Another SEC scheduling conspiracy post—with facts

Something similar may have been posted, but I didn’t see it. I looked at the pattern of cross divisional scheduling and looked at what happened in 2012 and 2013. As a recap, until expansion in 2012, SEC teams play their division foes, one permanent rival and two teams from the opposite division. The pattern has been consistent for some time.

With the addition of A&M and Mizzou, things obviously had to change and there were nearly infinite ways that could happen and it was done on a year to year basis.

In defense of the SEC, clearly many teams’ patterns had to be broken. If things stayed as they were, 2012 and 2013 would repeat the 2007 and 2008 patterns, leaving a total of 3 cross-division opponents per team between the two years, with one “prime” opponent which under the original patter would have been played twice.

So, basically three teams continued the ’07, ’08 pattern: LSU, Auburn, and Arkansas. Five teams played two of the three patterned opponents in some order, including their “prime” opponent (the team they were scheduled to play in both ’12 and ’13 under original pattern): Kentucky, MSU, USC, UT, and Georgia.

To this point it makes sense mathematically, however, the SEC clearly had discretion. What stands out to me, is the matchups they chose to do away with: GEORGIA/ALABAMA and Florida/Ole Miss. Who cares about UF/UM.

The 2012 schedule was completed after expansion in calendar year 2012 and clearly, Alabama and Georgia would be heavily favored going into the season. The SEC chose to do away with this matchup, but preserved, for example, UK/Arkansas, Vandy/Auburn, MSU/UT, and LSU/USC. At the time the schedule was made, it was obvious the top two contenders in West were LSU & Bama, while in the East it was UGA & USC. They kept the USC/LSU game.

Clearly, they wanted the two noobs to play stiff cross-divisional opponents (UF & Bama) and maybe that was their motivation, if we’re speculating. But why not stick Mizzou with Arkansas and A&M?

BOTTOM LINE, I have no idea, but’s awfully
interesting to see the lengths the SEC has gone to make thing easy on Alabama and to a lesser extent UGA, Auburn, and UT as well historically. Bama got Mizzou then followed the pattern with UK. UGA played Ole Miss (projected to be awful) for the second straight year but did get LSU in ’13.

Cliff Notes: SEC could have scheduled many ways but chose to break pattern where Bama was scheduled to play Georgia, arguably the two favorites in each division. They continued the pattern that had LSU playing USC, also two clear favorites.