A Suggestion for Keeping the Alabama/Tennessee Football Game- By Spurrier

[Marshal Dillon]

Not a bad idea and worth thinking about.

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier has a compromise for those in favor of expanding the SEC schedule to nine games and maintaining tradition-rich cross-divisional rivalries and those who would prefer to stick with eight games and eliminate the annual grudge matches.

In an interview Thursday with Sporting News, Spurrier, who would prefer to stick with an eight-game conference schedule, said he broached the idea at last week's SEC spring meetings of making an annual game such as Tennessee-Alabama count as a non-conference game. Spurrier admitted that his idea didn't get very far.

Click here for link

[pmull]

This might work as a last resort. My concern is the UT game does not need to replace a big non conference game that gets us national exposure on a big stage.

[SUPERCOACH]

I think only the games in your division should count towards getting to Atlanta, and then add in the cross division games as tie breakers if needed.  It makes perfect sense if you think about it.

You want each division to be represented by the best team in that division.  So let the division fight it out amongst themselves.  If there ends up being a 3 way tie with 3 teams who all have 1 loss to each other within the division, then look at the games they played against the other division as a tie breaker.  This cross division tie breaker would only come into play if the tie breaker within the division couldn't resolve the tie.  For example, if you only have 2 teams with one loss, then the head to head winner should go to Atlanta without even looking at the games from the other division.  So it ends up being that the best team in the division will go to Atlanta, and if there is a tie within the division then the team that has the better record against the other division would go, since they might be more likely to defeat the champion from the other division.

This solves the problem we had in 2011 with South Carolina.  They beat all of the teams in the East, but still didn't go to Atlanta because they lost 2 games to the west.  If the cross division games were only used as tie breakers then this would not have happened.

It does not solve the problem of Alabama getting an advantage because they stomp UT every year while LSU has to play UF.  But it minimizes that advantage since it won't even come into play if you handle your business within the division.  It is very rare that you don't have an undefeated team when you only look at the divisional games.  And as everyone has pointed out, UT being down every year is just a cycle.  Alabama was on the short end of that cycle not long ago.  The cross division games would still mean something, but they will only come into play as tie breakers.

[Catch Prothro]

I'm with Saban on increasing SEC games to 9.  I wouldn't change anything else -- all SEC games should count equally.

[pmull]

I'm with Saban on increasing SEC games to 9.  I wouldn't change anything else -- all SEC games should count equally.

I agree.

If we stay at 8 SEC games and only schedule one good non conference game I would rather go back to an 11 game regular season. This year we have Colorado State, Georgia State and Chattanooga. Who looks forward to these games? We are an early 41 point favorite over Colorado State. Betting lines will not be put out on the other two games. Heck, SC will not even put these games in our pick'em.

[Jamos]

I'm with Saban on increasing SEC games to 9.  I wouldn't change anything else -- all SEC games should count equally.

I agree.

If we stay at 8 SEC games and only schedule one good non conference game I would rather go back to an 11 game regular season. This year we have Colorado State, Georgia State and Chattanooga. Who looks forward to these games? We are an early 41 point favorite over Colorado State. Betting lines will not be put out on the other two games. Heck, SC will not even put these games in our pick'em.

I totally agree with you on these pancakes for non-conference games. When CNS said that fans are not coming to those games, he is dead on. In most cases, season ticket holders give those tickets away and if they didn't, the stadium would look very empty on gameday. Maybe the season ticket holders should keep the tickets and not go to those games and just maybe those that do the scheduling would get the message. Not only are they terrible games, it cost about a hundred dollars for a pair of them.

[ricky023]

I sure want to keep the Alabama/Tennessee game. I remember back in late 60's and early 70's we would go up to Cheaha Mountain and turn our radios on and listen to the game. Usually have 2 radios on at a time and then change up cars so battery would not go dead. That stuff back then was fun and it made a lot of dear friends. RTR!

[Guest]

Username:
Password:
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

There aren't any users online.

Loading Tweet...