Thoughts on the SEC moving to nine conference games

It is officially football season. Tomorrow, college football games that count will take place as Week 0 kicks off the season long race to the College Football Playoff.

But before we begin, we got some pretty significant news from the SEC on Thursday. The conference announced that they will be moving to a nine-game conference schedule.

https://twitter.com/SEC/status/1958635253112668527

Big Ten fans have spent years harping on the SEC for playing one fewer conference game, so naturally a lot of the chatter around this move centers on the idea that the SEC is “bending the knee” to the Big Ten.

But let’s be real—there’s no comparing the two schedules. Even with SEC teams only playing eight conference games, the top 11 most difficult schedules in the country belong to members of the Southeastern Conference, according to ESPN’s FPI. So, why should the SEC be trying to make things even more difficult for its teams, especially after last season proved that the College Football Playoff committee values wins and losses more than strength of schedule?

That back-and-forth with the Big Ten misses the bigger picture. The real takeaway here is that fans are getting more high-level matchups between the best conference in college football. That’s a win for everybody.

With the expanded conference schedule, each team will play each other every two seasons. For Georgia fans, getting to play in Death Valley on a Saturday night every four years instead of once every couple of decades and vice versa is a treat that should only be looked upon fondly. Focusing on any other aspect of this development is short-sighted.

The College Football Playoff is expanding in the near future, whether you like it or not, and so are the conferences. At the very least, 16 teams will soon be granted a spot in the postseason, and it could be even more than that. If you’re worried about your team missing out on the playoffs because they had to play a tough schedule, they probably didn’t deserve to be there in the first place.

Yes, this transition into a new era of college football feels messy at times. But at the end of the day, fans are getting more games featuring the country’s best against the best. And if you love football, there’s no downside to that.

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Photo: Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire

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