AUTiger789

Love the fact that the guy who supposedly stole and sold the cowbell was wearing an LSU hat...

Underrated part of this story IMO.

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20+ difference between first and last. I knew there was imbalance but not to that extent.

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How easy was Texas A&M's schedule last season? I had Claude do the work, and if you go back to 1992 SEC members have played a combined 440 seasons of football...

Texas A&M's 2025 SEC schedule ranks #440 out of 440 for all-time conference schedule strength during this time frame. In the Power Conference Era, no SEC team has ever played an easier SEC schedule.

Yeah I'm thinking the Elko hype at the end of last season might have been a bit of an overreaction.

FYI, Ole Miss 2025 ranks #432 out of 440 in SOS since 1992.... so historically easy as well.

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Some interesting correlations on that list. Of the teams whose opponents had a losing record, 4 out of 6 made the playoffs at least once in the two years (Texas, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Ole Miss).

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Correct. If you order those two seasons for all 16 teams from hardest to easiest schedules (again, only including the game outcomes in games not involving that team), you can rank the schedules by SOS 1-32.

The 5 toughest (opponents record shown)

1. South Carolina 2025 (35-21)
2. Oklahoma 2024 (34-22)
3. Miss State 2024 (33-23)
4. Auburn 2025 (32-24)
5. Alabama 2024 (31-24)

None of these teams made the playoff.

The 5 easiest:

28. Texas 2024 (23-33) *made playoff
29. Missouri 2024 (22-34)
30. Tennessee 2024 (22-34) *made playoff
31. Ole Miss 2025 (21-35) *made playoff
32. Texas A&M 2025 (17-39) *made playoff

Four of the five easiest schedules faced resulted in a playoff birth and the other was seen as a historic season for Mizzou. Worth noting that those Tennessee and Texas A&M teams were absolutely embarrassed in the playoff and that Texas team severely underperformed.

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Any idea why Notre Dame is the ABC prime time game that night and throwing off the SEC schedule?

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A few things are at play here:

1. Notre Dame is a ratings juggernaut.. only Bama, Ohio State, and maybe Georgia are bigger tv draws in the sport. ABC only gets the chance to air Notre Dame when they are playing on the road at an SEC, ACC, or Big 12 team. They are playing a road game at an unbeaten Top 10 team and ABC jumped at the chance.

2. They know that If a big SEC game is competing with this game over on ESPN, 80% of SEC country will turn over to ESPN so they had to clear the deck to not give us fans that option.

3. The fact that the SEC didn't ensure stuff like this from happening in its tv deal is absolutely astounding. At the very least, there should have been a clause that guarantees we have at least one game on either ABC or regular ESPN in each major Saturday time slot.

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Aggie is a top half program. So, imo, Ole Miss beating up on an easier schedule is still more impressive than Aggie doing it.

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Fair point.

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Plus factor in actually making a deep payoff run vs losing game 1.

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"Deep run" is relative when your first game was against Tulane. Ole Miss should get a ton of credit for beating Georgia but that was Golding, not Kiffin.

Ole Miss' 2024 schedule was about as soft of a schedule an SEC team could possibly play. Not only did they get a fortunate conference draw, but they also played 4-8 Wake Forest out of conference and played a mediocre Duke team in a bowl game.

Rebs somehow played an entire season in the SEC plus two ACC teams and managed just one game against an opponent that finished in the Final AP Top 18. That's almost impossible to do.

The disparity in SOS within conference play in 2024 and 2025 was absolutely off the charts. I think the new 9-game scheduling format should help, but I think those schedules caused a lot of people to overhype some programs who were actually not very good.

For example:

Mike Elko at Texas A&M
Taking out games played against A&M, the Aggies' 2024/2025 opponents were just 45-67 (.402) in other conference games. This gave A&M the second easiest conference schedule in the league during those two seasons.

Here everyone thought Elko was this amazing coach and in reality he just took advantage of some of the easiest SEC schedules a team has ever played. They were immediately exposed by Miami in the playoff, and now they are being exposed this season after the SOS picks up a bit.

Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss
Not to be outdone by A&M, Kiffin played the easiest schedule in the SEC in his final two seasons at Ole Miss. the Rebels' opponents went 44-68 (.393) in other league games not involving Ole Miss those two years.

Did this set Golding up to fail massively? If that schedule evens out, everyone is going to assume Ole Miss fell off but in reality, Kiffin just took advantage of an insanely easy schedule for two years.

And did LSU pay a fortune for a great coach or did they overpay for a guy who just beat up on a bunch of bad opponents?

Time will tell.

SEC Conference SOS 2024/2025
*Combined records of opponents in conference games NOT involving that team

.580- Oklahoma (65-47)
.563- Miss State (63-49)
.563- South Carolina (63-49)
.554- Alabama (62-50)
.554- Florida (62-50)
.536- LSU (60-52)
.537- Kentucky (59-53)
.509- Georgia (57-55)
.509- Vanderbilt (57-55)
.500- Auburn (56-56)
.491- Arkansas (55-57)
.454- Texas (52-60)
.438- Tennessee (49-63)
.420- Missouri (47-65
.402- Texas A&M (45-67)
.393- Ole Miss (44-68)

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Just chalk all this up to another one of your terrible takes. Not as bad as your steven pearl one.

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Rick Barnes didn't have a winning season at TN until year 3. Steven pearl is already way ahead of that pace FYI.

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Remember when you said Golesh was better than Heupel? We all do

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Yes. Both teams looked like complete arse today. Golesh just coached his 5th game. Heupel is in his 6th season. Y'all should be embarrassed that your program looks that bad in year 6.

Why would you take a supposed iconic logo and try to mess it up? Sometimes I feel like Tennessee's 20-seasons of misery broke their identity as an elite program.

1. Alabama is a good team and they are certainly a contender for the SEC and National championships.

2. People need to pump this breaks a bit on this Mississippi State team... they are improved but still not a very good team.