The SEC Needs To Go To A Nine Conference Game Schedule: Barrett Sallee
The SEC has continued to kick the can down the road as it attempts to settle on a long-term scheduling format in the new era of the conference that includes Texas and Oklahoma. It will continue to have an 8-game conference schedule in each of the next two seasons, and each team will be required to have at least one Power 4 out-of-conference game on the docket.
Two future format options have been bandied about … the 7+1 model that includes seven rotating opponents with one permanent rival, and a 6+3 format that will give each team six rotating opponents and three permanent rivalry games. According to Brandon Marcello of CBS Sports.
The nine-game conference schedule is again being considered by conference higher-ups even though it wasn’t on the agenda during SEC spring meetings — which wrapped up this week in Miramar Beach, Florida.
The Conference Must Add The Additional Game
According to Marcello, the additional inventory of conference games could generate approximately $5 million of revenue for each team through its media rights deal with Disney. That will go a long way toward schools shoring up the approximately $15-$20 million that schools will likely see leave their bank accounts through the new format that will pay student-athletes.
For fans, it will generate massive interest as the battle for the two spots in the SEC Championship Game will extend for another week of the season. That will ultimately give fans and College Football Playoff selection committee members even more of a grasp on which teams within the conference are truly playoff worthy.
Decision-makers within the conference have said that it will also increase the "access" teams will have into what will likely be a 14-team CFP. There will be three automatic bids for the SEC and a grand total of three at-large spots after the Big Ten gets its three automatic bids. The ACC and Big 12 take their two automatic bids each and the Group of Five sends one team to the event. I’m not so sure that the SEC will have a better chance of filling one of the three "at-large" spots in that format, but the unknown that will exist throughout the season with a nine-game conference schedule will be impossible to ignore.
Georgia football coach Kirby Smart during the the national championship celebration at Sanford Stadium in Athens on Jan. 15, 2022.
What Would Be The Holdup?
Several teams already have multiple out-of-conference games scheduled under the assumption that the SEC wouldn’t change its format. Take Georgia, for example. It already has its out-of-conference schedule completely filled out with games vs. Georgia Tech, UCLA, Louisville and Western Kentucky. Florida has Colorado, Florida State and Arizona State on its 2028 docket, which means that a nine-game conference schedule would give the Gators one of the most brutal schedules in the country.
However, with so much money involved in the sport, it’s safe to say that the SEC’s media partners will be able to work with each other to solve that problem.