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Per Slive.
Majority of SEC ADs favor 8 league football games, but presidents will help as decision nears | AL.com
Sorry, but it's a long article.
Majority of SEC ADs favor 8 league football games, but presidents will help as decision nears | AL.com
Sorry, but it's a long article.
For two years, the SEC has debated how many conference football games to play and whether to keep permanent cross-divisional opponents. The issue strikes a powerful chord because it impacts so many elements -- historic and future rivalries, strength of schedule for the new playoff, bowl eligibility, television inventory and fan attendance.
SEC Commissioner Mike Slive swears the talking is almost over.
By the SEC spring meetings in May, Slive said there will be a final decision for the 2016 schedule and beyond. (The yet-to-be released 2015 schedule will maintain the current eight-game format of six division games, one permanent opponent and one rotating opponent.)
"The important thing is we've got a target that we have to shoot for," Slive said. "The conversation does get all over the place, but the timeframe is finite, not infinite."
Last spring, SEC coaches voted 13-1 to keep eight conference games -- Alabama coach Nick Saban was the lone vote for nine -- and were about evenly divided on whether to maintain permanent cross-divisional opponents. SEC presidents and chancellors directed the conference office to study the issue for another year.
Almost a year later, many opinions remain hardened. The majority of SEC athletics directors favor sticking with eight games, according to AL.com interviews with eight of the 14 athletics directors.
ADs at Auburn, LSU, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Florida, Georgia, Texas A&M and Mississippi State all favor eight games. The majority of them support keeping one permanent cross-division opponent for each team.
But the final decision won't be left just to ADs. Because of the magnitude of the topic, Slive said presidents and chancellors will join ADs in deciding the format, which became necessary after the SEC expanded by two members in 2012 in large part to create the SEC Network.
LSU Athletics Director Joe Alleva, a vocal proponent for creating a more balanced competitive SEC schedule, is resigned to believing permanent opponents will stay. That format protects the annual Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia games, but creates the likelihood of less-equitable schedules by locking in one annual opponent.
Alleva said he knows of only three SEC schools supporting more balanced cross-divisional schedules: LSU, Texas A&M and South Carolina. At one point, Steve Spurrier even floated the idea of counting only division games toward division championships -- a concept that gained no traction.
"If I'm at a school with a permanent opponent that I like and it's easier than playing Alabama, LSU or Auburn, why would I want to change?" said Alleva, whose school annually plays Florida. "You vote for your best interests, which is contrary to what this league usually does. Everybody is supposed to vote for the best interests of the league. I think we'll probably keep permanent opponents because nobody will have the guts to change it."
The larger debate is eight vs. nine games. The discussion has reached the point that Vanderbilt Athletics Director David Williams said he is now one of those in the "eight-and-half camp." By that, Williams said he means play eight SEC games and have every school play at least one quality nonconference game since Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky all have annual rivalry games out of conference.
"I think it's a good compromise," Williams said. "Everybody is all over the place. There's a lot of people that want eight. There's a lot of people that want nine. I think what we're trying to do over the next two to three weeks is get some consistency on all those different things."
Strength of schedule for playoff
A major reason why the eight vs. nine debate has lasted this long is strength of schedule for the new College Football Playoff. Auburn Athletics Director Jay Jacobs, who supports eight SEC games and one quality nonconference game, said the main discussion point is what's the best model to get "a couple" teams into the four-team playoff.
The SEC played in the final eight championship games of the BCS and won seven of them. Instead of a BCS formula using voters and computers to pick two national championship game participants, now a 13-member selection committee will pick four playoff teams. At its current rate, the SEC would seem likely to get at least one team in the playoff every year.
Still, questions exist of the likelihood of the SEC getting two playoff teams if it does not switch to nine games, the number most major conferences play. On the flip side, what would happen if the SEC beats up on itself with a nine-game schedule and every team has at least two losses?
"I think we've done a really good job convincing the country that a one-loss SEC team deserves to play for the national title," said Mississippi State Athletics Director Scott Stricklin, who supports eight games. "Are we going to be able to make the same argument for a two-loss team, which would happen more often (with nine games)?"
Stricklin speculated that if the SEC went to nine games the first games cut would be attractive nonconference games, such as Mississippi State-Oklahoma State and Auburn-Kansas State. Jacobs pointed out that one website projects four SEC teams -- Florida, Arkansas, Texas A&M and Auburn -- with the four hardest strength of schedules entering 2014.
"When you look at going into 2014, some of us are right there," Jacobs said. "You also have to remember we play the SEC Championship Game."
Exactly how the selection committee will measure strength of schedule remains unknown. In basketball, a team's NCAA Tournament chances can often be won or lost by its nonconference performance. If an entire basketball conference succeeds or struggles before league games, that can impact future RPI movement for a team.
Alleva, a current member of the NCAA men's basketball committee, said nonconference strength of schedule in basketball is only a huge factor if a team losses to a very low-rated team. He supports eight SEC games and believes the strength of schedule argument in football should be decided by individual teams.
For instance, LSU plays Wisconsin this season. In the future, Alleva said LSU will always try to play a Big 12 or ACC school, and in some years may play two of them.
"If you combine that with eight games in our league, I'm not afraid of strength of schedule," Alleva said. "I'm not worried about other schools playing nine games in their league. In some leagues, the bottom half of their league is cupcakes. So big deal you're playing nine. You're playing a cupcake anyway."
The ACC, which also only plays eight conference games, floated the idea of playing eight league games plus one SEC opponent every season. Slive said the SEC has had "very preliminary conversations" about an ACC partnership but nothing is on the table and discussions haven't occurred for several months.
"We certainly want to play some high-quality games in our nonconference schedule, and from a regional point of view that could make some sense," Slive said. "On the other hand, we've got (SEC schools) further West. There might be some synergy there (with the ACC), but exactly how much, I really don't know yet."
Some SEC athletics directors are open to a scheduling relationship with the ACC and others are indifferent. Florida Athletics Director Jeremy Foley, whose school already plays Florida State every year, said an SEC-ACC relationship "would make a lot of sense" if an appropriate model could be worked out.
Slive said he hopes the selection committee looks at the full body of work and selects the best teams.
"Because when you play in the SEC, our conference schedule is very significant in terms of strength," he said. "We can balance that with the appropriate number of games nonconference to give us the appropriate nonconference schedule no matter if we play eight or nine games in the conference."
The prevailing opinion among SEC athletics directors: The SEC is difficult enough that there's no need for a ninth game. As Texas A&M Athletics Director Eric Hyman put it, "We had probably the fifth-best recruiting class in the country but only third-best in our division. That's tough."
Said Georgia Athletics Director Greg McGarity: "The eight-game formula has served us well in the national championship discussion. Is that the right pattern moving forward? I think a lot of us think it is until proven differently."
'Well, Mike, what do you want?'
There are other issues in the eight vs. nine debate. One element is bowl eligibility, particularly for schools trying to build their program.
"That's important for Mississippi State, but not just us," Stricklin said. "In recent years, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and Ole Miss have all gone to bowls at 6-6. Somebody's going to be affected by that every single year. I haven't heard anybody say what a positive is for nine games."
Another question: Shouldn't players step foot on every campus in a conference at some point over their entire career? That's the argument Saban has made.
Florida travels to Alabama this season. If the current 6-1-1 scheduling format remains, Alabama wouldn't return the game to Gainesville until 2021. Also, some schools may need to play high-profile teams more frequently for ticket sales, necessitating nine games.
Over a long period of time, fewer high-profile cross-divisional games -- think Alabama-Florida, Alabama-Georgia, Georgia-LSU and Auburn-Florida -- could impact television ratings. But there's no way to know that yet and attractive games have emerged from expansion, such as Alabama-Texas A&M.
Several SEC ADs noted that nine conference games would actually hurt television inventory. That's because the SEC would lose seven nonconference home games controlled by SEC TV partners, creating less inventory for the broadcasters. That includes the ESPN-owned SEC Network, which will air three SEC games every Saturday.
Hyman's biggest desire is to get Texas A&M to play LSU in the final week every year, as they will in 2014 on Thanksgiving. Hyman used to be AD at South Carolina and knows the feeling of not having a real SEC rival. "It's very important to us," he said.
Gate revenue is also an argument made by some ADs for eight games. For Florida and Georgia, which annually play a neutral-site SEC game and an ACC rival that fluctuates home and away, nine SEC games would mean only six home games every other year.
"That's a net loss of over $2 million what you generate every home game," McGarity said. "So over a 10-year period, in today's dollars, you're leaving $10 to $11 million on the table."
For his part, Slive has kept his opinion about scheduling quiet for two years. Asked if he will ever share his opinion publicly, Slive smiled and said, "I might. Not now."
Said Williams, Vanderbilt's AD: "He wants what's best for the conference and many times we try to say, 'Well, Mike, what do you want?' And he says, 'No, I'm just presenting the facts.' I think he's doing the right thing. We all sort of have our thoughts on this."
Slive said he takes this approach because he treats scheduling as a major issue that's on par with expansion and TV negotiations. When people in the SEC have concerns over those types of major issues, "the league is always open to have conversations and make sure it's aired out in the most thorough way possible," Slive said.
Foley, who supports eight games, said the vetting process has been "very, very good" by Slive. But eventually, there's a bottom line. Just like his SEC colleagues, Foley will look at scheduling from his own point of view when it's time to vote.
"We'll talk about it and do what's right for Florida."
