New SEC football scheduling format

Historically, among the original, pre-expansion SEC teams, I've always thought LSU, Alabama and Tennessee did a nice job with inter-sectional scheduling. They weren't afraid to play out of their region.

The rest? Not so much. Ole Miss is really pathetic. It hasn't played a Big Ten team in a regular season game since 1932, has hardly played any Big 12 teams outside of nearby Texas. and has never played a game against a Pac 12 school.

 

I know it has been almost 40 years since Ole Miss integrated the football team but I think from 1932-1972 or so that can be attributed to the fact that Ole Miss did not want to schedule any team with a black player.

 

In 1932 there weren't a whole lot of major-college teams period with black players. The first college team with prominent black players was UCLA from 1938-41, which featured Jackie Robinson, Woody Strode and Kenny Washington.

College football didn't really start to integrate outside the West Coast until after World War II.

Notre Dame didn't have a black letterman until 1953 (and had only one black player --- Alan Page --- as recently as 1966).

 

Ole Miss has played six games against Big 12 teams since 2000 -- home-and-homes with Texas (2012-13), Missouri (2006-07) and Texas Tech (2002-03). Other than that, yeah, they hardly play Big 12 teams.
Oh, and Texas isn't really "nearby." Austin is probably a 12-hour drive from Oxford, and there's an entire state in between. A pretty good-sized one.
Ole Miss has also played road games at Wake Forest, Wyoming and Fresno State in the past decade, along with closer road games against Memphis and Tulane. Not necessarily going into USC or Notre Dame, but still some trips with little upside for an SEC team mixed in there.
Plus, it's not like Ole Miss has fattened up on all these cupcakes. With very few exceptions, they've sucked since about 1973.

Staying in the Magnolia State, Mississippi State hasn't played the power conferences a whole lot, but ought to get credit for going on the road to some of the football mid-majors. Not sure if it's part of its scheduling plan or just worked out this way, but it's played at one small school nearly every year for the past decade -- Troy (2012), Memphis (2011), UAB (2011, 2006), Houston (2010), Middle Tennessee (2009), Louisiana Tech (2008) and Tulane (2007, 2005).
Over the next three seasons it's at South Alabama (2014), Southern Miss (2015) and Louisiana Tech (2016).

 

In Mississippi State's case, a lot of their scheduling issues may stem from the fact the nobody wants to go to Starkville unless they absolutely have to. ;D

 

In what's known as "early politicking," Stanford's coach complains about the SEC keeping its eight-game conference schedule.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10868843/pac-12-coaches-critical-sec-decision-maintain-8-game-conference-schedule

He has a point: by 2016, the Pac-12, Big 12 and Big 10 will all be playing nine conference games (and maybe the ACC will be, too). If that extra conference game results in a loss while the SEC teams get a cupcake in November, you'll see this argument repeated a lot as the SEC annually gets half the spots in the four-team playoff.

 

True.

But would Ole Miss or for that matter Mississippi State have fielded a team with a black player on it? The Mississippi State basketball team snuck out of state to dodge a injunction in order to play in the NCAA tournment one year in the 60's.

When did Alabamba or Auburn first schedule a team with a black player on it?

 

Speaking as a Georgia fan, I'd be fine with nine conference games, but I'm not fine with giving up a longstanding rivalry with Georgia Tech to meet someone else's desire to see Georgia play Oregon. Particularly not given that there aren't that many "glamorous" games to go around -- I'm even less fine with seeing Georgia play Colorado or Oregon State or Cal or Baylor and not playing Georgia Tech. That tradeoff isn't worth it to me, and it won't be worth it to South Carolina fans or Florida fans either.

If the SEC turned around tomorrow and said everyone's playing nine conference games and two major-conference OOC games, then fine. But I don't see why Georgia or Florida or South Carolina should have to play nine conference games, AND their OOC rival, AND another marquee OOC game, when no one else is playing that kind of schedule.

And to me, rivalry trumps most everything else.

 

What pisses me off is the three cupcakes. Very, very few legit college teams get The Citadel around Thanksgiving.