Georgia Football: Coach Kirby Smart Favors Nine Game SEC Schedule

My Thoughts

I strongly agree with coach Kirby Smart’s desire to add a ninth conference game to the SEC schedule. The positives easily outweigh the one negative of charging up the conference schedule.

There is absolutely a precedent for playing nine conference games. The Pac 12, Big 12 and Big Ten have all moved to ninth conference games. The SEC and ACC are the only two Power Five conferences that aren’t playing nine game schedules.

Expanding the playoff would solve the issue of SEC teams eliminating each other from playoff contention. This would be the remedy for the only negative of SEC schedule expansion.

Many people including Nebraska Coach Scott Frost, are in favor of an eight team playoff as evidenced in this article by Alex Kirshner of SB Nation. I myself am in favor of expanding to six teams with the top two seeds having a first round bye.

Executive Director of the College Football Playoff Bill Hancock, temporarily put a damper on my dreams when he stated there are no plans to expand the playoff at this time. George Schroeder of USA Today wrote about Hancock’s unwillingness to expand the playoff in this article.

The Committee intends on honoring the 12 year agreement for the current format. We are now in year five. However pressure from athletic directors and coaches could change that.

Personally I would like to hear Jimbo Fisher of A&M and Ed Orgeoron of LSU, give their thoughts on the SEC schedule changing. They are two of  the SEC’s newest coaches.

I also wonder if Tennessee Coach Jeremy Pruitt supports the schedule change as well. He is a Nick Saban apprentice and also coached with Kirby Smart at Alabama. So it’s reasonable to assume that he likely shares their same beliefs about expanding the SEC schedule.

As stated earlier, if the majority of SEC coaches support a nine game league schedule it would go a long way towards the change.

It’s clear that the strength of schedules, the finances and most importantly the fans, all win with a nine game conference schedule.

The best college football conference, the SEC should certainly be playing against the best as much as possible. The SEC should play a nine game schedule as soon as it’s logistically possible. Matchups like the one on Saturday at LSU should take place more often.

What do you think? Vote in our Twitter poll below:

Also let us know in the comments why you do or don’t think the SEC should change to a nine game conference schedule.

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