I know it’s a foolish hope on my part, but I really wanted this season’s scheduling format to leave a mark.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
That sucks, Greg.
The justifications to do so look weak to me, considering. The SEC is likely to have one or two teams that don’t lose more than a single game in 2020, so the schedule isn’t going to keep the conference out of the CFP.
As for keeping bowl season safe for the Mississippi schools, I think it’s time to start lobbying the NCAA to drop the six-win requirement. The lower bowls are nothing but broadcast fodder for ESPN anyway, so why not just look for entertainment wherever you can find it? Personally, I would love to see how upper-tier mid-majors do against lower tier ACC schools. Even better, give me an Arkansas-Vandy bowl game so we can see which team is the conference’s worst. I’d sure watch.
Waiting twelve years to visit a cross-division stadium is a joke. Allowing players to miss facing certain SEC opponents during the course of their careers is, too. Playing cupcake games doesn’t make up for it. A conference in name only isn’t much of a conference. Listen to Saban and fix it, fellas.
Get The Picture 
You mean like…What would happen if tech played UCF? It’d probably be a bloodbath….
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I don’t favor expanding the playoff, but if a once in a century pandemic is what it takes for the regular season to finally NOT be shitty for a change… yeah fine go straight to 64… 128… anything to stop this annual cycle of every single school avoiding big games like the plague to try to back their way into the post season. At least we’d have some more decent football to watch.
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While a 10 game conference schedule is better football for us, as long as ADs, think 8 SEC games plus 2 cupcakes (or 3) means more money, you know what is coming. The revenue losses this year will be pointed to as “why we need the extra money,” don’t you think?
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Ten SEC games yearly book ended with Clemson and tech. If the Dawgs never played Missouri, Arkansas and TAMU in the regular season it would be fine with me.
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If the SEC went back to 10 schools, it would be fine with me.
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I like having South Carolina in the SEC.
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“I say to you Greg, isn’t this an indictment of the whole college football system?”
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“but i for one am not going to stand here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!”
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You win the internet today.
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Follow the money. Until the incremental revenue from the TV package for more conference games exceeds the total revenue for cupcakes, we are going to keep getting fed from the bakery.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Little Nicky, if you want to play 10-11 Power 5 opponents every year, no one is stopping you from scheduling those games.
All of this is coming from someone who supports going to 9.
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The only other way it changes is if/when the SEC champion gets left out of the playoff with 1 loss.
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You forgot the if Alabama gets left out with one loss. Hasn’t happened yet.
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First, come on Senator, the lower bowl games are there to earn ESPN money so they can pay the SEC schools, so that’s not going away anytime soon. You should know that.
Second, Sankey is an useless pussy and is fortunate enough to have a job where even more useless pussies like Larry Scott make him look amazing.
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I kind of like what the Big Ten is doing with championship weekend this year. In addition to the championship, they’re doing 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, etc. across the divisions. So you could play 9 games in the regular season in addition to your two cupcakes and get one “postseason” conference game. Alternate East hosting and West hosting every other year. The division champs would potentially lose an extra home game, but I’m sure they’d make that trade.
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Yes. This is something I’ve thought about some before this year. I’m thinking we should go 9 conference games with pod scheduling, then match up teams based on their finish for SECCG weekend. 7 games all as lead ups to the SECCG on Saturday night. You could have 2-4 on Saturday (noon, 3:30, then 8 pm for the title game), a Thursday game and a Friday game.
Thursday: 7 vs 8
Friday: 9-10
Saturday, noon: 5-6 and 13-14
Saturday, 3:30: 3-4 and 11-12
Satuday: 8: 1-2
At least then you might get the chance to see a A&M or LSU more than every 8 years or whatever it is now.
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I’d want an exception clause to avoid rematches on the down-ballot games. No point in uga-auburn or lsu-florida playing again outside the championship.
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Yep, that’s why this idea is just not good outside of this one weird year.
Move the SEC to a 9-game schedule, go back to playing the other division three times instead of two, and everyone in the media stops complaining that we haven’t played TAMU in 8 years or whatever.
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I personally want to see 9 conference games. In addition the NCAA needs to allow pod scheduling in a league and still have a championship game, and a requirement to play at minimum 2 power 5 OOC games for all the P5 teams. I think that would solve the once in ~11 years you play teams in conference. In addition you would still be able to schedule P5 OOC games that are interesting.
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For me 8 is too cold, 10 is too hot, and 9 is “just right.”
9 conference games, 1 cupcake, 1 GA Tech, and 1 other non-conference P5 opponent each year sounds awesome.
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That’s what you’ll get, little nicky wants 10 games, sec says 8 is enough, they’ll meet @ 9 games, the 2020 season (?) is the barometer for that…
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This is a ploy by Saban and Sankey (or more broadly, by the SEC to help Bama look good). Saban knows there is no way the SEC will expand to ten games, so he has no skin in going on television and beating that drum. Makes him look like a super rough guy, wanting a “better schedule” each year.
If he were sincere, he’d drop the Western Carolina and Citadel matchups and replace them with true Power 5 teams; the way he schedules tells you all you need to know about his true feelings on schedule strength.
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*Tough, not rough
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I think there is some truth to this. As mentioned above, Saban and Bama could play 10 strong games a year if they really wanted to.
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He’s not sincere, he’s FOS…he plays two patsies every year, and most of the times 3.
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I
ve grown very tired of our home cupcake schedule. This year we only got two home game tickets AUB and UT. Im very OK missing Vandy and disappointed I dont get to see Mike Leachs probably only game ever in Athens. Given the choice which Ive realized I have with my money. Im getting closer to no longer donating and just paying the going rate for the very few good home games we are allowed.There is no reasonable excuse we not been offered a game at A&M. Everyone said the SEC would harm itself with a playoff game. A few years later everyone followed to SEC with playoff games. I only remember the LSU upset of UT as the only time it cost the SEC a playoff game. Honestly I was OK with that outcome.
I really like the 10 game league schedule Mr. Sankey and ADGM not that they care.
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Just FYI: Here’s the remaining rotating inter-division schedules for the SEC.
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All I know is that Texas a&m joined the SEC in 2012. Yet, we have only played them once and won’t be playing them again until we make our first trip to Kyle Field in 2027. That’s utterly insane.
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The only thing these guys understand is money. If the fan bases quit showing up, or if those weaker games start costing them in the rankings, they’ll play more SEC games – and that is the only way they’ll do it.
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Senator, you don’t need 10 games to fix that, all you need is 9. If you have 9, you can do the 1-permanent and 2-rotating we had before Mizzou and TAMU joined the conference, and that fixes the whole issue.
10 is too much. 9 is the number. That allows a team like Georgia, which is forward-thinking in scheduling, to keep scheduling difficult opponents while playing the NATS every year AND playing one lower-level team (which is an important part of the CFB ecosystem, to keep those programs going and providing scholarships to players to play football and attend school).
9 is the number.
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Agree with Corch here. 9 is the number.
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Close but not quite the same as before. You’re rotating 2 slots through 6 rotating opponents (7 team divisions). Before it was 5 rotating opponents (in the old 6 team divisions). Not saying it isn’t an improvement, but the difference is somewhat critical in that pre-expansion it meant every opponent within the 4yr eligibility window. Now it would be 5 years to rotate through.
That’s why I like the pods of 3 permanent 5 rotators. That even insures you play in every stadium in a 4 yr window, not just every opponent.
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And you could do a 9th game with the pods too.
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I get you, and that’s a great point, but considering most blue chip players leave after 3 years, why is it such an issue for the media (because that’s who does the most complaining) this completely arbitrary “all teams once in 4-years” thing?
I hate pods. It’s un-American. It’s like soccer. No thanks. American sports use divisions. It’s what we do. Yeah, I know, “Old man yells at cloud,” but dammit, divisions keeps what we want alive in CFB, which are the rivalries and the geographic rivalries we didn’t have before divisions. Before divisions, we almost never played Tennessee. Georgia and Tennessee SHOULD play every year, just like LSU and Auburn should play every year.
What I want is the ability to play a well-balanced schedule that doesn’t destroy the College Football “ecosystem” that also allows us to play the NATS every year.
A 10-game schedule does not allow for that. A 9-game schedule does.
I know some what to get rid of all cupcakes, but the bleeding heart in me would hate to see the Austin Peays of the world have to shut down their programs because they can’t get a P5 game scheduled anymore, and those 75 scholarships (or however many FCS teams get) are gone forever. Multiply that number by 127. How many disadvantaged kids who know they don’t have an NFL shot get to go to college at FCS schools because they can play football? How many of them are afforded this life-changing opportunity to get a college degree and be able to become upwardly mobile in a way they never would if the Georgia’s of the world don’t play their team to fund their program?
Play 9 SEC games. Play the NATS. Play one great P5 team. Play one FCS or G5 team.
To me that’s a beautifully balanced schedule that makes CFB in Athens more exciting (by dropping one cupcake) yet helps keep the entire ecosystem healthy.
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Yep and the cupcake game still gives you the ability to have a game that can develop younger players.
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Develop younger players and also get your team healthy before your rivalry game and the SEC Title Game. Both things extremely important.
Yes, I would keep the G5 / FCS game as the 11th game of the season, this was you make September more exciting by playing all P5 OOC games then.
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I actually misspoke. It’s not “pods” I’m for, it’s the roommate switch. You still have divisions, it’s just that the divisions have building blocks that make them a little bit different each year. Each year the season (and championship game participants) are contested and determined by the winners of two seven team divisions……..the difference is that the top teams (if we could ever decide who the 6th team is in the Big6) rotate the weaker sisters in groups of 4. Two out of 4 years we have the kentuckys and vandys…….the other we have the mississippi states and arkansas’.
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Do you realize that in the entire history of Western Civilization no one has successfully accomplished the roommate switch!
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CFB is like a great hometown restaurant that grows into a big national chain. We’re at the part where the investment bankers or some big conglomerate have bought it up and they’re just making as much as possible as cheaply as possible to sell as much as possible because they know we’ll still eat it no matter what, even if we lament “it’s not what it used to be.” Doesn’t matter what the product looks like as long as the pictures make the food look good and the commercials make us hungry.
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…and then they strip it all to nothing, selling off each part, then send the remainder to China?
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In this case it’s “retire to your mansions and act like it’s the new guys’ fault when people quit watching.”
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Investment bankers don’t buy companies….I believe the folks you’re thinking of are private equity guys
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There you go. Anyways it’s terrible for quality, and they’re hyper focused on short term profits to the detriment of long term viability.
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The conference model really has some serious drawbacks. Here we are in the midst of a global pandemic when we ought to be reducing our travel, etc, and we’re going to play at Missouri and at Arkansas when we have two traditional rivals 90 miles in each direction who we aren’t playing. That’s efficiency right there, y’all.
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Anyway, one other scheduling thought: just move up the current rotating plan two years since most of the teams are already playing their 21 and 22 cross-over opponents this year; get us out of this stupid 1 permanent game 1 rotating game mess and into something better.
Also, start banging on tech to move the ’21 game to MBS.
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Kick a&m and missouri out of the conference and go to a 9 game schedule with a permanent cross divisional rival, same as was before but add an extra conference game. Mandate every team must schedule at least one P5 ooc opponent every year. Problem solved.
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That’s just dumb.
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In my day, we played 6 conference games…and we LIKED it!
One Bear vs. Herschel match up would have been nice tho.
The interesting thing about the old schedule was that the other five were not sisters of the poor but legitimate big conference schools.
I’d rather have 12 games vs. teams from the power 5 than more sec games. Let’s kick the shit out of Iowa. You know, for fun.
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I’m far less concerned about non conference match ups until we’re actually playing our own conference foes with some regularity. Then, by all means load it up.
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I think the gaps between match ups with Bama and LSU make them more special. They’d become less so if they happened all the time. Plus we see them a lot in postseason.
Do we need more cowbell? I don’t think so.
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I feel like the discrepancy is that we have games we play every year that we could do without playing EVERY year (looking at you missouri, hell even Tennessee) vs. games that we’d like to play a little more often. Yes, we should probably play A&M a little bit more……but we should also play Clemson more. As a Georgia fan, beefing up the conference wall to play A&M more holds no more weight to me than loosening up the wall to play Clemson more. It’s the meaningless cupcake that’s the bugaboo in the equation. Clemson and Tech’s affiliation with another conference is meaningless from a value standpoint to the Georgia fan. Same with FSU, Louisville, etc for our eastern brethren.
I think the future model should be protecting a few sacrosanct matchups and then providing maximum flexibility. I love bourbon and the ponies, but I could do that every 4 years instead of 2 if it meant things like more Clemson. A “conference” game is nothing but a few more layers of contracts than a non-conference game.
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I’d say it’s about 10% better per game. But we play 10 fewer of them per decade and replace them with… Mizzou. Which is a solid 0%.
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I’d be fine with 9 games in conference, not 10. 10 crowds out space for regular meaningful P5 non-conference games.
My dream is to have each team play 11 P5 games one way or another. One game each year for every P5 team could be assigned by a lottery drawing from the NCAA. You draw the opponent for a home and away matchup starting the next season. Eventually that becomes two games per year, one home and one away, with two different non-conference P5 schools. Would be a fun drawing show, like a mini March Madness. Sometimes UGA would draw a team like Indiana, sometimes Ohio State. But we’d actually get the diversity of games to better compare conferences.
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6 wins is a low enough bar that you might as well not have a bar at all.
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Extremism in defense of Little Nicky is no vice.
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For everyone advocating 9 games, how do you solve the mix of home and road games? Unless you do some wacky neutral site crap, teams will be playing no extra home games (compared to the current 8) and five SEC road games every other year.
Ten is better.
Also boot Mizzou for someone actually in the Southeast.
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As an example, if we had 9 games this year…
Home – Florida, Auburn, Tennessee, Vandy
Road – Bama, Mizzou, SC, Kentucky, Arkansas
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The problem with this is no one’s booting Mizzou. Or TAMU. So stop saying it, it’s never going to happen.
10 games doesn’t work. Period. It would literally destroy so many of the FCS and G5 programs that depend on playing P5 teams for their budget and scholarships to be fully funded.
9 games works. And yes, some years you have 5 home games against your conference and other years you have 4. Thems the breaks.
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I agree a lot of those programs would have to shut down – or at least restructure their budget. Do you suppose the SEC would forego the extra TV money from a ten game schedule over that concern?
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Amen 🙏🏿
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