re: Facts on Bridge Schedule re: LSU

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Overall they need to get rid of permanent opponents.

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Aside from everything else, this is the answer.

If BAMA /UT and UGA/AU need to play each other every season so badly, they can jump into the same division and be done with it. But this idea that the rest of the SEC needs to accommodate four teams and pretend the rest of us have some natural rivalry with the cross division opponent the league set up for us two decades ago is for the fricking birds.

We're either a conference, or four programs with a collection of filler. Actions seem to indicate the SEC offices believes it's the later.

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Last year, A&M was also their equal and so was Georgia. My bet is that USC and UF also would have played them straight up. They are not head and shoulders above the league.

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When you don't have to play half the teams you mention, it appears you are, indeed, head and shoulders above the league. That's the point of contention!

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Why do people still talk about this? Just let it go. We play great teams, so when we win it is more satisfying. I'll take @UGA over @UK/Vandy anyway.

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Because, given the fact that seasons like 2011 where a team tears through a monster schedule unscathed and makes it to the title game are incredibly rare, we usually only have two choices as fans. One is hoping for the baddest arse schedule we can have for the sheer entertainment value of it. The other is a schedule that enables our program to have the best chance to win titles.

I'm always going to side with the later.. Maybe a couple of decades ago before LSU started winning again I was content to schedule watch and just enjoy huge match-ups...but that was largely because LSU was mediocre and had no real shot at wining anything meaningful. Now that LSU has the program, athletes, coaches, etc to compete and win not just SEC but National Titles, I'm no longer interested in how tough the schedule can be just for the sake of it if it means LSU loses opportunities to win titles to programs with similar athletes and coaches but with inferior schedules.

Your, and others, mileage may vary.

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If BAMA /UT and UGA/AU need to play each other every season so badly,

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Just let them keep their permanent rivalry and let the rest of us rotate. Then everyone's happy.

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Fairness is something we all would like to see, but we never will.

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It's impossible to achieve "fairness" in anything really. Even if you play the identical schedule, injuries happen, nothing can be identical.

But, the bridge schedules, made with reasonable knowledge of how competitive each team would be (unlike before), provided a completely unbalanced schedule. From the info I gave, the SEC could have easily balanced them and followed the scheduling patterns with the rest of the league. They did not.

This is important to discuss. Nothing can be changed this year, but the role of the media is unlike any other sport. Remember, they lifted a second-place divisional team with one quality win into the NCG over a 1-loss conference champion of a statistically superior conference.

Tennessee doesn't belong in the West. Simple geography, bro.

If anything, move Mizzou to the west and Auburn to the east.

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I have lost more respect for Saban for claiming accomplishments he so clearly and obviously did not earn than I did for any of his a-hole shenanigans. There's nothing really wrong with a coach being an a-hole in the right way (i.e., successfully, which Saban seems to have always been), it's just unpleasant and not preferred (especially if you have to work for or with them). But claiming to have earned this superior level of accomplishment when the record obviously reflects gimping and assistance throughout is beneath him. If he'd just claim credit for re-building a great program and consistently putting elite level teams on the field, that would be plenty (and more than just about anyone else could claim).

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Agreed, I think many LSU fans villianize Saban to an embarrassing degree. So much of it is just bitterness and jealousy to make him out to be some evil person. Is he nice? Probably not. Do I like Miles better? Yes. But that doesn't mean he's evil and a cheater like many make him out to be.

But this is what bothers me so much about him and the success Alabama has been going through. He has built a great program, no doubt. His recruiting, coaching, and staff are all top notch. But so are several other programs.

It just seems like when LSU succeeds at the highest level, the focus is more on the things we DIDN'T DO (03-split, 07-2 loss champ, 2011-Rematch), most likely because they don't respect our coach (including Saban in 03 when Carroll was clearly the media darling), and find it ok to make our current coach the constant butt of their jokes, which many of our own fans make it easy and acceptable for them to do.

If Saban was clowned for his ridiculous FG attempts on 11/5 the way Miles surely would have been, Saban would simply freeze those media members out of access to his program. Instead, he throws the kicker under the bus even though every person watching that game knew he had no chance of making those kicks and Saban continually gave away precious field position in what was a field position war of attrition. And the media sat on their hands while he fed that ridiculous line of BS. That's how he controls the perception of his program, and mainly himself.

So when Saban backs his way into 2 title games (11 and 12) by other teams in front of him losing in the same way, and catches a HUGE break in his only career undefeated season (Heisman finalist QB Colt McCoy knocked out of game on FIRST DRIVE of BCSCG), NO ONE ever even mentions it. It's just restoring order.

Not to mention that people pretend that Alabama was this wasteland in the SEC in the years since Stallings, but on January 2, 2006, almost a year to the day before Saban landed in Tuscaloosa, Alabama won their bowl game capping off a 10-2 season in which they started off 9-0 before losing in OT to West Champ LSU. Yeah, they had a really down season in 2006 before they traded up when Saban bailed on the NFL after realizing he was in over his head, but Alabama was not that far off.

Everything is about his genius and the monumental program he's built, when clearly, LSU, A&M, and Georgia, the only three good SEC teams Bama played all year proved they are on their same level AT LEAST.

Bama is great. That isn't hard to see or acknowledge. But it's the pedestal the program and specifically Saban is placed upon that makes it so frustrating to sit through.

Oh well, I'd like to say the law averages means Bama won't have another year like they have, but looking at their latest absurd schedule it actually seems like it's pretty much a given at this point that they will.

Guess we're better suited to the role of spoilers anyway.

All of this drama can be settled by one simple rule: The only thing that counts is your divisional record. That way Bama can choke on their game with TN because it won't matter.

PS: I do not believe Bama deserved to be in the 2011 game, and that would not have changed even if we had won 21-0.