Steve Spurrier to Nick Saban: Play Tennessee as a non-SEC game Nick Saban is only SEC coach in favor of nine conference games

Steve Spurrier to Nick Saban: Play Tennessee as a non-SEC game

Nick Saban is only SEC coach in favor of nine conference games

Steve Spurrier has a way to get around this whole SEC scheduling brouhaha: Give Alabama what it wants.
Why, he says, would that be any different from the day he first arrived in the SEC in 1990 as the coach at Florida—or his last eight years as coach at South Carolina?

Alabama and Tennessee play each year as cross-division SEC opponents. Steve Spurrier suggests that in the nine-conference game format Nick Saban wants, the rivalry should continue as a non-conference game. (AP Photo)

“I should have spoken up a while ago,” Spurrier told Sporting News Thursday.
So now he’ll let it rip. The SEC wants to protect traditional rivalry games Alabama-Tennessee and Georgia-Auburn. Fine, Spurrier says. Let them play—the games just won’t count as a conference game.
“Nick Saban wants nine games, well he can have nine and be happy,” Spurrier said. “Yep, nine games against conference opponents—but one of them won’t count, that’s all.”
Saban, who has won three of the last four national titles at Alabama, was the only SEC coach out of 14 who voted last month for a nine-game league schedule. He also prefers keeping traditional rival Tennessee as a permanent partner from the SEC’s East Division.
Spurrier said he broached the idea last month in Destin, Fla., at the SEC spring meetings, but it gained little traction. The SEC currently uses a 6-1-1 schedule rotation, with six division games, one permanent partner from the opposite division (see: Tennessee-Alabama) and one rotating.
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In Spurrier’s plan, the league would move to a 6-0-2 plan, and Alabama-Tennessee would be a non-conference game every year it is not part of the regular rotation of two games from the opposite division.
“Our commissioner seems to think if Alabama-Tennessee is not a conference game, no one will want to watch it,” Spurrier said. “I told him, you think no one wants to watch South Carolina play Clemson? We’ve got North Carolina in the first game of the season; a border rival, our stadium will be full. You think no one will want to watch that?
“If the commissioner doesn’t think that’s a big game, he should come watch it. So there you go, Nick can have his nine (conference) games. I’m all for it.”
As wild as Spurrier's idea sounds, there is precedent. California played Colorado as a non-conference game in 2011 -- the first year CU entered the Pac12. The teams had a previously scheduled series when CU was part of the Big 12, and kept the game as a non-con game.
Slive said last month that preserving SEC rivalries was an important factor for future schedules, but that he is open to hearing different plans. Spurrier’s idea, although not conventional, solves the problem.
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It also helps address another issue both he and LSU coach Les Miles have tried to solve: a competitive imbalance in the rotating schedule that favors Alabama.
Since 2000, LSU has played SEC East Division heavyweights Florida and Georgia 17 times. Alabama has played them eight times – the lowest of any West Division team.
Moreover, in the last two “bridge” schedules in 201-2013 – schedules made without specific opposite division rotating concepts – have given the Tide rotating games against East Division second-tier Missouri and Kentucky.
“You tell me why that happened,” Spurrier. “I still haven’t gotten an answer.”
Last year, Alabama didn’t play the SEC’s big three from the East Division (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina) who were all ranked in the final BCS top 10. Georgia, meanwhile, didn’t play the West Division’s big three (Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M) who were all ranked in the final BCS top 10.
“Yep, and guess who played in the (SEC) championship game?” Spurrier said. “Scheduling is so important nowadays. But for some reason, we don’t want to acknowledge that. We don’t want to talk about that.”
Slive said last month that the 2014-15 schedules will follow the 6-1-1 format before the league determines a fixed schedule for 2016 and beyond. That fixed schedule could include nine conference games and a new rotation schedule of 6-1-2 – a schedule that would address the competitive imbalance issue.