Well, at least it's not concussion or player payment talk: The crux of the SEC Meetings in Florida this week have centered on how the conference will schedule its major sports seasons moving forward, as the addition of Texas A&M and Missouri have created some problems with the old formats, especially in football.
The proposed "6-1-1" plan (six division opponents, one permanent cross-division opponent and one rotating cross-division opponent, for a total of eight conference games a season) is meeting some resistance. The AJC is reporting that five coaches, four from schools that want to preserve their permanent cross-division opponents for historical purposes (Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn and Georgia), supported the move, while LSU's Les Miles really, really doesn't want to keep playing Florida every year.
Meanwhile, "The Steve Spurrier Plan" to count only division games in determining division champions apparently died on the table in discussions. Spurrier is ostensibly pushing for such a format because Georgia advanced to the SEC Championship in 2011 with a 7-1 SEC record, losing only to South Carolina, who finished 6-2, but both losses came from Western Division opponents Arkansas and Auburn.
"The more that was discussed, the more everybody understood that’s probably not going to happen," Richt said. "Your crossover games are going to have to count. It’s true in just about every other sport in America," including, he pointed out, the NFL and MLB.
In summary: very little has been decided, but much has been argued. Bureaucracy!
For more on the world of the SEC, check out Team Speed Kills, Dawg Sports and SB Nation's college football page.
