Tim Tebow: More ‘guardrails’ necessary for NIL deals in college sports
Sports Seriously: Tim Tebow discusses the current state of college football.
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Arkansas’ Sam Pittman went to a place coaches often don’t go when discussing the future of the SEC football scheduling: He suggested giving fans what they want.
Gasp.
Many coaches consider what’s best for their own careers when contemplating the schedule. They think, “How can I schedule six victories?”
But Pittman cut to the heart of the matter when he said he would support the SEC expanding from eight to nine conference games, an idea that’s under consideration by the league.
“I think it would be great for football and great for the fans,” Pittman told me in June, “and let’s face it, they’re the ones buying the tickets.”
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Couldn’t agree more, but why stop at nine?
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said jokingly last month that the conference may bypass a nine-game league schedule in favor of 10 SEC games.
What Sankey said in jest should become a legitimate idea to explore.
I know the familiar arguments against expanding the conference schedule:
Won’t playing a tougher schedule hamstring programs trying to ascend? Perhaps, but why let cellar-dwellers get in the way of progress? If a coach is counting on a couple of annual wins against Mid-American Conference teams as the key to a rebuild, I don’t have much hope for him anyway.
Wouldn’t more conference games present a bigger hurdle for teams to qualify for the College Football Playoff or win a national championship? That narrative conveniently ignores that Alabama romped its way to a national title in 2020 while navigating a pandemic-induced 10-game SEC schedule.
How a 10-game SEC football schedule could work
Sankey’s quip about a 10-game SEC schedule made me wonder whether a format could be constructed within a 16-team conference after Oklahoma and Texas join. The SEC plans to ditch…
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