Month: May 2012

Florida President reveals scheduling decision

Les Miles is not going to get what he wants out of the SEC scheduling gods, conference President (and Florida Chancellor) Dr Bernie Machen has revealed in a press conference. Future SEC schedules would adopt a 6-1-1 schedule, that would see six divisional rivals, one rotating rival, and one permanent rival. The reason? Machen and his fellow Chancellors thought it was important to keep 100-year, cross-conference rivalries such as Alabama vs Tennessee and Georgia vs Auburn as well as the 41-year old rivalry of Florida and LSU. “I’m Florida. We think that cross-division rivalries are really important and we particularly cherish the LSU rivalry. I think it’s been really great for both of our schools. We would be in a

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Florida President reveals SEC play-off plan

The SEC will be pushing a four-team play-off plan to determine future National Champions, Florida’s Chancellor told a press conference at this year’s SEC Spring Meetings. Dr Bernie Machen of Florida – talking down the road from UF’s campus in Gainseville in Destin – said at a press conference: “We want a four-team play-off”. He added: “I would be amazed if it wasn’t a four-team play-off with semifinals in the bowl system and a final championship game bid out separately.” Machen added that the SEC would be pushing for the four best teams in college football to play each other – regardless of whether they’d won the conference championship or not. Last year that means even if Georgia HAD caught

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Ohio State cancels Georgia football series

The biggest scheduling news to come out of the Spring Meetings might not be from Mike Slive but from the Georgia Athletic Director Greg McGarity, who confirmed that the 2020-1 series between Ohio State and Georgia has been cancelled. Scheduling website FBSchedules.com informed SEC Football Blog via Twitter that it had broken the story after a record request from UGA, and that beat reporters had then jumped on the news. Whoever broke the story – the big word we have about this is: Bummer. The home-and-home could have been an all-time great one. According to letters, Ohio State cancelled the Memorandum of Understanding, not Georgia. And it’s not going to cost either of the programs money, which is nice. I bet the

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Contributor article: SEC coaches vote in a player stipend, now should the NCAA?

Alex Ferguson, writer of the college football blog “The View From North America” wrote a lovely piece about the NCAA and whether it should pay players. He’ll be contributing SEC-related articles to the SEC Football Blog from time to time because as he says: “My blog needs some airing elsewhere”. We’ll let you know if the arrangement doesn’t work out. Anyway, here’s his first article….(taken from the View From North America’s site) –  While all the chat at the SEC’s Spring Meetings in Destin, Fl. may have been about scheduling, play-offs, and the amazing haircuts of Mssrs. Miles and Saban, the biggest news was one that was rather buried. We heard that every SEC coach had voted in a $300-per-game stipend for players.

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Slive: “We’re pretty much there” on scheduling

Despite the griping of the coaches, the SEC is close to getting some finality regarding a scheduling deal, Commissioner Mike Slive has told the SEC’s website. “I anticipate that by Friday afternoon, we will have a format,” he said. Coaches have been vigorous in their ideas of what they want varying to non-division games to count for nothing (Steve Spurrier and Les Miles), to no permanent non-division rival (Miles, who’s anxious on avoiding Florida year in, year out, despite the rivalry going on for 41 years), to a 6-1-1 deal. “There are pros and cons for every format,” Slive said. “I was impressed with the thoughtfulness that the football coaches brought to the meeting today.”  “It’s not easy,” Slive said.

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Schedule grumblings dominate SEC Spring Meetings talk

It’s as though everyone’s either on a schedule, or grumbling about them these days. And the SEC coaches are no different at the Spring Meetings in Destin, FL. A few points: There some seriousness in discussions of nine-game SEC schedule, with Nick Saban advocating it, according to Clay Travis.. “Clay Travis (@ClayTravisBGID: Biggest news on SEC football coaches meeting was seriousness of 9 game schedule. Told Saban advocated for 9.” Steve Spurrier wants divisions decided not by overall SEC record, but divisional record, and boy is he banging his drum about it. He’s still a little peeved that South Carolina didn’t get into its second straight SEC title game, even though it beat Georgia (in one of the games of the season, we

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Project Dough: The new name for the SEC Network

The SEC has a TV network, and they aren’t going to be afraid to use it. Just think Big Ten TV, except far, far bigger. It’s going to own the South, and then cross the Mason-Dixie Line and keep going, until even the Canadians say: “Screw the CFL, we’ll just watch SEC TV”. At the SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, they don’t have a name for the Cash Cow, so they’ve named it “Project X”, with Ole Miss Athletic Director Ross Bjork telling Matt Hayes at SB Nation: “I think it’ll be every bit as big as the Big Ten”. And to start, they should be showing SEC games against Big Ten opponents, since the Big Eleven hasn’t exactly been

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Spring Meetings: SEC coaches vote in $300-per-game stipend

The SEC coaches might have just done something that could change the course of college football. This tweet came from Scott Hood at Gamecock Central: Scott Hood ‏@ScottHood63 In case you missed it, Steve Spurrier told me last night the SEC coaches unanimously approved giving FB players $300 per game for expenses. This isn’t just big news. This is massive news. This could mean that players are at least paid for playing – taking back some of the money that schools, clothing companies and other parties (yes, even college football blogs!) so happily take from them year in, year out. Hood played this down slightly, saying it probably wouldn’t get through the Athletic Directors and Presidents: Scott Hood ‏@ScottHood63: The key question, though,

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Spring Meetings: While you’re waiting…

While you’re waiting for all the news to come out of today’s SEC Spring Meetings, we’ve got some stuff for you to read (some of it’s a little old, so you’ll have to excuse us): 1) What’s a bigger dump – College Station, TX or Gainseville, FL? Kevin Sumlin and Will Muschamp have their comments, hilariously discussed by Outkick The Coverage. 2) Michael Felder (In The Bleachers) and Barrett Sallee (Bleacher Report) arguing over whether high-profile recruit Robert Nkemdiche will go to LSU or Alabama.  We think he’ll go to Georgia, because of his uncle and the chance to start pretty much straight away. 3) Alex Ferguson (ViewfromAmerica) put together a Storify piece about Steve Spurrier being awesome at his

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Tiger running scared? Miles not happy about Florida as permanent rival

The biggest news of the SEC Spring Meetings happened right at the end when news came out that LSU and Florida would be paired together for the forseeable future as ‘permanent’ SEC rivals as part of the new 6-1-1 scheduling. One coach was happy about this. One coach was not. LSU’s Les Miles was the one NOT wearing the smile. He said at his press conference in Destin (according to the Palm Beach Post): “This is all based on some vague tradition that is not considering that you’re adding teams to the conference. Tell me about the tradition of the conference when you add teams to it. He added: “I mean, Florida isn’t even a nearby state. This tradition of rivalry

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