Pac-12 Football: Why People Need to Stop Pointing Fingers at SEC's Scheduling

"The SEC doesn't play anybody!"

Certainly you are familiar with that classic meme. The idea that the SEC plays a terrible non-conference schedule, and they are not worthy of being among the best in the country because they don't make a big show out of traveling around the country to play teams.

In part, that sentiment is true. Florida hasn't left the state of Florida to play a regular season non-conference game in eons. Georgia Athletic Director Greg McGarity doesn't inspire confidence in tough non-conference games in his recent conversation with Seth Emerson of the Ledger-Inquirer.

So the shoe fits, sort of. It fits if you skip LSU, ignore Bama playing a couple Big Ten teams, forget that Arkansas, up until now, was playing Texas A&M. Oh and you have to "not count" the Florida-Florida State, Georgia-Georgia Tech, South Carolina-Clemson non-conference games that are yearly staples. 

If you ignore the things that don't fit the narrative, then absolutely the conference never plays anyone but the Sun Belt and FCS programs. Or, as Bud Withers from the Seattle Inquirer terms it, "Aunt Tillie's Finishing School." Withers makes an interesting point about the SEC and scheduling in that article as he calls the league out:

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Will the Southeastern Conference man up? OK, the SEC is the best football league around, no questions asked. But strength of schedule—the nonleague part you can control—matters to the basketball committee, and it will matter here. It might not be enough to schedule Aunt Tillie's Finishing School anymore.

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The SEC is the best league, and since Withers goes for a basketball analogy, your conference's strength does matter. Calling out a league that's effectively hammered out all comers to dominate the championship just doesn't make sense. Especially when the SEC is taking the exact same approach to future scheduling as the Pac-12.

Remember the much heralded Pac-12 and Big Ten partnership? Well, it would seem that the Pac-12 is slow playing things because they do not want to schedule themselves out of a title shot. As Jon Wilner from the San Jose Mercury reported earlier this week:

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Multiple league sources have told the Hotline in recent weeks that several Pac-12 schools are … how should we say it? …  less than enthusiastic about the partnership, set to take effect in 2017.

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That sounds a lot like what Greg McGarity said about Georgia, doesn't it? Everyone is taking the wait-and-see approach. Scheduling yourself out of a playoff birth does not prove much to anyone, and the Pac-12 is in the same boat as the SEC in that respect.

While I get that it has become the vogue thing to do—if you can't beat them, then bring up scheduling—the fact is every team, in every league, is in the same boat.