Why are most of the SEC teams playing FCS opponents this week?

Just curious. Seems kinda weird this late in the year. It's not all of them, but a lot of them.

 

They do this every year, and it pisses me off. NCAA needs to ban matchups like these.

 

I notice this every year. No wonder they have such high ranking teams. Their strength of schedule is basically only based off of their conference.

 

Most play some conference games early in the season instead of closing out the year against the conference. CBS wants some decent games earlier in the season.

 

Conference realignment has screwed up a lot of schedules and produced weird results. It's why we ourselves had two off-weeks so close to each other and early on in the season. Assuming no more re-alignment shifts, things will for the most part get back to 'normal' over the coming years..

 

This has been going on for years. It has nothing to do with conference realignment. With the amount of cupcakes that the SEC plays OOC, and almost always at home, and the 8 game schedule, most SEC teams on the top tier are playing 6-7 gimmes a year.

 

This is when the SEC folks trot out the classic "we have to schedule these games because our conference is so tough." Of course, the rest of us know that, taken as a whole, the SEC isn't really any deeper than most of the other conferences in any given year. What do Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Arkansas and Auburn have in common? None have a winning record.

 

Because they are the toughest football conference in the country! Derrrrrrp

 

Because the SEC does alot of conference games in September. Both A&M and Mizzou had their first SEC games on 9/8 ... The Florida Tennessee game is usually in September. So that puts an OOC game later in the year and very very few FBS teams are going to have an open date in November. Plus, it does give the schools a bit of a break late in the year.

 

That is a point that get lost entirely. With three OOC games, plenty of major conference teams play schedules with an SOS that exceeds many SEC teams.

 

I would just love to see the almighty SEC have a few teams take "a bit of a break" and get upset at home to FCS teams

 

This is true. Two of Florida's first three games were conference games. They have no choice but to schedule some scrubs on the backend of the schedule. It also allows them to schedule FSU at the end of the season. If anything it's a disadvantage. So why y'all bitchin?

Aug. 30
South Carolina at Vanderbilt

Sept. 8
Auburn at Mississippi State
Florida at Texas A&M
Georgia at Missouri

Sept. 15
Alabama at Arkansas
Florida at Tennessee

 

Because if it really is a disadvantage you'd think they wouldn't have taken the past 6 national titles

 

It irks me to say it, but when it's come to playing good teams in the OOC this year, SEC > B12, & it isn't all that close. I'm not saying that the SEC has played a murderer's row or anything like that, rather the fact that the B12 OOC's have been subpar to say the least.

 

The Bottom 10 on ESPN tributed this fact, but there are THREE (count em THREE) SEC! SEC! teams that have ZERO wins in the SEC this season. THREE!

- Aubourbon
- Kenfukky
- Rocky Toppy

And there's more that have LOSING records overall!

S-E-C! S-E-C!

 

Could Kansas beat any of those 3?

 

The SEC has been doing this for awhile (based on my cursory research). Its teams will typically schedule some tougher OOC games earlier in the season, and will then "take a break" with FCS-type opponents over the 1st, 2nd or 3rd Saturday in November. I guess this helps to avoid a late season loss that might knock the conference leaders out of BCS Bowl contention. The historical data on the SEC website was too cumbersome to copy, so hopefully the link will work (go the the "Results" window for season-by-season schedules).

http://www.secdigitalnetwork.com/SECSPORTS/SPORTS/FOOTBALL.aspx

 

This is just the way they have set up the schedule for many many years, including playing numerous conference games in the second and third week of the season. My personal opinion is that they should add a ninth conference game, especially with a 14 team conference. However, whatever they are doing is working so why change.

Georgia (my favorite SEC team) has benefitted from the 8 game conference schedule the last two years and by not having to play LSU or Alabama in either year.

 

They got a pass for this for a lot of years because of the "we're the toughest conference, so we beat each other up" myth. Now that it's pretty clear that it's an average conference with one or two really good teams, everyone is seeing through the smokescreen. They do it because it's an easier path to stay in the top 10.

The best part is that once 2014 rolls around, and there are playoffs, schedules will take a much bigger roll. We're going to see a lot more quality OOC match-ups, because teams won't be able to pad their win column with cupcakes. Fortunately, Stoops was never in that group. Even when the TCU thing happened, and they became a conference team and forced us to play FAMU, we still had Notre Dame on the schedule. Stoops and Castiglione have always been good about playing anyone/anywhere.

 

They got a pass for this for a lot of years because of the "we're the toughest conference, so we beat each other up" myth. Now that it's pretty clear that it's an average conference with one or two really good teams, everyone is seeing through the smokescreen. They do it because it's an easier path to stay in the top 10.


That 'average' conference has 6 teams in the top 9 of the BCS this week.