Let's say whatever happens with football happens and we are able to try to play sports in the winter and spring. What do you think ends up happening with sports like basketball and baseball? And do you think we would go conference-only for those sports as well? If so, what would/should that look like to you?
Basketball would seemingly be pretty straight forward in my opinion. You're already playing 18 league games as is (16 for the women), bump that up to 26 and have everybody play everybody home and away twice. Most teams are playing about 30 regular season games anyway so you can almost get to that point just with league games.
Conference-only baseball is a little trickier though. The first thought that comes to mind is everybody playing everybody in a three game series. Keep the home and away splits you already had planned, and then everybody adds the other three SEC teams they weren't going to play. I do see a couple of issues with this though. First off, 13 series means everybody is going to have an uneven amount of home and away series, which means by default some teams will have to play on the road more than at home. I'm not sure how you would fairly determine that. Second, this model still only gives you 39 regular season games, which is a good bit short of a normal 55 game schedule. To me that raises the question of what do you do about midweeks? Just don't play any midweek games? Play conference teams only in midweek games (and would those count toward conference records?)
My big question for pretty much every sport if a conference-only model is in effect is how in the heck do you determine who qualifies for NCAA Tournaments, and more importantly, seeding in those tournaments? Seems like it would be incredibly hard if you can't compare common opponents between leagues.
Football is the big talking point at the moment for obvious reasons, but you could get into a really unique situation with the other sports here in a few months.
Basketball would seemingly be pretty straight forward in my opinion. You're already playing 18 league games as is (16 for the women), bump that up to 26 and have everybody play everybody home and away twice. Most teams are playing about 30 regular season games anyway so you can almost get to that point just with league games.
Conference-only baseball is a little trickier though. The first thought that comes to mind is everybody playing everybody in a three game series. Keep the home and away splits you already had planned, and then everybody adds the other three SEC teams they weren't going to play. I do see a couple of issues with this though. First off, 13 series means everybody is going to have an uneven amount of home and away series, which means by default some teams will have to play on the road more than at home. I'm not sure how you would fairly determine that. Second, this model still only gives you 39 regular season games, which is a good bit short of a normal 55 game schedule. To me that raises the question of what do you do about midweeks? Just don't play any midweek games? Play conference teams only in midweek games (and would those count toward conference records?)
My big question for pretty much every sport if a conference-only model is in effect is how in the heck do you determine who qualifies for NCAA Tournaments, and more importantly, seeding in those tournaments? Seems like it would be incredibly hard if you can't compare common opponents between leagues.
Football is the big talking point at the moment for obvious reasons, but you could get into a really unique situation with the other sports here in a few months.
