Nick Saban wants to expand SEC schedule

For the Sunday Oklahoman, I wrote about the College Football Playoff and I made a passing reference to Nick Saban wanting the SEC to expand its conference schedule from eight games to at least nine.

I think it’s an interesting stance from Saban, who virtually is assured of getting Alabama into the four-team playoff every year, so long as the Crimson Tide doesn’t collapse.

The SEC plays a 6-1-1 format — six games against the other teams in the division, a crossover game against an annual foe (Alabama Tennessee, Auburn Georgia, etc.) and a crossover game against a rotating opponent. That effectively means that each school plays six fellow SEC members only twice in a 12-year span.

Saban endorses tougher schedules all around. Which is rather noble, since the current system is working famously for the Crimson Tide.

“I've always been an advocate of playing nine or 10 SEC games and a couple other games against some other good opponents that everybody would be happy to watch,” Saban said at SEC Media Days. “I think it would help us determine, to your next question, who should be in the playoffs. And you might not have to go undefeated to get into the playoffs, because there would be more games against highquality opponents, which would help determine who the best teams are.”

Sign me up for that. The Big 12, Pac-12 and Big Ten all play ninegame conference schedules. The ACC and SEC play eight-game conference schedules. But at least ACC teams often play two quality non-conference games. The SEC schools rarely do.

Alabama’s non-conference schedule: Louisville in Orlando, Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, The Citadel. None a true road game.

Auburn’s non-conference schedule: Washington in Atlanta, Alabama State, Southern Miss, Liberty. None a true road game.

Georgia’s non-conference schedule: Austin Peay, Middle Tennessee, Massachusetts, Georgia Tech. All at home.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey defended the league’s scheduling.

“Our success as a league should not be attributed simply to our scheduling philosophy, but year after year, our best teams have produced the best team in the country,” Sankey said. “The facts candidly speak for themselves.”

You can’t argue with Sankey. But you can point out his league’s scheduling is embarrassing.

At SEC Media Days, Sankey was asked about the disservice to fans, who deserve better games.

“One of the questions people have asked, is it a time to refresh matchups,” Sankey said. “We have not arrived at that destination, but I want to be very clear we're not inattentive to fans' conversations. On the other side, we have led the attendance nationally for the last 19 years and still sell in the high 90 percentile of all of our available tickets. I think the fans also speak in a positive way about what is happening.”

Sankey said he has spoken with College Football Playoff committee chairmen about scheduling.

“What they've said is, ‘we look at the entire schedule,’” Sankey said. “That's the issue that our schools have to be mindful of is the entirety of their schedule needs to be robust. Now, we know from the figures that I quoted that the level of play in this league is uniquely robust, not simply in our opinion, but what has been reflected over time. That's a factor in this conversation.

“I think the divisional structure has supported a number of really healthy, really important rivalries, or sectional games that have great meaning. And when you start developing different formats, remember, I said back in 2014, we work through a lot. You end up interrupting some things that right now is not a priority for us. We want to maintain those types of scheduling rivalries. “Could that change? That's why we have conversations every year. But those rivalries are really healthy and I think really unique, particularly in the number of those that exist in this conference.”

So Sankey ended up talking more about the crossover matchups than the nine-game schedule. That robust schedule stuff doesn’t hold a lot of water when your defending champion is playing Austin Peay, Middle Tennessee and UMass.

On the same day that Sankey spoke last week, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby addressed the issue.

“I'm certainly an advocate for all of us playing the same number of conference games,” Bowlsby said. “Having said that, we have allowed for some local discretion as to how many games individual conferences play. The long and the short of it is, we aren't all going to be the same even if we play the same number of games.

“In a league with 14 or 15 members, even if you play nine, you're going to have a bunch you don't play. I remember when I was on the basketball committee, you had to look very carefully at certain conferences because they had some one plays, they had some no plays and they had some two plays. If you played the better teams once or not at all, obviously it was a huge advantage. You would look at 9-9 in a Big 12 record and it's very different than 9-9 in some other conference.

“So that's the thing that I think people have to be discriminating on, is looking at who you play, when you play 'em, how many times you play 'em. I don't know that any of us are every going to be in a situation where we can prescribe how many games a league is going to play. We can state our beliefs, as I have, and there is some local discretion. But if I'm the benevolent dictator, I would have everybody playing nine even though that still doesn't get you on a completely level playing field.”