It wouldn’t be an SEC Media Days without a conference scheduling discussion. As the header indicates, there is no consensus for Sankey to act upon ($$).
“I don’t want to get the commissioner in trouble here,” Florida coach Dan Mullen said when asked if he had any thoughts on changing the schedule. “But I’d love for us to maybe do away with the permanent crossover team so you get these types of games more often.”
That’s one idea. And it’s especially popular outside of the schools that hold those marquee annual games: Auburn-Georgia, Alabama-Tennessee and LSU-Florida. Talk to many people outside those six schools and there’s almost an incredulous sense: Why do we keep doing everything we can to keep those games?
Easy to see when you aren’t a part of that.
So we get Mullen’s suggestion, or pods, or whatever.
Of course, the obvious course of action, adopting a nine-game conference schedule, isn’t so obvious, despite the conference taking a ten-game approach last season without any difficulty (and by “difficulty”, I mean SEC teams playing in the CFP and bowl games). In fact, Sankey simply dismissed it.
“We had 10 (SEC) games last year but that didn’t motivate anybody to move to 10 games,” Sankey said.
That makes complete sense, if you exclude fans from your definition of “anybody”.
Get The Picture 
With UGA’s upcoming OOC slate, I can’t see how anyone thinks they should go to 9 SEC games..10 really counting the SECCG. I could see UGA cancelling some of the marquis OOC games they have set up if this happens. All to play MSU more often?
And yeah, UF (Mullen) wants no part of LSU yearly.
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LSU and the Gators don’t want to play each other. It’s either one or the other of them being bitchy about it at one time or another. Oddly, never in concert.
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I’ll give you that…
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Move to a nine game conference slate with one permanent crossover. Keep the league mandated power 5 opponent from out of conference. In all Georgia loses a cup cake, and we get LSU or aTm more than once every 8 years. If we lose a marquee game like Oklahoma or Florida State then oh well. It was nice betting Notre Dame and it was great hosting ASU and Colorado, but I see few of their fans and it is hard to be smug about beating them when you never see them. But damn I run into LSU and ole miss fans. A conference win is huge, but a conference lose is a freaking gut punch. And we should be landing body shots on everyone in the conference as much as possible. We all talk about steel sharpens steel, and the occasional Oklahoma is impressive , but you think that prepares us like playing Ole Miss and LSU in the same season does? I’ll take Mississippi State and Alabama over Cal and UMass any day, and twice on Saturday. We complain about the loss of traditional rivals and we ignore those in our own conference.
With the expanded playoff big out of conference games will come. But we have to make sure we have that slot by keeping our brethren out of it.
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I have no interest in seeing Starkville more, but certainly would accept it in order to play Bama, LSU, A&M, Miss and Arky more than every 8-9 years. If it means we have to spread some of the marquis OOC games out more, so be it.
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Well gang, that’s the FU hc closing the gap (in his hogtown emptiness)…does UGA football want to play the bammers once/twice a season….NO…we all recognize to, get to the prize, ya gotta’ go through alabamia to get there, that’s the fucking reality that FU doesn’t comprehend…or is that asking to much of hogtown brainiacs…
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Pods are the best path forward, but sadly I’m guessing Sankey & ESPN will think that’s too complicated for fans to understand and, even more sadly, they’re probably right. So in the end, when this scheduling cycle is finished, the annual game with Auburn will go away but we’ll still see them every few years with two rotating opponents (unless they ultimately decide to move Bama/Auburn to the east and Vandy/Mizzou to the west).
They’ve already negotiated the future contract with ESPN and there was no discussion or reporting that a 9th conference game was part of it. Which is smart because that means the SEC holds at least one card to renegotiate the agreement when the B1G does one better.
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The suits in Birmingham will do whatever they have to save the Iron Bowl. Everything else is expendable in their minds. Get ready to have the South’s Oldest Rivalry officially replaced with a rotating opponent.
Bama, Tennessee, Auburn and Georgia are the only schools that care about the permanent cross-division opponent.
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True and if UGA/Auburn gets cut, I would be for UGA shopping around to the ACC. Clemson and GT are old natural rivals, and keep Florida at a NFL stadium paying both schools.
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I don’t see us doing that. We have rolled over for every request from the SEC. We’ll do it again if it comes to that.
I guess Georgia and Auburn could decide to play an OOC game in the years they don’t play a scheduled conference game if it was that important to both schools.
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Sadly you’re likely correct on rolling over. I don’t see B-M going the OOC route. It should be important to the stuffed shirts in Hoover.
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Even if $ankey says Georgia-Auburn and Alabama-Tennessee are as important as the Iron Bowl and the Cocktail Party, the other 10 schools could decide to make the change.
The only way this can work out is for Disney/ESPN to say these two games must stay on the schedule as annual games. Do whatever you have to from a scheduling standpoint to make it happen.
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I’d also be fine with Ole Miss, Miss St, S. Car, UK etc dropping their annual permanent cross division game to rotate around the available teams. As posted above whichever team isn’t winning the LSU/UF game is asking to drop. The game has quite a bit of tradition and is something I will turn on. LSU/UF has been an annual game or nearly annual since the early 50s. It delivered last year when Vegas likely thought it wouldn’t. I would have very mixed feelings with it being dropped. I’d love to see UF and Auburn return but that has conflicts with UGA/Auburn. We like to hate on Auburn here but they lost the most to expansion with their rivalries with UT and UF thrown in the trash.
I have a good idea of where my interest fades with experience from other sports.
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The BigXII ditched the OU vs Nebraska rivalry which I will forever believe doomed the conference from the beginning. Auburn vs UGA and Bama vs UT are historic and should be kept. I look forward to 2 games every UGA season more so than the others, Auburn and Florida. As my interest in racing has faded I watch the classic tracks and catch who won on the new boring tracks in the news. I could see UGA football slipping to that level with the changes being made to the greater college football picture.
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I still don’t understand why the Big 12 got rid of the Oklahoma/Nebraska game as an annual game. If they had found a way to protect that, Big Red probably doesn’t leave for the B1G. Oklahoma would have played Texas and Nebraska every year, but I doubt they would have complained about it (they already did anyway).
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Oklahoma-Nebraska, Texas-Texas A&M(!), Kansas-Missouri. These are just a few of the long time rivalries that have been thrown on the dung heap in the name of more TV money. We’ve dodged the bullets so far but I think our luck will run out soon.
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Likely true and once tradition is destroyed, it is hard to renew or create new. Some fans will be lost, in the changes. NASCAR has had pains thanks to chasing location and viewers. F1 likely as well. Mizzou was lucky to land in the SEC but they no longer have an annual rivalry game. Nobody in the SEC has the Mizzou game circled. Nebraska is kind of the same (to a lesser extent) but could build tradition quicker if they were a power thanks to their storied past.
If the Big8, SWC merger was better executed the Big12 could have been much more successful. I see parallels between CFB and NASCAR at its peek and dropping of old tracks. You can tweak and grow with minimal damage but eventually it gives up the character which grew out of being more regional in flavor.
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I couldn’t agree more with all of the points made above re: the Big12’s foolish rejection of tradition and its consenquences as well as the NASCAR analogy.
I get that the power brokers are willing to throw away tradition for what they believe will be more money — although NASCAR stands as a cautious tale in that regard — but don’t understand why so many fans are willing to throw away what makes college football so much fun in the first place.
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F1 has certainly ditched a lot of traditions, but most of its problems revolve around the absolute lack of any “racing” over the past 15 years or so….
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Sort of like the monopoly a few teams have had under the playoff.
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(I’m admittedly a dumbass for asking this, but here goes)
Could two SEC teams schedule and play each other without it being part of the official “SEC Schedule”? What if Georgia and LSU (just for example) decided they would play even though the conference didn’t set it up?
Would the conference allow it? Would it count for anything as far as conference standings go?
If so, just start adding an extra SECW team to the schedule every year. I’d love to play another W opponent instead of a cupcake.
(asking for a dumbass)
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North Carolina and Wake Forest are doing this. The conference has no say in what schools do with the 4 slots not taken by conference opponents. There have been guidelines issued – one P5 OOC opponent (doesn’t matter home, away or neutral) and only one FCS opponent except in circumstances where another school cancels.
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The ACC did it. It did not count against conference standings. The networks would like it better than a cupcake too.
I could be up for restoring Ole Miss to a more regular part of the schedule over some out of conference games, L’ville and Ole Miss are kind of a toss up for me. I am however looking forward to UCLA, FSU and others.
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I had the same thought. I know the ACC did it, but it seems possible that that there is an SEC rule against it.
That would be a damn stupid rule, though. As the saying goes, “I don’t care for Auburn”, but that is what makes the series so good. Last week I watched the 1996 game again. It’s hard to believe what all happened in that game. From UGA snapping at Robert Baker to Bobo and Edwards coming off the bench(!) to force overtime, to four overtimes (which will almost never happen again), to watching Champ and Hines – this is why they need to keep that game. And that is just one game. It is an unusual season when that game doesn’t make a highlight reel for good or for bad.
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I don’t know of anyone that has tried it. The game may need some approval or someone does do it and then some rule is made.
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