Some food for thought as the SEC debates its best possible scheduling model

If any one tells you that there’s an evident scheduling design for the SEC at the time it expands, they’re mistaken.

Yes, viewpoints can be erroneous. That would qualify.

For all I know, someone with affect claimed those exact terms at the SEC Meetings in Destin this 7 days. Reality is, we can all have our best scheduling model in mind and nonetheless settle for that there are negatives for any new design when Oklahoma and Texas join the conference.

According to Athletics Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger, the SEC arrived into the 7 days down to both the 3-6 model (3 permanent matchups and 6 rotating household-and-properties) or the 1-7 design (1 lasting matchup and 7 rotating dwelling-and-households).

All those might glance comparable, but those have sizeable variations, the most apparent a person remaining that we’re evaluating an 8-sport convention program to a 9-recreation convention plan. The previous is what the SEC experienced for the earlier 3 decades, the latter is uncharted territory.

Since Arkansas and South Carolina joined the convention in 1992, the SEC has been material to adhere with an 8-recreation convention routine. From 1992-2011, it was a 5-3 model. That is, 5 long lasting divisional foes and 3 crossover matchups (2 have been long lasting and 1 was a rotating residence-and-house). When Texas A&M and Mizzou joined the meeting in 2012, that shifted to a 6-2 model (1 permanent and 1 rotating house-and-property).

1 of the escalating difficulties with that, of system, is the infrequency of crossover matchups. You had 5th-yr seniors who did not confront all people in the convention. Georgia’s to start with excursion to Texas A&M as a member of the SEC will be in 2024. There’s also scheduling imbalance with the electricity framework of the divisions, one of which claimed 12 of the earlier 13 SEC titles.

You possibly know all of those things by now. What might not be so evident?

In the Playoff period excluding the 2020 year, here’s the breakdown of Energy 5 conferences with an 8-activity conference plan vs. P5 conferences with a 9-recreation convention timetable (remember that the Large Ten switched from an 8-activity convention plan to a 9-game convention program in 2016):

Be aware: 2020 was excluded simply because we had atypical plan formats

That is substantial. Which is gotta be liable for at least some of the pushback with the 9-recreation product. It is wild to believe that 2014 Oregon is the lone staff to have gained a Playoff semifinal activity soon after it performed a 9-video game conference routine.

But what about Playoff expansion, you inquire?

Expansion isn’t imminent. Not at all. In actuality, if you’ve been paying out consideration to Greg Sankey, it sounds like the SEC commissioner has every intention of remaining at 4 or shifting to an SEC-only Playoff if those silly conditions from The Alliance are not wiped absent.

That is a thing that has to be deemed. If the SEC is going to have a 16-team tremendous convention and the discipline stays at 4, why would it make sense to add an additional convention activity? Just so that everybody’s No. 2 and No. 3 rivalries can stay intact?

I talk to that not to mock the importance of games like Auburn-Georgia or Alabama-Tennessee, but mainly because that’s possibly the value of this shift.

Very well, “cost” is what some would argue is really worth transferring to a 9-video game meeting routine. As in, it’ll charge the long term Tv set companions an arm and a leg to get the SEC’s legal rights if it has a 9-match convention agenda in this 16-workforce tremendous convention. Will it be far more beneficial than a Television offer with an 8-video game meeting routine? Absolutely sure, but there is cost-gain investigation with this. If switching to a 9-sport conference schedule stops the SEC from cashing in on all the monetary achieve from profitable nationwide championships and sending teams to bowl video games, what does that value glimpse like?

The Major Ten can brag all it needs about possessing the best Television set bundle. You know what it can not brag about? Playoff achievement. Just after Ohio Point out gained it all that 1st yr, it has just 1 Playoff victory, and it came through the 2020 COVID period.

As a lot as the SEC would like to fake other leagues never subject in these conversations, they do. Nick Saban introduced up a fantastic position about this in Destin.

Nick Saban on 9 SEC league game titles: “I’ve normally been for participating in a lot more convention game titles, eliminating some of these games that admirers, players, supporters are not actually fascinated in. What is very best design? Which is the difficulty. Are other conferences likely to engage in additional convention game titles?”

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) Might 31, 2022

Particularly, is the ACC likely to swap to a 9-video game convention design? If so, yeah, then maybe the SEC would not want to be the only conference remaining taking part in the 8-match schedule. That in all probability would not be the best glance, no matter how loaded the conference is.

I know what quite a few of you are wondering.

“An 8-recreation convention plan in the SEC is presently more durable than a 9-video game Large Ten timetable, and which is only acquiring even worse after Oklahoma and Texas join the conference.”

Truthful. If you never consider that’s truthful, potentially you missed the reality that the SEC Championship winner performed in a nationwide championship match in 15 of the earlier 16 yrs. Not all conferences are produced equally, which is specifically why Sankey is ideal to not give into The Alliance’s drive for computerized qualifiers for Energy 5 champions in an expanded Playoff discipline. And if the Major 10 needs to discuss about the SEC remaining top-significant, remind me which meeting had 1 method gain 2 titles and which meeting experienced 5 applications earn 13 nationwide titles in the 21st century.

Two issues can be correct at the exact same time. A person is that the SEC arrived at this run of dominance for the reason that it has the most effective expertise and coaching in the sport. The other is that the SEC also recognized at just about every turn what its most effective route to a title was.

The latter is of the utmost significance for the league as it embraces alter in the latter fifty percent of the decade. Irrespective of whether that improve also contains an expanded Playoff remains to be viewed. Both way, it’ll be an adjustment to see Oklahoma and Texas in the conference, and with some type of a new scheduling design that likely outlaws divisions.

I assume there to be some heated debate about this. Dare I say, it is a extra urgent make a difference than forming a unified stance on NIL and no matter if coaches ought to engage in verbal warfare around the make a difference.

Nothing is apparent about the SEC’s upcoming scheduling action — but it certain is significant.