College football insider reveals power struggle within SEC over scheduling

With the SEC set to welcome two new members in the near future, how the conference’s college football will look moving forward is still yet to be established. There’s still no for certain schedule system in place following the SEC’s Spring Meetings.

On Friday’s episode of the Paul Finebaum Show, USA Today columnist Blake Toppmeyer says the top of the league disagrees with the rest of the SEC.

“My takeaway from this is who are we going to let decide the future of SEC scheduling? I know everybody gets to vote with one team, one vote and all,” said Toppmeyer. “Alabama is on record. Nick Saban thinks the SEC should be playing a nine-game schedule. We’ve head from Florida AD Scott Stricklin. The Gators want a nine-game schedule. Texas A&M’s AD Ross Bjork told the Houston Chronicle that they want a nine-game conference schedule. The power teams in the conference are all standing up and proclaiming.”

The main difference in the two arguments is the extra non-conference game. While the best of the best in the SEC wouldn’t mind another conference game to bolster their resume, the rest of the rest want to maintain that extra “freebie” game. In that scenario, it hopefully adds another win to their schedule in trying to make a bowl game.

“Are you going to allow those teams to dictate your future or are you going to allow the second half of the league that might be more favorable of keeping the status quo of eight games decide?,” he said. “That conceivably allows you to schedule another cupcake in nonconference and try to get to bowl eligibility.”

That is where the SEC’s scheduling dispute lies at the moment. While the conference won’t be adding Texas and Oklahoma for another year or two, this is an area where Greg Sankey will need his college teams to find common ground on. Sooner or later, either the perennial conference powerhouses or the rest of the league will end up with the upper hand. In Toppmeyer’s opinion, he thinks the rest of the SEC will have to prepare for what’s to come.

“Is it going to be the Alabama’s of the world or is it going to be the Kentucky’s of the world? I still think a nine-game conference schedule is still going to win out because it’s the biggest and most powerful voices we’re hearing talk about it. In the end, I think those power brokers kind of win out.”