Toggle sidebar

Bye weeks on SEC schedules

This bye week business has been a pet peeve of mine for awhile now. I understand SEC schedules the SEC games, leaving SEC teams the option to fill the empty spots with games or a bye week, whichever they choose. The issue is how many times the SEC scheduling team leaves open the opportunity for an SEC rival to insert a bye week prior to the Bama game, versus that same opportunity for other SEC teams.

Here's how the matrix looks. The first number is the number of SEC teams with the opportunity to schedule a bye prior to playing against that school. The second number is the number of SEC teams that actually took their bye week prior to playing against that school.

AL - 6 / 6 ( all 6 teams with opportunity for bye prior to Bama took it)
AR - 1 / 0
AU - 6 / 0
LSU - 3 / 1
MSU - 2 / 0
OM - 2 / 0
FL - 3 / 0
GA - 5 / 1
KY - 3 / 0
SC - 2 / 0
TN - 5 / 0
VB - 3 / 1

3 SEC teams took their bye week prior to an OOC game.

Conclusion: In terms of opportunity to play against a conference team after their having a bye week, Bama & Auburn were shafted by the schedule, with UGA & TN not too far behind. Compounding the problem for Bama is the majority of teams pounced on the opportunity to have a bye prior to playing Bama. Can't fault the schools. Can fault the folks in the SEC office who make up the conference schedule.
 
BamaFossil said:
This bye week business has been a pet peeve of mine for awhile now. I understand SEC schedules the SEC games, leaving SEC teams the option to fill the empty spots with games or a bye week, whichever they choose. The issue is how many times the SEC scheduling team leaves open the opportunity for an SEC rival to insert a bye week prior to the Bama game, versus that same opportunity for other SEC teams.

Here's how the matrix looks. The first number is the number of SEC teams with the opportunity to schedule a bye prior to playing against that school. The second number is the number of SEC teams that actually took their bye week prior to playing against that school.

AL - 6 / 6 ( all 6 teams with opportunity for bye prior to Bama took it)
AR - 1 / 0
AU - 6 / 0
LSU - 3 / 1
MSU - 2 / 0
OM - 2 / 0
FL - 3 / 0
GA - 5 / 1
KY - 3 / 0
SC - 2 / 0
TN - 5 / 0
VB - 3 / 1

3 SEC teams took their bye week prior to an OOC game.

Conclusion: In terms of opportunity to play against a conference team after their having a bye week, Bama & Auburn were shafted by the schedule, with UGA & TN not too far behind. Compounding the problem for Bama is the majority of teams pounced on the opportunity to have a bye prior to playing Bama. Can't fault the schools. Can fault the folks in the SEC office who make up the conference schedule.
Click to expand...


Exactly! The school can NOT take an off week unless the SEC gives them an open date in which to do so.
 
IMO, every SEC team should have the same bye week, after the 6th game of the season. I guess that would be too easy though.

Also, I have been complaining about bye week scheduling in the SEC since the late 90's. The main reason is that Tennessee has had a bye week before Alabama for most of the past 10-15 years. Too me, that is just plain unconscionable, and should have been fixed by the SEC office years ago.
 
Sorry for the book and I hate to beat a dead horse, but I need the exercise and this stick's just laying here...

PacadermaTideUs said:
...And I don't think that in the past its been only 2 or 3 teams as has been suggested - more like 3-5. This year's a little worse than usual maybe, but nothing new here: it happens every year and has for nearly the last decade. I'd actually like to see the no-crap numbers on it: how many teams each year for the last decade...
Click to expand...

Here're the numbers. It’s worse than I thought.

Legend: Numbers in parentheses indicate how many teams took a bye before playing Bama and how many teams were granted the opportunity to do so by the SEC office. Teams in bold took the bye. Asterisked teams did not, but had the opportunity to do so. In most cases, these asterisked teams played cupcake OOC games instead and even, in some cases, FCS schools effectively giving them a “half-bye”. In a few cases, bolded or asterisked teams actually had a cupcake OOC game and bye consecutively before the Bama game. In essence: three weeks to prepare for UA.

Using this year’s numbers for each team (provided by BamaFossil in post #23) as a benchmark, for each team, the SEC should build in an average of 3.4 opportunities for opponents to take a bye the week prior. The below numbers reflect an average of 5 opportunities against Bama over the last 11yrs including next year, and an average 6 over the last 4yrs. Teams who actually took the bye averaged 2.6 over the last 11yrs and 4.3 over the last 4yrs. Take note of the last part of that last sentence: over the last 4yrs, the average number of teams who took advantage of the opportunity to take a bye before playing Bama (4.3) actually exceeded the average number of opportunities that should have even been granted by the SEC office (3.4)…

It’s consistent, and it’s consistently biased against UA.

As someone else noted, you can't blame the schools for making the most out of their opportunities. You can however blame the conference for giving them an unbalanced and inordinately high amount of opportunities...



2010 (6/6)
Arkansas
Florida
South Carolina
Mississippi
Tennessee
LSU
Mississippi State
Auburn

2009 (3/4)
Arkansas
Kentucky
Mississippi
South Carolina
Tennessee
*LSU
Mississippi State
Auburn

2008 (4/7)
Arkansas
*Georgia
*Kentucky
Mississippi
Tennessee
*LSU
Mississippi State
Auburn

2007 (4/7)
*Vanderbilt
Arkansas
*Georgia
*Mississippi
Tennessee
LSU
Mississippi State
Auburn

2006 (1/2)
*Vanderbilt
Arkansas
Florida
Mississippi
Tennessee
Mississippi State
LSU
Auburn

2005 (1/4)
South Carolina
*Arkansas
Florida
*Mississippi
Tennessee
Mississippi State
*LSU
Auburn

2004 (1/5)
*Mississippi
*Arkansas
*South Carolina
*Kentucky
Tennessee
Mississippi State
LSU
Auburn

2003 (3/6)
*Kentucky
*Arkansas
Georgia
*Mississippi
Tennessee
Mississippi State
LSU
Auburn

2002 (2/5)
Arkansas
*Georgia
*Mississippi
Tennessee
*Vanderbilt
Mississippi State
LSU
Auburn

2001 (2/4)
*Vanderbilt
Arkansas
South Carolina
*Mississippi
Tennessee
LSU
Mississippi State
Auburn

2000 (2/5)
*Vanderbilt
*Arkansas
South Carolina
*Mississippi
Tennessee
LSU
Mississippi State
Auburn
 
Excellent work, guys. Very indicative of the kind of thoughtful and well-researched opinion that is so common on this board. I'm not as well-schooled as some with regard to other boards, but from the ones I've seen (Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Auburn), none compare to Tidefans for adult discussion and zero smack.
 
Can someone tell me the next school that has the second most? What is the dropoff? It seems like it was significant this past season, ....so i imagine with 6, it would be significant.

The whole thing is just completely unfair. THE LAST SIX SEC teams we play have a bye week before us? they need to fix it - not in the future - NOW!

nevermind - if the schedule i'm looking at is right, no one else has more than ONE team with an off week before they play them.

in fact it looks like only Vandy, LSU (our bye week) and GA have to face an SEC team that has had a bye week prior to playing them
 
Last edited:
37bamagrl said:
Can someone tell me the next school that has the second most? What is the dropoff? It seems like it was significant this past season, ....so i imagine with 6, it would be significant.

The whole thing is just completely unfair. THE LAST SIX SEC teams we play have a bye week before us? they need to fix it - not in the future - NOW!
Click to expand...


Again, citing BF's numbers, no other team in the conference faces more than one (that's right: 1) SEC opponent who's coming off a bye. The teams that face one (that's right: 1) rested opponent are LSU, Georgia and Vanderbilt. All others face no (that's right: 0) rested SEC opponents.

As for opportunities, the SEC saddled Auburn with 6 opportunities for rested opponents as well but no opponents took advantage of those opportunities when building their schedules. Georgia and Tennessee were also jacked by the SEC office, with 5 opportunities built in for each.

It's not fair and it should be fixed. But I don't expect it to be. And again, my outlook on it is that though we should complain and seek remedy, we should take it as a sign of respect from our opponents, use the injustice as a motivational tool in whatever way we can, and answer on the field with domination. Just like we did for the last two years.
 
NBF_Bama_Cavalry said:
It'll probably change after this season. Three straight years of all these SEC teams getting their butts handed to them by Alabama will cause them to schedule their bye weeks AFTER playing us. They'll need the week off to recover.
Click to expand...

Most teams never recover.:BigA:
 
Andy Staples from Sports Illustrated wrote an article last October which appeared on SI.com about open dates for all teams in BCS conferences. Seems like the title of the article was "Why open dates will impact Alabama more than any other team in 2009. It gave statistical evidence of the impact of open dates in all conferences but it was more of a factor in the SEC than any other conference. I would link but I didn't find it when I looked.
 
37bamagrl said:
Can someone tell me the next school that has the second most? What is the dropoff? It seems like it was significant this past season, ....so i imagine with 6, it would be significant.

The whole thing is just completely unfair. THE LAST SIX SEC teams we play have a bye week before us? they need to fix it - not in the future - NOW!

nevermind - if the schedule i'm looking at is right, no one else has more than ONE team with an off week before they play them.

in fact it looks like only Vandy, LSU (our bye week) and GA have to face an SEC team that has had a bye week prior to playing them
Click to expand...


In the 4 year period 2007-2010, Bama will have had 17. LSU is second with 5. Meaning, of course, that the second place team will have had one fewer in 4 years than Bama will have next year.

As others have said, it is nothing new. It has been happening ever since '92 when the SEC took over the scheduling. As a matter of fact, you can take ANY 4 year period since then and Bama is at the top.
 
Patience, my friends. Note that the 2010 and possibly the 2011 schedules were made while Doug Dickey, Phillip Fulmer and Roy Kramer were in business together. Mike Slive had no part in making the 2010 schedule and was indeed shocked when the discrepancy came to his attention. Remember, there is one constant in the SEC office who ought to be looking out for our interest, but instead is like a dad that overcompensates b/c he doesn't want to be perceived as favoring his son.

I used to think Mike Slive was not a strong enough commissioner. After the last year and 1/2, I think anything but. I believe he wants to be fair. And frankly, he has been night and day from Kramer.

I believe that he will look into the matter and changes will be made. However, mountains cannot be moved in one day. Maybe we get 1 or 2 open date reduction this year (probably too late for that), but I bet you there will be changes in the 2011 SEC schedule.
 
Slive was on one of the Birmingham sports talk shows a few weeks ago, and was asked about this.

As others have posted, he said that the SEC office sets the SEC schedule, but the schools set the non-conference games around that. So to a great extent, a school can manipulate when its off weeks are.

But he also said that the SEC office does have a few restrictions on that. For example, no school can have an off week before the SEC Championship game. And there were a few others, I just don't remember them.

Slive did say that the 2010 schedule put Alabama at a competitive disadvantage, and that they were mulling over some restrictions to prevent it in the future. He even hinted that some relief for 2010 might be possible.

Given the SEC office's history of hosing us, I'm not holding my breath on either. But at least he wasn't denying the issue the way Kramer would have.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New Posts

Advertisement

Trending content

Advertisement

Latest threads

Top Bottom
Back