BREAKING SEC Going to 9 Conference Games

[bamajas]

NO WAY Bama should get AU/UT and LSU and UT get Vandy and KY. That's ludicrous!!! I know the rivalry is not as new, but UT and Florida should be tagged together.

Of course, AU and UT are no brainers...but our third should be MSU. We've played LSU many times...if Bama agrees to LSU we are automatically agreeing to the hardest schedule in the SEC.

The UT-UF rivalry is older than Bama-LSU. If Saban created a rivalry, then Manning-Fulmer-Spurrier can, too

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Alabama fans have this weird habit of complaining for one thing and when they get it they complain about getting it. For over a decade I’ve heard the vast majority complain about directional schools and FCS teams being on our schedule and how they want a 1978 schedule. Now that we finally get it we complain????

I think the idea the Big Ten had anything to do with this (as some suggest) is....well, when is the last time this even happened?

Sankey added Texas and Oklahoma, forcing everybody's hand. MY SUSPICION - and I'll admit I may be wrong - is that the bowl games will be going by the wayside due to all of the portal movement, sit outs, and oversaturation combined with more games being part of the playoff and (probably) a rapid expansion to a 16-team playoff.

In other words, I think Sankey probably had a "come to Jesus" meeting with the Vandys and Mississippi States of the world, the ones who were clinging to "4 out of conference cupcakes, go 2-6 in the SEC, go to Shreveport" model, and telling them it's going away quick and there's more money to be made from "GAME NINE" in the TV contract than from the nonexistent bowl game.

And as has been noted by a few folks, the SEC Championship game is heading to the ash bin of history. The inclusion of a bunch of losers of conference title games in the name of "not punishing success" combined with everyone being able to see "you know, this game is meaningless" is going to force everyone's hand.

Also, your point is dead on. FOR YEARS more posters than not have whined about "I wish we wouldn't play FIU/UTC/Mercer/Citadel because injuries" and now the replacement arrives and they don't like that either.


Remember all the "I miss the days when we had the home-and-home with Penn State even when we lost" people?

They didn't miss it nearly as much as they think they did if they're complaining now.

 

[BhamToTexas]

Of course, AU and UT are no brainers...but our third should be MSU.

That is what I put down.

 

[DawgAlum2054]

great, just let us beat up each other and put less teams in the playoffs. Excellent move

 

[selmaborntidefan]

The UT-UF rivalry is older than Bama-LSU. If Saban created a rivalry, then Manning-Fulmer-Spurrier can, too

Respectfully, this is incorrect.

What created the Florida-Tennessee rivalry was a conglomeration of factors:
a) Doug Dickey left Tennessee after a very successful career for a less than one in Florida (1970)
b) the SEC voted, 5-4, to strip Florida of their first ever SEC football title in May 1985 and because the schools voted in alphabetical order, Tennessee in essence cast the tiebreaking vote, which angered the Gators, who had just clobbered Tennessee
c) the creation of six-team divisions and annual meetings in 1992

In other words, Spurrier and Fulmer and Wuerffel and Manning poured gasoline on a fire already going.

Alabama vs LSU, by contrast, have met every year since 1964, when Alabama added both LSU followed by Ole Miss (1965) in part because Tulane and Ga Tech left the SEC (thus to comply with the rules of 18 conference games in a 3-year span) and also to answer the objections from (wait for it) other conferences about how "of course all 3 teams can win national titles, they don't play each other!" (Yes, the whining from Yankee conferences about the SEC precedes "but 9 game conferences" and those "I wish we didn't have so much snow up here" whiners will whine about something else when they lose next time).

Now, I don't dispute the REALITY that Alabama-LSU was already a bigger fire burning than UF-UT was, but consider this:
a) the road team largely dominated the series from about 1969-2011
b) losing to Alabama is largely why a successful LSU coach, Charley McClendon, got fired
c) in 1985, a tie between Alabama and LSU eliminated both teams from the SEC race
d) in 1986, LSU upsetting #6 Alabama cost us the Sugar Bowl
e) in 1987, a 7-5 Alabama team upsetting #5 LSU cost THEM the Sugar Bowl
f) we had to play two straight years in Baton Rouge to make the expansion work, forced upon us
g) LSU ended our 31-game unbeaten streak in 1993

Again - the Saban Chronicles created maybe the most intense hatred since the Ten-Year War of Bo and Woody, that part is true. But Alabama/LSU was boiling in the cauldron long before it blew up.

Florida and Tennessee met 12 times prior to 1969, Dickey's last year at Ob-Knoxville. They then met another 8 times before the SEC expansion.

Alabama and LSU met 26 times and the bleachers collapsed in Mobile in 1958.

 

[BamaMoon]

That is what I put down.

Right, but several others are suggesting it must be: AU, UT and LSU

 

[BamaMoon]

That is what I put down.

Right, but several others are suggesting it must be: AU, UT and LSU

 

[MikeInBama]

Anyone know when they will reveal the teams on the schedule for 2026?

 

[DzynKingRTR]

Anyone know when they will reveal the teams on the schedule for 2026?

might be a while before we hear anything definitive. maybe after the season

 

[bamajas]

Respectfully, this is incorrect.

What created the Florida-Tennessee rivalry was a conglomeration of factors:
a) Doug Dickey left Tennessee after a very successful career for a less than one in Florida (1970)
b) the SEC voted, 5-4, to strip Florida of their first ever SEC football title in May 1985 and because the schools voted in alphabetical order, Tennessee in essence cast the tiebreaking vote, which angered the Gators, who had just clobbered Tennessee
c) the creation of six-team divisions and annual meetings in 1992

In other words, Spurrier and Fulmer and Wuerffel and Manning poured gasoline on a fire already going.

Alabama vs LSU, by contrast, have met every year since 1964, when Alabama added both LSU followed by Ole Miss (1965) in part because Tulane and Ga Tech left the SEC (thus to comply with the rules of 18 conference games in a 3-year span) and also to answer the objections from (wait for it) other conferences about how "of course all 3 teams can win national titles, they don't play each other!" (Yes, the whining from Yankee conferences about the SEC precedes "but 9 game conferences" and those "I wish we didn't have so much snow up here" whiners will whine about something else when they lose next time).

Now, I don't dispute the REALITY that Alabama-LSU was already a bigger fire burning than UF-UT was, but consider this:
a) the road team largely dominated the series from about 1969-2011
b) losing to Alabama is largely why a successful LSU coach, Charley McClendon, got fired
c) in 1985, a tie between Alabama and LSU eliminated both teams from the SEC race
d) in 1986, LSU upsetting #6 Alabama cost us the Sugar Bowl
e) in 1987, a 7-5 Alabama team upsetting #5 LSU cost THEM the Sugar Bowl
f) we had to play two straight years in Baton Rouge to make the expansion work, forced upon us
g) LSU ended our 31-game unbeaten streak in 1993

Again - the Saban Chronicles created maybe the most intense hatred since the Ten-Year War of Bo and Woody, that part is true. But Alabama/LSU was boiling in the cauldron long before it blew up.

Florida and Tennessee met 12 times prior to 1969, Dickey's last year at Ob-Knoxville. They then met another 8 times before the SEC expansion.

Alabama and LSU met 26 times and the bleachers collapsed in Mobile in 1958.

Thank you, I always enjoy learning more Bama history

Perhaps I should've used the blue font

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Thank you, I always enjoy learning more Bama history

Perhaps I should've used the blue font

Not a problem.

It's really difficult online to sorta be saying "well, you're kinda wrong here" without coming across as a jerk, which is never my intention.

What's funny is we HAD a history with Georgia Tech that was kinda wild and ended because of the scholarship rules of the SEC.

And what's sad is we once had a BEAUTIFUL history with Tennessee that Phil Fulmer ended out of fear losing to us was going to get him fired. People who were not here for it don't understand that there was a time when "Third Saturday In October" was what the Iron Bowl SHOULD be, two slugging heavyweights who will go the distance and slug it out to the end, and when it was over, the loser raised the winner's hand and you had a beer together.

 

[lowend]

Alabama fans have this weird habit of complaining for one thing and when they get it they complain about getting it. For over a decade I’ve heard the vast majority complain about directional schools and FCS teams being on our schedule and how they want a 1978 schedule. Now that we finally get it we complain????

I, for one, will miss those two games a year that I can actually afford to take my family to. This might be the last season they get to see a live game.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I, for one, will miss those two games a year that I can actually afford to take my family to. This might be the last season they get to see a live game.

When I would get someone's season tickets, I would always pick 1-2 games I wasn't going to come over from Dallas for and usually GIVE them away to someone who would not attend games otherwise. I sold my tickets to the 2017 Ole Miss game mere hours before the game simply because a Facebook friend of mine posted looking for tickets and it was the game my brother was going to attend with a friend. He woke up with a migraine, and I got ahold of the friends quickly, told them I had two, and sold them for face (which was a tad less than what I paid for them).

But I suspect we may enter a time frame where fewer are going anyway - and that's before this arose.

 

[BamaInBham]

Alabama fans have this weird habit of complaining for one thing and when they get it they complain about getting it. For over a decade I’ve heard the vast majority complain about directional schools and FCS teams being on our schedule and how they want a 1978 schedule. Now that we finally get it we complain????

IMO, you over-generalize. Some have complained, while others never have. I don’t know that anyone has violated their previous stance. But I don’t have a good enough memory to know who has said what, so maybe a few have. Frankly, most who read never have said a word either way.

I've never complained about the few cupcakes Alabama has. I do truly care about the lesser programs that may be destroyed - (we still have room to help them). I care even more about Alabama and the great disparity between the depth of the SEC vs any other conference, and think the SEC is foolish to go to 9 games, which I've posted multiple times.

IMO, what would have better served the SEC would have been to challenge the B10 to an annual SEC/B10 challenge with an orderly progression through the leagues’ teams. Do the same with the ACC. Then we would have a much better gauge of relative conference strength year by year. We would still have 2 games where the SEC could play an FCS and/or G5 program.

Now what we have is a further withdrawal into our own corners, which forces the SEC to savage itself and allows the few powers of the B10 to feast on the pantry full of cupcakes their league provides. IMO, the added SOS element will carry far less weight than many think. It will possibly only help distinguish between teams with the same number of losses or at most a 1 loss difference. But when you play 2 or 3 teams of substance vs 5 or 6, that is still not equitable. I hope I'm wrong and it carries more weight than I think. Also, the SEC's overall winning % will drop because that is 8 games where the 16 teams will go 8-8.

My guess is that the real promoter of the 9 game schedule and the one to whom Sankey listened was ESPN, i.e., the dollar.

I’ve buried the lede. Again, some have complained about the cupcakes while others have not. I wouldn’t assume those who are now complaining are violating their previous stance, unless you remember specifics. Then critique them, but is the Board as a whole guilty? Probably not because many are being consistent.

 

[Power Eye]

NO WAY Bama should get AU/UT and LSU and UT get Vandy and KY. That's ludicrous!!! I know the rivalry is not as new, but UT and Florida should be tagged together.

Of course, AU and UT are no brainers...but our third should be MSU. We've played LSU many times...if Bama agrees to LSU we are automatically agreeing to the hardest schedule in the SEC.

Not that it wouldn't be a hard schedule, but I don't think we run the risk of having the most difficult permanent opponents even with LSU. Auburn will most definitely be playing us and Georgia every year. Probably the top two programs in the conference. Even if the SEC throws them a bone and gives them Vandy as the other opponent, it would be trump anything else in the conference in my opinion.

Here is how I predict the permanent opponents will look like:
Alabama - AU/Tenn/LSU
Georgia - AU/UF/SC
Texas - OK/A&M/Ark
Oklahoma - Tex/Mizzou/Ole Miss
LSU - AL/Ark/Ole Miss
Florida - UGA/KY/Tenn
Tennessee - AL/Vandy/UF
Auburn - AL/UGA/Vandy
A&M - Tex/Mizzou/Miss St.
Ole Miss - Miss St./ OK/LSU
S. Carolina - UGA/Mizzou/KY
Arkansas - LSU/Miss St/Tex
Mizzou - SC/OK/A&M
Miss St - Ole MIss/Ark/A&M
Kentucky - UF/SC/Vandy
Vandy - AU/Tenn/KY

 

[Titans&Tide]

Not that it wouldn't be a hard schedule, but I don't think we run the risk of having the most difficult permanent opponents even with LSU. Auburn will most definitely be playing us and Georgia every year. Probably the top two programs in the conference. Even if the SEC throws them a bone and gives them Vandy as the other opponent, it would be trump anything else in the conference in my opinion.

Here is how I predict the permanent opponents will look like:
Alabama - AU/Tenn/LSU
Georgia - AU/UF/SC
Texas - OK/A&M/Ark
Oklahoma - Tex/Mizzou/Ole Miss
LSU - AL/Ark/Ole Miss
Florida - UGA/KY/Tenn
Tennessee - AL/Vandy/UF
Auburn - AL/UGA/Vandy
A&M - Tex/Mizzou/Miss St.
Ole Miss - Miss St./ OK/LSU
S. Carolina - UGA/Mizzou/KY
Arkansas - LSU/Miss St/Tex
Mizzou - SC/OK/A&M
Miss St - Ole MIss/Ark/A&M
Kentucky - UF/SC/Vandy
Vandy - AU/Tenn/KY

The only thing I'd change is move MSU from aTm to Bama and LSU from Bama to aTm. Done. Where's our consulting fee check?

 

[DzynKingRTR]

They should match up texas and tennessee as rivals. They could even make it a trophy game and call it the battle to be UT.

 

[Power Eye]

The only thing I'd change is move MSU from aTm to Bama and LSU from Bama to aTm. Done. Where's our consulting fee check?

That’s a reasonable and fair switch, but I don’t see it happening.

 

[Cruloc]

They should match up texas and tennessee as rivals. They could even make it a trophy game and call it the battle to be UT.

Battle for the Puke Orange or the Burnt Orange.

 

[BamaSC]

And as has been noted by a few folks, the SEC Championship game is heading to the ash bin of history. The inclusion of a bunch of losers of conference title games in the name of "not punishing success" combined with everyone being able to see "you know, this game is meaningless" is going to force everyone's hand.

I seriously doubt this. The SECCG takes in too much money to throw away. Also, being the SEC Champion means something. Yes, they can award it without the game, but then you can run into split titles and it’s anti-climactic.