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Veteran OU insider Berry Tramel goes on long rant against SEC schedule

Chandler Vesselsby: Chandler Vessels07/28/25ChandlerVessels
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BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

Veteran Oklahoma sportswriter Berry Tramel came after the SEC recently for not scheduling tougher games in the nonconference. It’s been a debate for the past couple of years, yet the league is still set to operate with eight conferences games heading into the 2025 season as opposed to nine.

Speaking in an appearance on That SEC Podcast, Tramel argued that scheduling lower-level Group of 5 and even FCS schools create games that a lot of fans simply don’t want to watch. Specifically, he pointed out that Oklahoma scheduled three such games against Temple, Kent State and Illinois State.

“People I don’t think understand the illness of college football, which is the regular season is not near as good as everybody says it is,” the Tulsa World writer said. “The SEC plays only eight conference games. That means four nonconference games and two or three teams are playing legitimate nonconference opponents. The rest are just playing one. Oklahoma’s playing Temple, Kent State and Illinois State. Illinois State, 1-AA, might be the best of those three. I mean, Temple stinks and Kent State’s the worst FBS team. They’re terrible.

“That’s three out of 12. That’s 25% of the season is exhibition. Literally. That’s most of the way it is in the SEC and other conferences too, but when 25% of the SEC games are games you don’t wanna watch, you don’t care about, you know what’s gonna happen — I wish that’s what we would treat and talk about and do something about. I got all fired up when I heard (Eli) Drinkwitz say he wanted to play nine conference games.”

Three SEC schools — Alabama, Florida and South Carolina — scheduled two Power 4 opponents in the nonconference for this season. Meanwhile, 15 of the 16 schools play one game against an FCS team. Oklahoma’s lone nonconference game with a Power 4 school is against Michigan, which won the national championship two seasons ago.

Tramel went on to give some kudos to Arkansas for being one of the few teams who he believes actually has a tough nonconference schedule in the SEC. The Razorbacks play Notre Dame and Memphis in addition to Arkansas State and Alabama A&M.

“I give it up to Arkansas,” he said. “Poor Sam Pittman. They gave him a tough schedule in the conference, and then he’s got to play Notre Dame and at Memphis? I mean, that’s a team that can beat ya and it’s right there on the border. So I wanna see more good games. …Wouldn’t it be cool if everybody just played good games?”

It does seem that the SEC will move to a nine-game format eventually. Conference commissioner Greg Sankey advocated for one at SEC media days and coaches such as Drinkwitz and others are also in support of it.

If that does happen, Tramel offered another nugget that he heard from BYU coach Kalani Sitake at Big 12 media days. The Cougars head man would like to adopt a scheduling philosphy that has teams from the Power 4 conferences play one game a year against each other league.

“Kalana Sataki at BYU, he came up with a great idea. He said, ‘I want to play nine conference games and then play one game a year against all three of the other (Power 4) conferences. I want to play a Big Ten team, an SEC team, an ACC team,'” Tramel explained. “What a schedule we’d have then. Every game’s good.

“And yet, here comes Tennessee Tech and Illinois State and all these teams riding down the lane. I feel sorry for ESPN and SEC Network. Because those guys have got to show highlights and talk about the game as if it was a real athletic event.”