12th game next season?

[patdog]

Anybody hearing anything on who the 12th opponent might be? I know Stricklin doesn't want to play another BCS school, but we're kind of in a bind and it looks like the Big 12 will be playing 8 conference games instead of 9 so there will be plenty of Big 12 teams looking for another game too. That's going to make it that much harder for us to find a game without playing a Big 12 team.Maybe we'll finallyget that return game from Baylor? If so, I hope that QB goes pro after this season.

 

[Hector.sixpack]

but I figured they would, esp when Mizzou makes it official.

I also expect the BCS will change their policy on accepting 3 teams from one conference.

 

[patdog]

Other conferences are because they have to, but the SEC doesn't have to. And SEC ADs and Presidents understand that8 conferences games in the SEC is a lot tougher than 9 conferences games in any other conference. Plus, UGA, USC & UF have a permanent OOC game against pretty decent BCS teams. I agree that the BCS is probably going to change the limit to 3 teams per conference (and drop the automatic bids to 5), and the SEC realizes that with 8 conference games, we've got a decent shot of getting that 3rd team in. With 9 conference games,probably not muchchance.

 

[MaverickAG]

Maybe not next year or the year after that but sometime in the next 5 years. ADs and coaches complained when going to 8 games but that worked out very well for the SEC. Additionally, with 14 teams, the amount of time it takes to play all of your non-divisional opponents is much too long.

 

[patdog]

But it's not all that different than the way things have been for most of the SEC's history. For example, we only played Vandy 4 times between 1973 and 1998. I just think at the end of the day, the SEC is going to decide to live with that rather than decrease the chances of getting BCS bowl bids. I could very easily be wrong though.

 

[mstate1977]

is something I've been concerned about ever since all this talk about expansion started up. With two 7-team divisions and an 8 game conference schedule, you've got 6 divisional opponents you play every year. That leaves 2 games to split up among 7 cross-divisional teams. If you're going to keep a permanent cross-divisional opponent (which Alabama certainly seems to want so they can play both Tenn every year), that leaves 1 game for 6 other cross-divisional teams. Going to 9 games would certainly make scheduling easier, meaning that you could keep your permanent opponent and have 2 games to split among 6 other teams.

 

[Sterling Archer.nafoom]

Play 4 games in your division, then two of each of the others. Then have a 4 team playoff, with one wild card team. And yes, I know the NCAA currently wouldn't allow that, but it would be great to try.

 

[MaverickAG]

But I'm not so sure it would be a bad thing - it turned out it was actually better when we went to 8 games. In the years since the last expansion, the SEC has won more titles than in the 20 years previous. The perceived toughness of the schedule even got a two-loss LSU team into the BCS title game. It just seems to me that more competition isn'tnecessarilya bad thing.

 

[mstate1977]

but I seem to remember that not long after we went to 8 conference games, we also went from 11 games a year to 12 to get back the out of conference game we lost. That's not an option now with the 13 game limit imposed by the NCAA.

 

[patdog]

The first 12-game season wasn't until 2002, and they didn't become permanent until 2006 (they were originally only in years with an extra Saturday between the Labor Day and Thanksgiving weekends.