🏈 SEC going to 9 conference games.

Krimson said:
Every fan wants good games, it's good for the game, but not every team is playing a comparable schedule which gives teams an unfair advantage. Some injuries are flukes and can happen no matter who you play but when you have to play your first team more because you're playing 5 ranked teams with 2 in the top 10 you take more of a beating and it wears your players down faster than if you're say oregon who plays 1 top 10, two ranked teams and 4 teams they could beat with their 3rd string starting. It's about having at least a somewhat level playing field to get to the playoffs.

Realistically I'm all for doing away with conferences in football at this point. Have a 22 or 24 team conference of the top schools and let them play each other only. Great games every week, all the haves are playing each other, it's equal, and no BS teams in the playoffs to make them feel good about it.
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I get it. At this point, I am really moving to only caring about my entertainment. Used to care about the program, players and their futures, and the pagentry until it has been made clear we don't mean anything to them and they don't care about the things we do. College football itself is on a mission to lose my attention, so a schedule like this will be the only thing that can save my involvement. Saban gave me enough bragging rights and memories to last a lifetime, so I'm not so concerned about winning a Natty every year. I still have an opinion and get upset when we lose, but as I mentioned in the countdown thread, my interest is waning.
 
saturdaysarebetter said:
Why? Bama fears no one.
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Fear has nothing to do with it. In what other team sport is it a good idea for a certain team to create a disadvantage for itself by manufacturing the hardest possible schedule when playoff seeding is on the line? I don't think many fans want UA scheduling 9 conference games and 3 cupcakes, but even if they did, the Bama schedule(s) would still sitting on the very heavy end of the SOS scale every season. Adding arguably the 3 best (as a whole, compared to the other trios) SEC permanent opponents while still having to play some order of UGA, Texas, UF, Ole Miss, A&M, and OU, plus 2 games a year like WVU & FSU or GaTech & Notre Dame isn't a sign of bravery. It's self-sabotage.
 
Ok, did a quick little scheduling exercise. We don’t know what exactly the SEC office will do yet in terms of the 3 permanent opponents, but those decisions will almost certainly be driven by money and tv ratings. Seeing as how Bama vs. LSU is a seasonal golden goose for the networks, despite objections by the UA administration, my prediction is they are slotted in Bama’s trio. Working with that theory, I broke down the remaining (non-permanent) SEC teams into tiers, groupings of two. Example, Georgia and Texas at the top, all the way down to Vandy and Mississippi State at the bottom.

Working with what Alabama already has on their schedule docket, with teams like Florida State, West Virginia, Ohio State, etc. I put together a an example, and what I feel would be about as fair of, a future SEC schedule as possible. I did remove (cancel) the series with Oklahoma State to do this, and moved the South Florida game from ‘26 to ‘29 in order to compete that deal with them.

With that said, and again, this is just for fun, this is how I envision the next 4 years to cycle out. My best guess anyway (and yes, I'm sure there are a few errors, but it's all speculation and fun anyway).


2026
Week 1- @ West Virginia
Week 2- Arkansas
Week 3- Florida State
Week 4- @ Texas A&M
Week 5- OFF
Week 6- Georgia
Week 7- @ Mississippi State
Week 8- @ Tennessee
Week 9- Ole Miss
Week 10- OFF
Week 11- @ LSU
Week 12- @ Missouri
Week 13- Western Carolina
Week 14- auburn


2027
Week 1- West Virginia
Week 2- @ Arkansas
Week 3- @ Ohio State
Week 4- Texas A&M
Week 5- OFF
Week 6- @ Georgia
Week 7- Mississippi State
Week 8- Tennessee
Week 9- @ Ole Miss
Week 10- OFF
Week 11- LSU
Week 12- Missouri
Week 13- Charlotte
Week 14- @ auburn


2028
Week 1- @ Kentucky
Week 2- Ohio State
Week 3- UT Martin
Week 4- @ Oklahoma
Week 5- OFF
Week 6- Texas
Week 7- Vanderbilt
Week 8- @ Tennessee
Week 9- Ole Miss
Week 10- OFF
Week 11- @ LSU
Week 12- @ South Carolina
Week 13- Georgia State
Week 14- auburn


2029
Week 1- @ Notre Dame
Week 2- Kentucky
Week 3- South Florida
Week 4- Oklahoma
Week 5- OFF
Week 6- @ Texas
Week 7- @ Vanderbilt
Week 8- Tennessee
Week 9- @ Ole Miss
Week 10- OFF
Week 11- LSU
Week 12- South Carolina
Week 13- Chattanooga
Week 14- @ auburn
 
Brandon Van de Graaff said:
Ok, did a quick little scheduling exercise. We don’t know what exactly the SEC office will do yet in terms of the 3 permanent opponents, but those decisions will almost certainly be driven by money and tv ratings. Seeing as how Bama vs. LSU is a seasonal golden goose for the networks, despite objections by the UA administration, my prediction is they are slotted in Bama’s trio. Working with that theory, I broke down the remaining (non-permanent) SEC teams into tiers, groupings of two. Example, Georgia and Texas at the top, all the way down to Vandy and Mississippi State at the bottom.

Working with what Alabama already has on their schedule docket, with teams like Florida State, West Virginia, Ohio State, etc. I put together a an example, and what I feel would be about as fair of, a future SEC schedule as possible. I did remove (cancel) the series with Oklahoma State to do this, and moved the South Florida game from ‘26 to ‘29 in order to compete that deal with them.

With that said, and again, this is just for fun, this is how I envision the next 4 years to cycle out. My best guess anyway (and yes, I'm sure there are a few errors, but it's all speculation and fun anyway).


2026
Week 1- @ West Virginia
Week 2- Arkansas
Week 3- Florida State
Week 4- @ Texas A&M
Week 5- OFF
Week 6- Georgia
Week 7- @ Mississippi State
Week 8- @ Tennessee
Week 9- Ole Miss
Week 10- OFF
Week 11- @ LSU
Week 12- @ Missouri
Week 13- Western Carolina
Week 14- auburn


2027
Week 1- West Virginia
Week 2- @ Arkansas
Week 3- @ Ohio State
Week 4- Texas A&M
Week 5- OFF
Week 6- @ Georgia
Week 7- Mississippi State
Week 8- Tennessee
Week 9- @ Ole Miss
Week 10- OFF
Week 11- LSU
Week 12- Missouri
Week 13- Charlotte
Week 14- @ auburn


2028
Week 1- @ Kentucky
Week 2- Ohio State
Week 3- UT Martin
Week 4- @ Oklahoma
Week 5- OFF
Week 6- Texas
Week 7- Vanderbilt
Week 8- @ Tennessee
Week 9- Ole Miss
Week 10- OFF
Week 11- @ LSU
Week 12- @ South Carolina
Week 13- Georgia State
Week 14- auburn


2029
Week 1- @ Notre Dame
Week 2- Kentucky
Week 3- South Florida
Week 4- Oklahoma
Week 5- OFF
Week 6- @ Texas
Week 7- @ Vanderbilt
Week 8- Tennessee
Week 9- @ Ole Miss
Week 10- OFF
Week 11- LSU
Week 12- South Carolina
Week 13- Chattanooga
Week 14- @ auburn
Click to expand...
So 26 n 27...
3 permanent..AU...TN...LSU
24/25 rotated out.....USCe..Missouri..UGA,...vandy..ok
So..26/27.......Florida ...ky...ark...AnM...Texas...MSU..msu. 6 of these 7 rotate in.

1 Will drop into 28/29.rotation with ones we played in 24/25

Maybe..some will get their cowbells...they want next year anyway

Looks fun.
 
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50+yeartidefan said:
24/25 rotated out.....USCe..Missouri..UGA,...vandy..ok
So..26/27.......Florida ...ky...ark...AnM...Texas...MSU..msu. 6 of these 7 rotate in.

1 Will drop into 28/29.rotation with ones we played in 24/25
Click to expand...

They may try to go that route and stick with opponent continuity but it’s going to be a convoluted mess (either way). Starting over (again) and slotting the teams back in while trying to achieve the most balance per team would make the most sense (and be the most fair).

Regardless, not long after things get settled, you can pretty much bet it’ll get turned upside down again and teams like North Carolina and someone like UVA, Duke, maybe GT or NC State. But things should be ok until 2030 since the contracts run until then.
 
Brandon Van de Graaff said:
Regardless, not long after things get settled,
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Where do you see things being settled when there's an imbalance before the season starts?

We're headed towards the point part of your entertainment expenses in the football season will be the coverage of watching a coin being flipped. As soon as one team plays more home conference games than another ...

OH, we're unsettled on the next version while the upcoming isn't settled...
 
TerryP said:
Where do you see things being settled when there's an imbalance before the season starts?

We're headed towards the point part of your entertainment expenses in the football season will be the coverage of watching a coin being flipped. As soon as one team plays more home conference games than another ...

OH, we're unsettled on the next version while the upcoming isn't settled...
Click to expand...

I’m just talking about in terms of format. I get the 5 & 4, H & A issue, but that’s just part of it (for now). Not sure exactly what you mean about the, imbalance before the season starts.
 
Brandon Van de Graaff said:
I’m just talking about in terms of format. I get the 5 & 4, H & A issue, but that’s just part of it (for now). Not sure exactly what you mean about the, imbalance before the season starts.
Click to expand...
If we're sitting in December and looking at two teams for ATL; both with the same records. No head to head. A tie when it comes to common opponents.

I can't remember 💯 the third that was proposed but I do remember it was "we could do this, or we could do that." I want to say three and four were as follows: rankings by the committee then followed by the coin flip.

So we will have two tied, two that haven't played each other, and are also tied in common opponents, with one ranked higher by the committee due to? One team has five home games with the same loss as the other having four home games? (My assertion is that comes from how they look at home versus the road both in PF and in general.)

Now we are at #3 ...which goes to rankings. Having looked at this over a few years in the past the team with the most favorable rankings have been the ones with the most home games. Intentional or not.

#4 - Silver Dollar.

The team with five has a better schedule than the one with four: it's imbalanced to begin with, right?
 
TerryP said:
If we're sitting in December and looking at two teams for ATL; both with the same records. No head to head. A tie when it comes to common opponents.

I can't remember 💯 the third that was proposed but I do remember it was "we could do this, or we could do that." I want to say three and four were as follows: rankings by the committee then followed by the coin flip.

So we will have two tied, two that haven't played each other, and are also tied in common opponents, with one ranked higher by the committee due to? One team has five home games with the same loss as the other having four home games? (My assertion is that comes from how they look at home versus the road both in PF and in general.)

Now we are at #3 ...which goes to rankings. Having looked at this over a few years in the past the team with the most favorable rankings have been the ones with the most home games. Intentional or not.

#4 - Silver Dollar.

The team with five has a better schedule than the one with four: it's imbalanced to begin with, right?
Click to expand...
To worried about " might be's".
 
TerryP said:
The team with five has a better schedule than the one with four: it's imbalanced to begin with, right?
Click to expand...

I don't have any idea about the current tiebreakers, but those can be tweaked/fixed whenever if the school AD's don't like them.

Imbalanced, yes. But look at them now. They always are anyway to some degree. And UA will (likely) get screwed by getting LSU instead of MSU on the permanent list, but they'll just have to deal with it.
 
Brandon Van de Graaff said:
I don't have any idea about the current tiebreakers, but those can be tweaked/fixed whenever if the school AD's don't like them.
Click to expand...
LOL! That's like the playoffs. "We'll fix it after we look back and see we fucked it up here, here, there, here, there..."

...all the time we've got 1000's saying "that's a problem, this is a problem, so is this..."

The B1G is lucky. They are top heavy, then have two degrees of bottom heavy with a couple of tweeners. There's a chance they see another bump in the road to their playoffs. But, the loser there isn't looking at much of anyone from their conference taking their bid.

The Big 12 is a bunch of tweeners: it'll sort itself out in my view because they don't have more than two fighting.

... then we get to this conference and I see the possibility of mayhem. We don't need to look much farther than your threads to see a lot of people here believe a lot of teams will finish with the same number of wins.

Here's my view from home plate:
  • In the outfield I see a lot of fans saying the same things, "we see a lot of teams in the SEC finishing with the same number of wins and dropping a game here and there."
  • In right field we have the analytical models and the guys behind them. They are saying the same things. Take Ford for an an example. He's got TX, UGA, and UA 10.3-10.0 on wins. The loser of the SECCG drops to tier two with Ole miss, UT, and Mizzou (all within fractions of each other.) The SEC is going to look like a divisional race in the MLB: prepare for the old "half a game back" phrase being overused.
  • In left field you know who we'll find: the media. But, here they are saying the same thing.
All of the background stuff in life has given me too much time this off-season: I'll grant that readily. So, that said ...

In MY model I've got a Mizzou as having the worst chance of reaching nine wins (out of six) and Auburn with the worst (eighth) chance of reaching eight wins (with A&M biting their heels.)

It'll only get worse and another game added (better, in some cases, IF the HFA clashes with SOT.)

SYNOPSIS:

ghostbusters GIF
 
TerryP said:
LOL! That's like the playoffs. "We'll fix it after we look back and see we fucked it up here, here, there, here, there..."

...all the time we've got 1000's saying "that's a problem, this is a problem, so is this..."

The B1G is lucky. They are top heavy, then have two degrees of bottom heavy with a couple of tweeners. There's a chance they see another bump in the road to their playoffs. But, the loser there isn't looking at much of anyone from their conference taking their bid.

The Big 12 is a bunch of tweeners: it'll sort itself out in my view because they don't have more than two fighting.

... then we get to this conference and I see the possibility of mayhem. We don't need to look much farther than your threads to see a lot of people here believe a lot of teams will finish with the same number of wins.

Here's my view from home plate:
  • In the outfield I see a lot of fans saying the same things, "we see a lot of teams in the SEC finishing with the same number of wins and dropping a game here and there."
  • In right field we have the analytical models and the guys behind them. They are saying the same things. Take Ford for an an example. He's got TX, UGA, and UA 10.3-10.0 on wins. The loser of the SECCG drops to tier two with Ole miss, UT, and Mizzou (all within fractions of each other.) The SEC is going to look like a divisional race in the MLB: prepare for the old "half a game back" phrase being overused.
  • In left field you know who we'll find: the media. But, here they are saying the same thing.
All of the background stuff in life has given me too much time this off-season: I'll grant that readily. So, that said ...

In MY model I've got a Mizzou as having the worst chance of reaching nine wins (out of six) and Auburn with the worst (eighth) chance of reaching eight wins (with A&M biting their heels.)

It'll only get worse and another game added (better, in some cases, IF the HFA clashes with SOT.)

SYNOPSIS:

ghostbusters GIF
Click to expand...

The playoffs are fucked up, IMO, because 1, they got greedy and wanted to expand... and 2, there's so many hands involved, deals are having to be cut that are a detriment to the overall system.

But, I'm with @50+yeartidefan on this. It just isn't a big concern for me, really not a concern at all. In some cases, I might rather (Bama) completely avoid the SECCG anyway. The system I prefer was the 4 team BCS setup, so any chaos that ensues with all these new changes and expansions is likely to elicit nothing from me other than a side eye and a healthy dose of mocking.
 

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