Sweet Home Scheduling

Didn't Slive say it wouldn't happen again?

 

Here:
http://blog.al.com/bamabeat/2010/03/sec_commish_mike_slive_weighs.html

 

I'm sure you noticed this as well.

"In a recent meeting of our athletic directors," Slive wrote, "it was agreed to add a scheduling principal to make every effort to have no more than three of four open dates before conference games, if at all possible, beginning with the 2012 schedule, which begins the next 10-year scheduling cycle. In the meantime, the conference is making every effort to see if changes can be made in the 2010-11 schedules to reduce the number of open dates before games with Alabama."

I know the 10 years scheduling block was discussed several pages back as well.

We know 2014 is another bridge schedule. I've seen it mentioned 2015 might be as well. Could that be a sign the conference is leaving room for two additions?

 

Dear Gawd, why do any of you waste your time with these gumps? Stop responding and he they will go away. They make no points and will never ever believe that Bama has an advantage in the SEC office. The emporer has no clothes.

 

The head of the scheduling committee in the SEC office in Birmingham is a Bama grad. Alabama gets the easy road to the SECCG. It doesn't take a genius to put 2+2 together.

I don't know how the scheduling works, although Alabama fans seem to know the intricate details. How does it work? Say the LSU President doesn't approve the schedule. Do they then revise the schedule and submit it again to all the presidents? Then, say another
President doesn't like the way the schedule was revised. How does that all work? I think what happens is this. The LSU President approves the schedule and then his representatives bring up the issue of unfair scheduling at the next SEC meeting. Did you read about that?

Ha! So it's Georgia! I should have said one of the two top teams in the SEC East. That was my point. Thanks for confirming my prediction.

 

I like that game too. Should be in interesting game. I like the venue too and the Houston exposure. IMO Reliant stadium is the second best Football stadium in the country, just slightly behind Cowboy Stadium in Arlington.

I see you play Tennessee this year in Eugene. That should be a fun game, for the Ducks at least. Tennessee is probably the second worst team in the SEC. The even lost to Missouri last year. Tennessee is Alabama's "traditional" cross division rival. Gump fans like to put on their Bear Bryant hats and pretend it's a real football game. It's really comical.

 

SEC Punts on Scheduling issues:

At one point on Friday, as the final media session of the week at the Southeastern Conference meetings was winding down, Mike Slive was asked if he expected to be in the same position in May 2014, fielding questions about hypothetical football schedules.
“I would love to be finished at this time,” Slive said, and his body language, a slight slumping, spoke as loudly as his words.

All week, Slive praised the cooperative spirit of the coaches and athletic directors as they discussed future schedules, but there were a couple of hints that the process had become arduous. The first was the fact the league could not finalize its 2014 schedule in time to release it at the meetings. Then, more and more quotes start to sound like this one from Alabama athletics director Bill
Battle: “It is very difficult to come up with a schedule that makes everyone happy all of the time,” Battle said.

Although there was no public rancor, it was obvious almost every one of the league’s 14 schools entered the meetings with their own scheduling priorities. The most obvious came from LSU, which wants permanent opponents eliminated (so it no longer has to face Florida every year) and Alabama, the most vocal proponent of the nine-game schedule which many observers — and athletic directors — feel is inevitable.

In the end, the SEC, in football-appropriate fashion, punted. The league will stay at the status quo — eight conference game with one permanent and one rotating opponent — for two more years, 2014 and 2015. The league made no decisions beyond that, but will submit information on all scheduling options to the league presidents for review.

In an ideal world, that process will take a year or less and the league will be able to start making long-term schedules — as far into the future as 2026 — by next summer.

“We really need to get out in front of this,” Battle said, meaning the current “bridge” year concept needs to end and give way to a long-range plan. As it is, it is hard for SEC schedules to finalize the nonconference portion of its schedule and, to Battle’s point, the longer it takes, the more expensive it gets.

The presidents will likely not get any unorthodox presentations and will decide between four possible models, two involving eight conference games (the current 6-1-1 and the 6-0-2, meaning no permanent crossover opponents) and two with nine games, the 6-1-2 and the 6-0-3.

Here is a quick glance at all four.

The 6-1-1: This is the current format, so it does have the advantage of being status quo. On the other hand, that is a disadvantage as well. The permanent-opponent concept, in particular, seems to have lost support.

In fact, LSU athletic director Joe Alleva, while he stopped short of declaring the 6-1-1 as dead in the water, certainly seemed to be testing an obituary.

“I think people are coming around,” Alleva said. “I think they understand the fairness issue.

“Nothing has been finalized (but) we haven’t lost the battle. I would say that’s a real win.”

The 6-0-2: This would end traditional games like Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia, but it would give players a chance to face all other league members in a four-year career (a Saban suggestion) and it would placate job-conscious coaches for whom a fourth nonconference game might make the difference in a 6-6 year (and a bowl bid) and a “losing” 5-7 season.

The 6-1-2 and 6-0-3: Despite a much-publicized 13-1 coaches vote against it, the potential nine-game schedule came out of Destin stronger than ever. Some of the reasons cited are dubious. It would not actually increase the amount of “inventory” of games for the SEC Network. It would slightly decrease it, in fact.

It might meet the “strength of schedule” component for selection to the upcoming playoff, but no one knows what that criteria will be or, more importantly, how the yet-to-be-named committee, will rely on those criteria in practice. As Slive said, you might need to wait until the playoff has been going for a couple of years to know for sure and “we don’t have time for that.”

Permanent opponents might be easier to accommodate with nine games, but, as stated above, those games may be headed down the Dinosaur Expressway to extinction.

For now, the SEC has kicked the scheduling can down the road. But in the coming months, the presidents will definitely have to pick it up and do something with it — and change appears to be the likeliest option.

Tuscaloosa News reports: