Stubborn Schedule Renders SEC Irrelevant on Saturday for First Time Almost Ever
The SEC provides some of the most intriguing matchups in college football.
From smashmouth to the spread, from "fun 'n gun" to the wishbone, the varying styles of the SEC almost weekly provide fans with compelling matchups and diverse styles.
I say "almost weekly" because Week 2 was certainly the exception.
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When Ole Miss vs. Vanderbilt is not only your most compelling conference matchup, but your only conference matchup, something's wrong. We touched on how a nine-game conference schedule would have alleviated some of the Week 2 blues, but this was different.
Even during typically scant weeks of years past, its hasn't been this bad.
Week 13 last year was littered with SEC teams playing FCS foes like Georgia Southern (which was FCS at the time), Chattanooga and Coastal Carolina, but at least there were meetings between ranked opponents, like Missouri at Ole Miss and Texas A&M at Missouri.
At least in Week 2 last year there was a big SEC East showdown between Georgia and South Carolina between the hedges, and a rivalry renewed between Florida and Miami.
The SEC basically followed up a Week 1 slate that featured some of the best conference and out-of-conference matchups of the weekend with an all-time snooze-fest that won't be easily topped. The average margin of victory on the weekend for the SEC teams was 38.75 points per game.
That's mind-boggling and should be unacceptable.
A lot of these nonconference contracts were signed years ago, but when the SEC created the 2014 schedule in the summer of 2013, it had to see this coming—and had time to help its member institutions, television partners and own television network get at least one compelling matchup moved to Week 2.
As it stood, the SEC willingly followed up The Beatles with Milli Vanilli.
Michigan State at Oregon stole the spotlight (and probably would have unless the Iron Bowl was played on Week 2), but USC at Stanford, Michigan at Notre Dame and Virginia Tech at Ohio State should be nothing more than "good games" on average SEC Saturdays.
The absence of compelling games transformed them into marquee matchups and kept the SEC largely out of the spotlight in Week 2.
Not much will change in Week 3.
Sure, Georgia will travel to South Carolina in what will define the early-season landscape in the SEC East, but aside from that and Tennessee's trip to Norman to take on Oklahoma, there's not much to the Week 2 schedule.
Kentucky at Florida? Decent, at best.
Arkansas at Texas Tech? Moderately interesting.
UCF at Missouri? It's college football, so it's worth your time.
Maybe, one day, the eight-game schedule will go the way of the dodo bird and keep the SEC in the national discussion on a week-in, week-out basis.
Maybe.
Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and video analyst for Bleacher Report and co-host of the CFB Hangover on Bleacher Report Radio (Sundays 9-11 a.m. ET) on Sirius 93, XM 208. Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats are courtesy of CFBStats.com, and all recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.
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