Thought on SEC schedule [league decides to stick with 8 games in 2024]

[Vol4life2]

Saban has submitted the 8 game schedule that he will approve for Alabama in 2024.

Vanderbilt Home
at Vanderbilt
Kentucky Home
at Kentucky
Miss State Home
at Miss State
Arkansas Home
at Arkansas

seems fair.

Never a Georgia on their rotating schedule.

 

[Dudleys87]

Everything stayed the same but no divisions…

This has Sabans smug face all over it.

Boring.

 

[cooterbob]

Sounds like a bunch of pussy cats to me. 9 sec games is to many, we have to play Clemson and Florida st. Oh my.

 

[turbovol]

They stayed at 8 cause Coach Satan didn't like the 3 permanent opponents Bama got. Switch out Miss State (who Bama has played more than anyone) for LSU and maybe he will accept it.

Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and Alabama are the 3 that Vols should get to respect history. I don't want Vols to get Florida or Georgia. If we want to talk "tradition", Auburn and Ole Miss are both more historic to Vols. Even with playing FL and GA 31 straight years, Tennessee has still played Auburn and Ole Miss more times.

The league doesn't care about history, the athletic directors don't, so it's rather pointless for fans to get weepy over lost traditions and potentially lost rivalries. Why would we want to play bama ever year--the strongest program in the conference? It's a cutthroat, greedy business--and fans should approach it that way now as well. We're better off not playing bama.

 

[TMvol10]

A non-conference, power 5 opponent is still required to be on the schedule. So we will play 9 power 5 teams in 2024. Other SEC teams will play more than that.

But……the Big Ten is gonna be complaining the most about us staying at 8 conference games. They play 9 conference games. However, starting in 2024 they are most likely dropping the non-conference, power 5 opponent requirement. They are gonna play 9 power 5 teams in 2024 just like the SEC.

Except they only have 4 power 5 teams in their conference

 

[#Vol4Life1991]

No divisions is wild..

Wonder how they will do tie breakers.

 

[onevol74]

So still ,4 cupcakes on most schedules smh,these other conferences will piss and moan.

They have a right to. SEC wussed out on this. This is another great demonstration that Sankey is Sagan’s pawn. This also allows UT to schedule their traditional OVC and Southern Conference favorites and make the fans pay premium prices for practice games.

 

[LWSVOL]

Surprised as well but our 1 permanent opponent will be Vandy. This is a good format for us. Curious on what they decide for 2025 and beyond.

All eyes will be on that 2024 schedule.

for 24 I think they will keep Bama and Vandy.. the other 6 games are important. Will they include Uga and Florida??

2025 will end up being the 9 game with 6 / 3 format IMO

 

[RockyTopTexas]

Wonder how they will do tie breakers.

They will count our game with Charlotte A&M lolol

 

[Voldog1998]

Hope we drop Bama and pick up Auburn or Ole Miss I miss playing those guys every year like we used to

 

[GetYouSomeofThat]

Surprised as well but our 1 permanent opponent will be Vandy. This is a good format for us. Curious on what they decide for 2025 and beyond.

All eyes will be on that 2024 schedule.

It absolutely sucks that Kentucky and Bama arent on the schedule.

If this is the future...blech

Tradition may not have value everywhere. Ut it certainly does in college football

 

[Voldog1998]

It absolutely sucks that Kentucky and Bama arent on the schedule.

If this is the future...blech

Tradition may not have value everywhere. Ut it certainly does in college football

Tradition is being erased in college football for the big money, you better adjust to that or quit watching

 

[SpookyAction]

No divisions is wild..

I love that part!
I feel like we can make a lot of new rivalries and history with no divisions.
Things could be a lot worse than playing big rivals every other year.
I look forward to playing the whole Conference.

 

[Cobb-Webb 1989]

Divisions suck. Thank god that the conference is finally done with them.

I was not for any SEC expansion during 90 - 91 or the split divisions that were created back in 1992.

But the divisions set away to make the SEC championship game matchup correct.

My 2 revamped divisions keeps most long time rivals alive (Including Arky, Texas, Oklahoma and T- A&M being back together) and it paves away to keep the SEC championship game matchup to still be correct, by each division champ.

To not play Bama every 3rd Sat. in Oct. is just wrong.

Saban is just scarred about everything starting in 2024, and he is getting what he wants.

 

[JT3]

for 24 I think they will keep Bama and Vandy.. the other 6 games are important. Will they include Uga and Florida??

2025 will end up being the 9 game with 6 / 3 format IMO

They will probably give us Bama, UGA, Texas, and LSU for 2024 smh.

 

[JT3]

It absolutely sucks that Kentucky and Bama arent on the schedule.

If this is the future...blech

Tradition may not have value everywhere. Ut it certainly does in college football

I agree with others that I believe we eventually get to a 9 game conference schedule.

If we don't and this 8 game with 1 permanent opponent stays, that's a win. Not having to play Georgia and Bama every year would allow us to consistently compete for the playoffs every year if we continue to progress. The schedule for all teams would be more balance imo.

 

[TrueOrange]

They stayed at 8 cause Coach Satan didn't like the 3 permanent opponents Bama got. Switch out Miss State (who Bama has played more than anyone) for LSU and maybe he will accept it.

Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and Alabama are the 3 that Vols should get to respect history. I don't want Vols to get Florida or Georgia. If we want to talk "tradition", Auburn and Ole Miss are both more historic to Vols. Even with playing FL and GA 31 straight years, Tennessee has still played Auburn and Ole Miss more times.

I don’t know about Saban, but the only schools who were in favor of going to a 9 game conference schedule were Missouri, Georgia, Florida, LSU, and Texas A&M. There needed to be 8 schools to push anything through.

We (Tennessee) were apparently among the other 9 schools not on board and not wanting to move to a 9 game conference schedule.

 

[RockyTopTexas]

I love that part!
I feel like we can make a lot of new rivalries and history with no divisions.
Things could be a lot worse than playing big rivals every other year.
I look forward to playing the whole Conference.

there will be no such thing as a rivalry really.. you are ruining all the ones we currently have to add what a Ark rivalry lol

 

[TrueOrange]

I'm a bit surprised, honestly.

Apparently the only schools on board at this point were Missouri, Florida, Georgia, LSU, and Texas A&M.

SEC appears poised to stick with eight-game league schedule amid ongoing concerns about payments, playoff

I guess everyone else either doesn’t want to give up the 4th FCS/MAC/MWC/CUSA/American/Sunbelt game, or their athletic departments convinced themselves any amount of money gained from this can’t be enough to make up for losing one of their 7-8 home games and the revenue that comes from it?

 

[ftsandersvol]

I think Bama still ends up on our schedule as 1 of the other 7 teams in 2024 (especially if we win this year) but it's no way we would be Bama's 1 permanent opponent over Auburn.

That’s why I said might. No one at this point knows what the scheduling will look like. Alabama has actually played Mississippi State more than any other SEC school.

 

[TrueOrange]

Everything stayed the same but no divisions…

This has Sabans smug face all over it.

Boring.

5 schools were in favor of moving to 9 conference games (8 schools were needed): Missouri, Florida, Georgia, LSU, and Texas A&M

That means there were 9 schools (including UT) were completely against it (Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and South Carolina).

SEC appears poised to stick with eight-game league schedule amid ongoing concerns about payments, playoff

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

Not having divisions is dumb

 

[TrueOrange]

Sounds like a bunch of pussy cats to me. 9 sec games is to many, we have to play Clemson and Florida st. Oh my.

Both teams that are playing Clemson and Florida State regularly/in the future were in as part of the 5 schools in favor of moving to a 9 conference game slate (I presume you’re talking about UF and UGA).

 

[ftsandersvol]

Vandy will be undoubtedly be Tennessee’s one permanent opponent for as long as the conference stays at 8 games. Also, I’d be shocked if Bama-TN aren’t scheduled to play in 2024.

They also said the permanent opponent would be based on fairness, so that kind of rules out Vandy.

 

[TrueOrange]

I think it’s lame, but a definite win for UT. It seems that it’s only for 2024, though, according to On3 and in 2025, we may move to the 9 game model.

I really want to keep Alabama, Vanderbilt and Kentucky, though. Over 100 years of history with those 3.

Or it’s going to end up repeatedly being a “one year scheduling fix that we’ll come back to” the next year and then the next and then the next until something actually forces the conference to have to take up a 9 game scheduling format (i.e., likely when the playoff committee punishes some school from the conference at some point for not having it).