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Posted: August 21, 2013
I get it, Mike Slive is Kramer and the Florida Gator’s team dietician is Gail Cunningham. Commence the snub! That is the only scenario that makes sense. How else can it be explained that the Gators 2014 SEC West opponents are Alabama and LSU?
Let’s look at the cross divisional games in 2014.
SEC East
Florida: Alabama, LSU
Georgia: Arkansas, Auburn
Kentucky: LSU, Mississippi St.
Missouri: Texas A&M, Arkansas
South Carolina: Texas A&M, Auburn
Tennessee: Ole Miss, Alabama
Vanderbilt: Mississippi St., Ole Miss
SEC West
Alabama: Florida, Tennessee
Arkansas: Georgia, Missouri
Auburn: South Carolina, Georgia
LSU: Florida, Kentucky
Ole Miss: Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Mississippi St: Kentucky, Vanderbilt
Texas A&M: South Carolina, Missouri
Now let’s analyze.
In the East, you have a significant advantage to Georgia. Georgia misses all of the top 3 in the west; Alabama, Texas A&M, & LSU. A big disadvantage for Florida, who has both their SEC West games against top 3 teams. South Carolina gets one of their games against a top 3 team from the West. This is a huge edge on the schedule to Georgia and could be the difference in whether Georgia or South Carolina wins the division.
The West is far more balanced at the top where Alabama, Texas A&M, and LSU all have one game against a top 3 team from the East. Who did Mississippi State pay off to get Kentucky and Vanderbilt? They are by far the winners in the scheduling lottery.
I am certainly biased, but Florida has gotten screwed here. The 2014 Gator schedule will have Alabama, LSU, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida State on it. Florida could be a top 10 team and still have 5 loses.
It is imperative that the SEC figure out this scheduling issue quickly. This imbalance in scheduling needs to get resolved ASAP.
In past iterations of the SEC schedule, there were scheduling imbalances but they were at least predetermined. There was a rotation of opponents and while you could draw a tougher schedule, it was determined years and years in advance. And it rotated. Team schedules were known at least 2 years in advance. The current year to year scheduling gives off the appearance of unfairness. I just want Mississippi State and Auburn in 2015. And before you tweet at me, I know it is not possible.
In my opinion Mike Slive is a great commissioner and I am sure the 2014 imbalance has some very good reasons behind it, which I am sure has nothing to do with the SEC Network (said with as much sarcasm as I could muster).
A skeptic might also say this was done intentionally to show the need for a nine game schedule. But let’s get to a formulaic schedule that is as balanced as possible as fast as we can.
Or I may start to think Coach Spurrier is on to something with only having divisional games count.
That all being said, let’s get 2013 kicked off already!