auburn and/or alabama in the east so that we could still preserver some sense of rivalry and tradition in this “tradition rich conference”.
Or we could not have gone through some half-assed expansion almost a decade ago to try to get more TV money because we suck at negotiating and been handed the short end of the stick for “the good of the conference” ever since then.
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The roommate switch is the cure-all. 3 permanent rivals for everybody with 5 rotators……..you could still keep “divisions” but they’d have different groups every year, keep Auburn and Florida (and somebody else), but play the Kentuckys only as much as everybody else, which could still be every other year or at least twice every 4 years.
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BR, yes. Oxford, yes. College Station — I’m iffy on that one. Tuscaloosa and Starkvegas not really an exciting road trip to me.
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Looks like someone at Georgia is expecting a lot of ‘Sad Days’ in 2020.
If true, the November schedule isn’t going to matter.
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Hmm title looks familiar.
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Between his stint as SEC Commisioner and Chair of the COI at the NCAA, Sankey is starting to remind me of Larry Scott, with better checks and balances. Knows the language but doesn’t understand the concepts.
The solution here was simple: Hey Auburn. You’re football highlight the last 5 years was beating Georgia and Alabama back to back. In November. Let’s be patient on schedule reworks. Long term perspective. Now go away.
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I don’t see a lot of difference in switching TN and AU for competitive reasons, both are close series battles. Yes, Auburn is a longer running rivalry, but year in, and year out, they are tough conference battles. TN being in our division means the November date might be the better time for deciding the East battle, but I don’t feel that strongly about it.
But I am against it because it is catering to the whiny little cheaters form The Plains, and because it is embarrassing to see our spineless AD get bent over publicly again. Those are reasons enough for me.
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The pink pen spells ‘tough negotiator’, doesn’t it?
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