Facts on Bridge Schedule re: LSU

This may be moved to the SEC Rant, that's fine, but I'm directing it to LSU fans as a result of recent discussions that have been ongoing since the bridge schedule was announced, and the discrepancy between LSU and especially Alabama.

Many/most know this, but you have two issues: 1) the SEC's decision to use permanent E/W opponents and 2) the post-expansion bridge schedule used in 2012 and 2013 made before each year, and with clearly with knowledge of each team's relative expectations, as opposed to the pre-expansion rotation.

1. Permanent opponents have been pushed by the Alabama/UT and Auburn/UGA rivalry. Fine. With expansion, and possible future expansion, a team like UGA, UT, or USC will visit Tiger Stadium once every 12 years, and unlike the Pac 12, B1G, and ACC who intend to play 9 conference games, crossover will be very rare.

2. The bridge schedules were made less than a year prior to the seasons, so could be fairly arbitrary. The SEC had a predicable formula pre-expansion that likely averaged out over time. The bridge seems to try to keep that schedule generally, but clearly, disruptions had to be made somewhere.

What Happened:
In both years, 4/7 matchups followed a similar pattern as the 2007 season. In 2012, the 4 matchups made sense and teams played ones where the opponents were next in line. LSU/USC is an example. USC was due to come to Tiger Stadium and did.

There were 2 new games with the new teams, and one odd one. In 2012 Ole Miss played UGA for the second consecutive year.

In 2013, 4/7 duplicated the 2008 season, although the home and visitors switched. LSU/UGA is an example of that as is Bama/UK. There are also two new teams, and one strange matchup--MSU@USC. These two teams played in 2006, 2007, and 2011.

Overall, 2 matchups were completely avoided in the bridge schedules: Alabama/UGA & Ole Miss/Florida. Both have not played since 2008.
LSU/Arkansas and UT/UK follow the exact same pattern. Everyone else varies slightly.

The 2012 schedule was released Dec 28, 2011. Going into 2012, LSU and Bama were clearly the top teams, with UGA and USC right behind them. Both were scheduled to play under old system. They kept LSU/USC, which put a huge dent in either team, and did away with UGA/Alabama.

The 2013 schedule was released on October 18, 2012, mid-season. The SEC seems to have gone away from the high exposure crossover games from 2012 for the noobs (Florida/Bama) in favor of Vandy/Ole Miss. The two team with disrupted schedules (Florida/Bama) essentially skipped their 2007 slate and moved the 2008 where Bama avoided UGA again in favor of UK at team they played in 2009, and UF avoided Ole Miss for Arkansas, who they also played last in 2009. At the time, Bama, Florida, LSU, UGA, and USC were in the top 10, basically. A&M was had 1 loss but was way behind. UK, UT, MU, Arky, appeared to be terrible.

In Conclusion--scheduling is not easy, and is a zero sum game. The SEC did not schedule randomly, but there are a few interesting items. I don’t think it’s a straight up conspiracy, but I think UGA/Bama was avoided. UGA could have played both LSU and Bama and just got LSU. I think they were saved too. They SEC has a recent record of what seems to be a demonstrated (see 2009) effort to keep their best teams in the hunt, espescially the old guard (Bama/Georgia). They should have had Mizzou play Arkansas in 2012 to foster that rivalry. Mizzou playing Ole Miss and Bama does very little. LSU was the most interesting team for A&M in terms of developing a rivalry that that worked out.