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?