SEC getting called out on rigging additional 2 games.

[fishwater99]

https://www.espn.com/college-footba...es-sec-football-coaches-irked-added-opponents

Yahoo Sports was the first to report Friday that the meeting turned contentious.

"Favoritism was played." Another coach asked if the league would be willing to release the formula to the press, "because we're getting pounded with all these questions from the press about it and don't have any answers, and we were told, 'No, because there was no formula.'
"That's why so many coaches are pissed."
Defending national champion LSU, which faces Florida as its annual cross-divisional foe, added a home game against Missouri and a road game at Vanderbilt. Meanwhile, Alabama, which was already scheduled to play Georgia, picked up a home game against Kentucky and a road game at Missouri. Georgia, which already was playing Alabama and Auburn from the SEC West, will play Mississippi State at home and Arkansas on the road.
The SEC's first-year coaches were hit especially hard by the additional two cross-divisional games. Arkansas will play six teams ranked in the preseason coaches' poll in Sam Pittman's first season; new Mississippi State coach Mike Leach's team will play five, including road games at Alabama, Georgia and LSU; first-year Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin's squad also will play five; and Eli Drinkwitz's Missouri team will face four teams -- Alabama, Florida, Georgia and LSU -- ranked in the top eight of the coaches' poll.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

Should have just picked 2 years (either 2021/22 or 2024/25) and moved them up, and cut off the current cycle after 2023. It may not have been "balanced" but it would have been a lot easier to justify.

We were supposed to play the other 6 teams in the East twice (1 home, 1 away) over the 12 year period, and it would have instead become twice over a 10 year period, but all the same. Instead we keep the 12 year period and get Vandy and Georgia an extra time without home/road reciprocation.

Alternatively, they could have gotten innovative and first announced division only, 6 games spread out over 7-8 weeks, and then reassessed. If COVID is pretty bad at that point, just play the SECCG and end the season, but if it's looking OK, matchup the top 3 from the West with the top 3 from the East, while the bottom 4 play 3 of the other bottom 4.

Only the 6 teams in the top 3 buckets would be eligible for the conference title, and all 6 would have an approximately equal SOS. The bottom 8 teams would get the chance to end their seasons with more winnable matchups. The only drawback is that you might miss a permanent rivalry if one is in the top 3 and the other is on the other side's bottom 4, and you wouldn't have rivalry games in the final week, but neither of those is a huge deal given the circumstances.

 

[patdog]

They didn't "rig" the additional 2 games. They created roughly equal schedules. If you were playing Mizzouri and Vanderbilt already, of course you drew 2 tough games (someone had to play both FL and UGA).

 

[Go Budaw]

They didn't "rig" the additional 2 games. They created roughly equal schedules. If you were playing Mizzouri and Vanderbilt already, of course you drew 2 tough games (someone had to play both FL and UGA).

Honestly, strength of schedule should have never been a factor, because it can’t be truly evaluated until 7 or 8 games into the year anyway.. Within the conference, there’s a certain degree of uncertainty as to who will be good any given year. They would have curried a lot more favor if they did a completely random selection. Start in alphabetical order (Alabama), pick two random teams out of a hat of the 5 they aren’t already playing. Then repeat for Auburn, and so forth until Vanderbilt. Once a team is picked twice, remove their names from all the other teams buckets so they can’t be selected again. If you wanted to even make it truly random, you could draw the teams in random order before even picking their opponents.

 

[8dog]

Exactly. The conference is essentially coming out with a preseason top 14 which doesnt seem like something they should do

I feel sorry for Mizzou having to play LSU and Bama in the same year*

 

[oxfordrebel22]

There was no easy way to do this, but them throwing out that MSU, OM and Arkansas are playing LSU and Alabama as some point about strength of schedule is asinine. We are in the same division, we have to play them every year, pandemic or not.

Arkansas and Missouri are the only ones who I think have a right to be upset. But that’s bound to happen in a 14 team league. I’m just shocked it wasn’t the two MS schools.

Ole Miss already played Florida, so it made sense to not give them Georgia. The rest of the East, outside of Tennessee, is a crap shoot anyways. One of Kentucky, Missouri and USC will be a good bit better than expected and one will be a good bit worse.

Truthfully, everyone is going to get at least somewhat of a pass this year anyways. And I mean if Arkansas goes 1-9, would 2-8 have really felt that much different if they’d have gotten Vandy instead of Georgia?

 

[thatsbaseball]

Why now, the SEC has been"rigging" games as long as I can remember.

 

[WrapItDog]

Arkansas and Missouri are the only ones who I think have a right to be upset.

 

[patdog]

But someone had to play both UF & UGA and someone had to play both Bama & LSU. What could be fairer than the school that plays Mizzou & Vandy and the school that plays Ark & MSU?

 

[Mayor of Little London]

Everyone knew Bama would get an easier schedule (along with other blue bloods) only part that surprises me is that we got 1 VERY challenging game and not 2 like Arkansas.

 

[Mobile Bay]

Am I the only guy who watches Matt Wyatt on youtube. He figured this out days ago, or was told by the SEC. They used FPI rankings and gave everybody as equal a cross division four as they could. Do the math and you will see that it is very fair.

 

[Kojak.sixpack]

Now is not the time...

To be infighting about anything. Competing is enough this year. Just play.

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

Alabama
Georgia
Florida
LSU
Auburn
Texas A&M
Tennessee
Kentucky
Mississippi State
Mississippi
Missouri
South Carolina
Arkansas
Vanderbilt

There is the rank based on most polls so far

To “rig” it, they would have to set Alabama to play the bottom 10, UGA to play Florida and 9 of the bottom 10, so on and so forth

 

[oxfordrebel22]

But someone had to play both UF & UGA and someone had to play both Bama & LSU. What could be fairer than the school that plays Mizzou & Vandy and the school that plays Ark & MSU?

Very very true

 

[oxfordrebel22]

To be infighting about anything. Competing is enough this year. Just play.

PREACH

 

[notoriousD_O_G]

There is no playoff and no bowl games so why not give us all the big time matchups? There is nothing to protect their records for

We could have

Bama vs LSU
Bama vs UGA
Bama vs UF
Bama vs Auburn
LSU vs UGA
LSU vs UF
LSU vs Auburn
UGA vs UF
UGA vs Auburn
UF vs Auburn

Thats 10 games. One of those each week would be awesome.

 

[RocketDawg]

Nobody has an easy schedule when it's all conference. It'll be a tough year for all schools, even Alabama, Georgia, and LSU. Vanderbilt has the toughest schedule of all SEC schools this year. The Bears are probably next.

 

[Seinfeld]

Yeah, and at the end of the day, we’re talking about a league with anywhere from 7 to 10 teams that will be around the top 30. In other words, when basically every damn team in your league is good, there was no way to do this without someone feeling like they were getting hosed.

Our teams and coaches should be a lot more concerned about finding ways to play rather than crying about a schedule being unfair. It’s the SEC, man.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

In reality its pretty hard to play a full schedule against all SEC teams and not have most of them be top 10 teams. I mean....it is the SEC.

 

[CookieMonster.sixpack]

I'm not sure why we stuck with 10 games. It's only 3 more games for everyone to play everyone. You don't even need the SEC championship game if you do that. And the revenue from 21 extra games would far outstrip the revenue of one championship game. That's only one extra game for each team than they would've played pre-COVID.

ETA: I guess the only knocks on this plan would be 1) who gets 6 home games and who gets 7? 2) Those 13 games will be tougher than the 12 pre-covid games because no cupcakes

I still think that's what we should've done.

 

[Ibdancin]

Should have just picked 2 years (either 2021/22 or 2024/25) and moved them up, and cut off the current cycle after 2023. It may not have been "balanced" but it would have been a lot easier to justify.

We were supposed to play the other 6 teams in the East twice (1 home, 1 away) over the 12 year period, and it would have instead become twice over a 10 year period, but all the same. Instead we keep the 12 year period and get Vandy and Georgia an extra time without home/road reciprocation.

Alternatively, they could have gotten innovative and first announced division only, 6 games spread out over 7-8 weeks, and then reassessed. If COVID is pretty bad at that point, just play the SECCG and end the season, but if it's looking OK, matchup the top 3 from the West with the top 3 from the East, while the bottom 4 play 3 of the other bottom 4.

Only the 6 teams in the top 3 buckets would be eligible for the conference title, and all 6 would have an approximately equal SOS. The bottom 8 teams would get the chance to end their seasons with more winnable matchups. The only drawback is that you might miss a permanent rivalry if one is in the top 3 and the other is on the other side's bottom 4, and you wouldn't have rivalry games in the final week, but neither of those is a huge deal given the circumstances.

The solution.....

I have it.


Everybody has to play everybody. Easy to settle.

 

[DeltaChicagoDog]

To be infighting about anything. Competing is enough this year. Just play.

Exactly. Whether it's intentional or not, the article seems like an attempt to divide and defeat efforts to play this Fall.

 

[patdog]

I'm not sure why we stuck with 10 games. It's only 3 more games for everyone to play everyone.

Because it's going to take a freaking miracle for everyone to get 10 games in.

 

[MrUnderhill]

So who is playing Vanderbilt and Missouri? Are you talking about last year?

 

[fishwater99]

They didn't "rig" the additional 2 games. They created roughly equal schedules. If you were playing Mizzouri and Vanderbilt already, of course you drew 2 tough games (someone had to play both FL and UGA).

Not really. How do they know hoe good each team will be this year? It's totally subjective. The lack of an explanation is also very telling.