Is SEC football going to 9 games?

[FlabLoser]

Sounds like most coaches are against it.

http://coachingsearch.com/home/3059-sec-coaches-talk-about-the-possibility-of-9-conference-games.pdf

Presidents are the voters, but I think they listen to the coaches.

[msstate7]

Sounds like most coaches are against it.

http://coachingsearch.com/home/3059-sec-coaches-talk-about-the-possibility-of-9-conference-games.pdf

Presidents are the voters, but I think they listen to the coaches.

This would be bad for teams like us scraping for wins most years and teams that are in national championship contention.

[Coach34]

9 conference games means more chances to lose- and the coaches know this

They dont want to give up a certain win for chance to lose- but the Presidents dont always listen to the coaches

[engie]

People don't realize it -- but a 9-game conference schedule actually gives the SEC less inventory for it's channel by 7 or 8 games, I think -- since we are playing each other more thus making for fewer overall games. The "cure" for that problem is to go to a 13 game overall schedule with 9-game conference schedules.

The major opponents are Georgia and Florida -- who play a neutral site SEC game every year and have permanent home and home OOC games(against FSU and Ga Tech). This would essentially destroy the number of home game opportunities for them every other year -- and severely limit the amount of marquee away or neutral site games they could ever play in the future...

[MSUDawg4Life]

People don't realize it -- but a 9-game conference schedule actually gives the SEC less inventory for it's channel by 7 or 8 games, I think -- since we are playing each other more thus making for fewer overall games. The "cure" for that problem is to go to a 13 game overall schedule with 9-game conference schedules.

The major opponents are Georgia and Florida -- who play a neutral site SEC game every year and have permanent home and home OOC games(against FSU and Ga Tech). This would essentially destroy the number of home game opportunities for them every other year -- and severely limit the amount of marquee away or neutral site games they could ever play in the future...

I read that somewhere else yesterday. With the SEC Network starting, I don't see us deciding to play fewer SEC games.

I know other conferences are whining and wanting all conference to play an "equal" number of conference games.

The problem is that all conferences are not equal in competitiveness.

I don't see us going to a 9-game conference schedule in the near future. Maybe later, but not right now.

[slickdawg]

ESPN has the purse strings, and they will want more conference games for TV and he SEC network, so you can expect it to come sooner than later. The coaches made it clear that this isn't something they want, but it is out of their hands. It's all about the money now.

[engie]

ESPN has the purse strings, and they will want more conference games for TV and he SEC network, so you can expect it to come sooner than later. The coaches made it clear that this isn't something they want, but it is out of their hands. It's all about the money now.

ESPN may own the Network -- but the SEC retained 100% of the content rights. Basically, there is a 50% and 50% content committee on what actually gets shown -- where we each break the tie every other time. It's a partnership -- not an ownership.

I'd look for ESPN to put more pressure on scheduling agreements with other major conferences for marquee OOC games than the 9-game model which actually decreases their overall inventory...

[FlabLoser]

I'll be ok with 9 games after the playoff expands.

[FlabLoser]

If I am ESPN, I want 8 games and a number of SEC-BCS conference matchups for week 1 or week 2. Like Bama-Michigan, Auburn-USC, MSU-OSU, etc

Gotta give the rest of the country a reason to be interested in the SEC.

[Todd4State]

People don't realize it -- but a 9-game conference schedule actually gives the SEC less inventory for it's channel by 7 or 8 games, I think -- since we are playing each other more thus making for fewer overall games. The "cure" for that problem is to go to a 13 game overall schedule with 9-game conference schedules.

The major opponents are Georgia and Florida -- who play a neutral site SEC game every year and have permanent home and home OOC games(against FSU and Ga Tech). This would essentially destroy the number of home game opportunities for them every other year -- and severely limit the amount of marquee away or neutral site games they could ever play in the future...

Which means more pre-season bowls like the one we are about to play in with Oklahoma State.