-Tommy Foltz
A few days ago, I offered a “fair” system for picking the two additional games to be played by every SEC team that removed all prejudice, bias or favoritism from the process.
Apparently, the top brass in the front office of the SEC doesn’t read my stuff. Instead, they came up with the most biased and unfair schedules possible for the league.
TOO, TOO, TOO:
A friend of mine from college used to say, “Arkansas is too north to be south, too south to be north, too east to be west and too west to be east.” There’s a lot of truth to that and the same could be said for Missouri.
So, maybe that’s why the SOUTHEASTERN Conference ganged up on Arkansas and Missouri when assigning cross-divisional games and gave made us the only two programs in the country that will play four Top 10 teams.
Arkansas was saddled with Georgia and Florida.
Missouri, led by native Arkansan Eli Drinkwitz, got LSU and Alabama.
Because LSU and Alabama were already on our schedule and Florida and Georgia were already on Missouri’s schedule that means that two out of the SEC’s 14 teams will play four preseason Top 10 teams in the span of 10 games.
Hunter Yurachek, bless his heart, tried to spin owning the “most challenging schedule in the history of college football” positively:
— Hunter Yurachek (@HunterYurachek) August 7, 2020
I don’t believe in backing down, either, but there’s no way I see this as a good thing.
It’s A LOAD OF CRAP is what it is.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said, “We made every effort to create a schedule that is as competitive as possible….” What a hot, steaming pile of BS.
Competitive games are games where a full second team is never on the field at the same time. Competitive games are games that are decided in the 4th quarter, not the 2nd. Competitive games are games that don’t effectively turn into practices for the better team.
PROTECTION:
Anyone who sees this as anything less than an attempt to shield the Alabamas and Georgias of the world from potential losses that would upset a run for the national championship needs to see a doctor.
Sure, we all want the national champion to be an SEC team, but we also want as many SEC teams as possible to make it to the other bowl games.
Unless lightning strikes, Arkansas and Missouri were eliminated from that goal yesterday.
HERE’S THE DEAL:
On August 17th, Arkansas will hold its first practice of the year staring into the business end of an over-under 12 gauge shotgun meant more for killing ducks in the Stuttgart area than killing the morale of a football program.
Ironically, the hundreds of thousands of Arkansans who love to hunt and love the Hogs will be focused entirely on the Mississippi Flyway by late October when the Hogs are roughly half-way through this historically grueling schedule. For those who don’t hunt, it will be all about the Muss Bus.
We don’t know yet how the exact dates for this patently unfair schedule, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that we won’t see Alabama playing Georgia and LSU on consecutive weekends, but we will.
This reminds me a lot of the old Southwest Conference where there was Texas, Arkansas, Texas A&M and everyone else. That was not a competitive conference, but it was not by design. The SEC is creating the same thing, but it IS by design.
Between Arkansas and Missouri, we play eight games against four of the best teams in the country. Plus, Arkansas opponents Auburn and Texas A&M are also ranked in the preseason Top 13, according to the Coaches Poll. The only way to make this to turn out well is for Arkansas to beat either Florida or Georgia and for Missouri to beat either Alabama or LSU.
Then again, the deeper we get into August, the more it looks like the fall season may not happen at all. Just today, after the MAC announced it’s postponing all sports including football until the spring, a source within a Power 5 program told college football insider Brett McMurphy: The “college football season is done. I don’t think everyone immediately follows MAC, but it gives other league presidents 1 more reason to make an easier decision. Biggest thing is unknown long-term impact of COVID & liability issues involved.”
As horrible as the SEC’s schedule making has been, let’s take it over an all-out cancellation any day.
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For more details, plus a story about how former SEC Roy Kramer “loved” the Hogs (unlike his successors) watch this:
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