CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => SEC => Topic started by: MikeDeTiger on December 14, 2023, 09:44:33 AM
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So....once again a new team enters the conference and Birmingham is gonna try to manufacture a season-ending rivalry for LSU with them. Whatever. Doesn't this basically admit that LSU/Texas A&M was contrived and stupid? And didn't that basically admit LSU/Arkansas was contrived and stupid?
Dumb as it is, the reason it keeps happening is because most other teams have legit rivalries that must fall on the final weekend. Ole Miss is the closest thing to making sense for us, but they have the Egg Bowl with Clanga on the final week, and traditionally that game is supposed to be played at Halloween, although the conference hasn't accommodated that in years and years either. Since OU's RRR with UT is middle of the season and I guess they're losing Bedlam (why? Bring it back ooc), LSU sort of has to get stuck with them.
Barring Ole Miss, I'd like Florida at the end of the year, but they have FSU. Basically anyone we would want to put there has an in-state game to play. Depending on what Florida looks like, LSU has a pretty backloaded schedule in-conference, ending with Alabama, Florida, and OU all in the final month.
Elsewhere, Texas/A&M will resume in College Station this year, and the Aggies can finally quit pretending they hate us and that tigers have anything to saw off.
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I'd be willing to give you GaTech if you wanted.
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We might as well schedule a bad FCS school, given how it's gone for the Bees the last couple of times we played them.
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Wasps, they are wasps.
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I really enjoyed the A&M/ LSU tilts at the end of the year. I know and work with a lot of LSU alum. Yeah, we didn’t really do our part to liven the rivalry up, but damn we just got started.
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Check out Florida. They have Miami early and Texas A&M early, which are both winnable but no gimmes. They go to Tennessee, who stands to be pretty decent next year....but that probably must be measured against the fact that it doesn't seem to matter how good UT is or how bad UF is....UT just doesn't win that game.
But look at their final stretch. They have five games to close out the season, with no bye weeks. Only South Carolina and Tennessee join Florida with no bye weeks over the last 5 weeks. But look at this....all of Florida's games in that stretch are against teams currently ranked in the top 15. Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss, FSU.
It's almost like the people in Birmingham got together and said "How can we make sure Napier gets fired?"
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I also think some of these middling East teams that have benefited over the last decade from the division being meh are looking at some harsh realities. Take South Carolina for example. They keep Kentucky, Vandy, and Missouri, which is standard fare for them, but Missouri is no dog. And losing Florida isn't as beneficial as it once was. Instead they play LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma, and A&M....and that's on top of keeping Klempson at the end of the year.
South Carolina could hold serve in average team quality but have a worse average record with schedules like this.
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Does Florida have the toughest slate in this? Looks like it, if we ignore teams like Vandy.
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I think so.
Alabama's is relatively fluffy. I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you.
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Any elite team can't play itself, so automatically they will tend to have a weaker slate.
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SEC loves them some Texas.....already.
They drew the inaugural cakewalk.
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SEC loves them some Texas.....already.
They drew the inaugural cakewalk.
Impossible.
I've been assured by ESPN and every Aggie on the planet, over the past decade, that every SEC football team is a rolling ball of flaming butcher knives wrapped in titanium razor wire, and that even the lowliest of SEC teams would easily be the champion of any other conference.
So I can not believe that a schedule with 8 SEC teams on it, is anything other than insurmountable.
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Oklahoma is probably a pastry.
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Florida's November:
Georgia
@ Texas
LSU
Ole Miss
@ FSU
.
Here's my problem.
Florida could/would/should be a VERY strong team in 2025. But that's pre-transfer portal thinking. Instead of having a proud, battle-tested roster full of talent and coming of age, our roster will just be shitty by then.
Players leaving. Tough schedule = bad record = exodus of talent.
It's especially shitty.
And it's already started.
.
Fuck this.
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Florida could improve, a lot, next season, and finish 8-4. Maybe that would save a certain job there?
UGA could be about the same and finish 9-3 fairly easily.
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Florida could improve, a lot, next season, and finish 8-4. Maybe that would save a certain job there?
UGA could be about the same and finish 9-3 fairly easily.
This is pre-portal thinking. Our best RB is leaving. Our best pass-rusher is gone.
The portal causes snowball effects - good and bad. If you're losing the normal amount of talent and have a net plus influx, you're rolling right along. If you're losing normal talent AND also veteran talent, your fight is getting out of hand and much tougher.
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Conversely, it can also be a lot faster to turn everything around. Texas and FSU turned themselves into contenders this year by adding a handful of portal kids that made impacts. Theoretically, so long as there's a coaching staff a kid can jive with, schools with good NIL markets can be in good shape to buy their way to victory.
That's where I think we're going to fall behind. As far as profitable athletic depts, we were fine there. When it comes to local businesses buying us a good roster, well, we aren't going to be competing with Texas and anyone like them.
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Conversely, it can also be a lot faster to turn everything around. Texas and FSU turned themselves into contenders this year by adding a handful of portal kids that made impacts. Theoretically, so long as there's a coaching staff a kid can jive with, schools with good NIL markets can be in good shape to buy their way to victory.
That's where I think we're going to fall behind. As far as profitable athletic depts, we were fine there. When it comes to local businesses buying us a good roster, well, we aren't going to be competing with Texas and anyone like them.
Really, to have a truly rounded NIL capability, your school has to be located in or very close to an affluent, major city.
National recruits/players are going to get national offers/deals no matter where they go. And school-booster-based collectives are going to eventually top out and begin canceling one another to a certain extent.
That means there's a lower tier of recruit, just under the big national guys, that are going to be targeted by local businesses. Big city local businesses can offer Lamborghini leases for free, while smaller towns just don't have that type of opportunity available.
We've seen this sub-national-tier NIL sway more than a few recruits to Texas already.
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You can really argue more of the same. Schools like TCU and KSU have done more with less, while A&M and Texas have had plenty of talent that got squandered. The only difference is that where the smaller schools would find the diamond in the rough now they will leave once they establish that they are a great player for better NIL money.
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You can really argue more of the same. Schools like TCU and KSU have done more with less, while A&M and Texas have had plenty of talent that got squandered. The only difference is that where the smaller schools would find the diamond in the rough now they will leave once they establish that they are a great player for better NIL money.
Yeah it's a really unfortunate turn of events for those smaller/less resourced schools. As I've said before, even though this is the exact scenario which will most benefit my favorite team, overall it's really bad for the sport.
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I've heard that TCU has a few really rich (or maybe a lot of really rich) boosters who have powered the program since the end of the SWC. So maybe they can keep up with the Joneses.
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I've heard that TCU has a few really rich (or maybe a lot of really rich) boosters who have powered the program since the end of the SWC. So maybe they can keep up with the Joneses.
Could be. But the B12 will now get even less exposure and less respect than before, and that's another important piece of the puzzle.
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Impossible.
I've been assured by ESPN and every Aggie on the planet, over the past decade, that every SEC football team is a rolling ball of flaming butcher knives wrapped in titanium razor wire, and that even the lowliest of SEC teams would easily be the champion of any other conference.
So I can not believe that a schedule with 8 SEC teams on it, is anything other than insurmountable.
It's all relative.
Compared to your Big 12 schedule, yes, insurmountable.
For an SEC schedule....about as soft as one could hope for.
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LMGDMFSBAO
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I couldn't tell if it was serious or joking, but either way it was such an SEC comment that I had to like it.
That is a pretty favorable schedule. With Ewers returning, Texas should be set up for a good run next year. However, you never know with teams like OU, UF, and A&M. You can never really count on them to be walk-overs and sometimes they surprise us.
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I take it back. Vanderbilt, the Texas-slayer is on the Longhorns' schedule. That's going to be a tough road for UT after all.
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I take it back. Vanderbilt, the Texas-slayer is on the Longhorns' schedule. That's going to be a tough road for UT after all.
We're DDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDD DDDDD
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2025 SEC schedules released today.
They're the same as 2024 but with Home/Away reversed.
Still an 8-game conference schedule.
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