gatormarc

I think we are better off waiting. If we come up with a temporary 8 game schedule, it's because they don't have the vote to go to 9. But once UT and OU show up, that's two more 9-game votes. The crap would be the 8-gamers gaining enough strength now while UT and OU are not allowed to vote to lock in 1-7 for 4 or 8 seasons.

I've also seen it brought up several times this week about teams having to buyout their extra OOC games. Some may be happy to kick it down the road a year or two just so they can clear some inventory without having to spend the money and gives them more time to make other changes. Of course this is also something of their own doing. If a schedule had been figured out a year ago, then they would have had a year to work on rearranging the future schedules.

IIRC, there is a preseason draft where CBS only gets a certain number of protected picks, and then there's a back and forth with ESPN. It looks at the entire season. Historically, CBS always grabs Florida-Georgia as their first pick. It could just be that ESPN grabbed Texas-Bama before CBS could with their pick.

OK... I think we're on the same page. There is no "non conference home games aren’t eligible" rule for CBS. That's where my confusion was.

So it's a preference thing, not a contract eligibility requirement, because they have definitely had SEC OOC games as the SEC Game of the Week multiple times in recent seasons.

OK... I mean, I know we've had SEC OOC games on CBS before, including the first three weeks, so I'm not clear on the distinction.

I'm trying to parse this comment Are you saying there's something contractual that prevents OTA non-conference home games? Or are you saying just the first 3 weeks?

You mean other than airing on CBS, right?

Neither of those are DII teams.

2:30 CT kickoff

UCLA asking for their swag bags to be shipped to them weeks after they left town is icing on the cake.

At this point, that article is almost a month old. I'm not sure it has anything of relevance.

So I like Clint. But it seems like a step down from SEC Shorts or Matt Mitchell. Is that just my SEC bias?

So the guy hasn't coached a game yet for Colorado and he's calling the shots for what conference they'll be in? He might not even be there anymore when they make the move.

I really think they're gonna kick the can down the road a season or two. https://www.si.com/college/2023/05/29/what-to-expect-sec-spring-meetings-schedule-field-storming

It's a perfect example of why early season polls are flawed, since we just don't have data. Kentucky had earned to be up there by what everyone knew at the time and by the logic of early season polls. They were coming off of a 10 win 2021 season including a bowl win over a top 15 B1G school, finishing ranked 18; starting 2022 season at a fair 20th ranking with Levis under center. They made their biggest jump to 9 after defeating Florida @ Florida week 2 which is the wild jump Florida was a big unknown heading into 2022, reasonably starting unranked After week 1, they moved Florida up about 25 spots in the poll to 12 because they just beat what everyone was confidently a legit Utah team. Kentucky comes into Gainesville and beats that same Florida team and that's what gives them the crazy move up 11 spots. The next couple of weeks was just attrition as highly ranked teams lost their first games. I hate when later rankings are justified by overreactions in the first few weeks.

A&M supports the 9 game format. It's the only way they get the annual game back with UTx, and despite the 100 year decision talk, they want that game again. I'm not that worried about UK. From what I've ready, they just want the hard P5 requirement dropped so they can dump Louisville if the SEC goes to 9. I think the SEC drops it or turns it into a suggestion like the B1G has, and they get UTn, UGA, or UF as one of their 3, they'll vote for 9. South Carolina will not drop Clemson so they won't be as easy to win over. Auburn and Bama both really prefer 9, imo. They both just want more say in who the 3rd program is going to be (after UTn and AU for Bama; and UGA and Bama for AU). If I had to guess, I think Tennessee might be on the flip side of the coin. Both Vandy and Kentucky consider them their top in-conference rival. I bet they'd prefer to have both as permanent rivals. For them, 1-7 works if they think they get Bama, if they are told that Auburn gets Bama, they probably vote 9.

Sankey really wants 9. It wouldn't surprise me that if he can't get the vote, he kicks it down the road again until after this season or settles for a 2 year temporary 8-game schedule and tries again after OUT is in the league.

Final AP poll. 1) Georgia (63) 6) Tennessee 10) Utah 11) Florida State 16) LSU 17) Oregon State 23) South Carolina

I thought the limiting factor was always that BYU refuses to play on Sundays and no one wanted to accommodate that. Who gave in here, BYU or the Big12?

I don't think anyone has ever seriously accused Florida of playing a weak schedule. During our 3 national title runs, we had the #1 or #2 rated schedule those years. Last year sucked for us, but we also faced 3 Top 10 and 4 other top 25 teams.

It's good to finally see a list on where everyone sits going into next week: 9 Game Schedule: Florida Georgia LSU Missouri Texas A&M 8 Game Schedule: Arkansas Kentucky Mississippi State South Carolina On The Fence Auburn Ole Miss Tennessee Alabama* Unknown Vanderbilt * It really looks like Saban is just posturing. "If you schedule us with Tennessee, Auburn, and LSU, we'll vote 8. If you get rid of LSU and give us someone like Miss St, we'll vote 9." The one angle I hadn't heard before of is the option to do a temp 8 game schedule for 2024/2025. Might be a good way to kick the can down the road a little and also separate out the negotiation with ESPN for adding OUT vs adding the 9th game.

Of the 3 seasons that Florida has 4 OOC games, all of them have an FCS game we can cancel. Of course doing that would mean we are scheduling 12, 11, and 12 P5 teams those seasons. 2024 08/31 - Miami (FL) 09/07 - Samford 10/05 - UCF 11/30 - at Florida State 2025 09/06 - USF 09/20 - at Miami (FL) 10/11 - Florida A&M 11/29 - Florida State 2026 09/05 - at NC State 09/12 - Campbell 09/19 - California 11/28 - at Florida State

I'll give them credit. They've been increasing capacity and upgrading the stadium ever since they joined the Pac. They've been selling out consistently the last couple of years, and a lot of them traveled to Florida last year. We were hoping to go to the Utah game this year but it's a pricey ticket on secondary market. The cutoff for UF season football ticket holders to get to buy away tickets to the game calculated to roughly a $100,000 lifetime donation. Found a pic from last year. I didn't get a good photo of just the Utah fans in attendance but you can see a fair amount traveled. https://i.imgur.com/rsLLb4E.jpg

They're very much about internal PR. 2 years ago, the evil SEC/Disney Empire was attempting to destroy college football by destroying the B12 and taking their two best programs to the SEC. Thankfully for everyone, the B1G being the Leaders and Legends that they are, formed The Alliance™ to organize OOC competition, block playoff expansion, and to promise to not poach each other, though oddly enough, they excluded the B12. Since that time, they've poached 2 teams from the Pac 12 and have cancelled OOC games with other The Alliance™ members, oh and they were good with the playoff changes once they got the LA schools. At this point, I think they've given up on fooling everyone else... they are just happy fooling their own fans who have all developed amnesia from the year of The Alliance™.