Author Archives: Will Shelton

“Not one with Auburn and Texas A&M,” you might say. But with those two added to the docket, the order of opponents becomes much more important: if you’re playing five preseason Top 15 teams for only the second time ever, you don’t want to play any of them in consecutive weeks if you can help it.

The Vols, of course, can’t help it: they’ll get what the league office gives them, which clearly didn’t work to our advantage last time. Today we’ll discover our week one opponent at 3:00 PM ET and the full slate at 7:00. Aside from putting some distance between our five marquee opponents, what would be most advantageous for the Vols?

If you gave me the authority to set Tennessee’s entire schedule, I’d go with something like this:

Week 1: Missouri – the Vols face two year one coaches in 2020, and with one of them at struggling Arkansas, I’ll take my chances in week one with Missouri. The assumption here is no spring practice is especially cruel to new coaches, and the Vols get a shot at Eli Drinkwitz’s squad before they get their feet set. And if fans are allowed in the stands, it’s nice to open at home.

Week 2: at Auburn – The rhythm you want puts a Top 15 opponent between a not-Top 15 opponent, and I’m taking the Tigers first. Auburn now has Chad Morris running the offense, another disadvantage with no spring practice. It fills the week two hole where Oklahoma would’ve been, and is a lower-risk entry to big-time football as a cross-divisional opponent: lose and it’s not an enormous setback in the SEC East, win and you do wonders early.

Week 3: at Vanderbilt – I put Tennessee’s two easiest games around two of their most difficult:

Week 4: Florida – The Gators maintain their traditional place on Tennessee’s schedule, and the healthy distance from the Georgia game the Vols would’ve enjoyed for the first time in 2020 anyway.

Week 5: bye – It may seem more advantageous to put the bye in the dead center of the schedule the following week, but I like it better here to do things this way:

Week 6: Alabama – The Vols retain their bye the week before the Crimson Tide come to Knoxville, and avoid whatever emotional response would come from winning or losing to the Gators in playing the following week.

Week 7: at Arkansas – What might be Tennessee’s easiest game on the schedule needs to surround one of their big three rivalries and preseason Top 10 games, so we’ve got Arkansas in the aftermath of Alabama, where it also serves as a nice buffer for…

Week 8: Texas A&M – Whatever you want to believe about the Aggies’ ceiling in preseason will surely be known by now, so you either get another marquee game or a frustrated squad with less to play for. Similar logic comes into play with:

Week 9: at South Carolina – I was tempted to make the Gamecocks Tennessee’s week one opponent, but you’d rather catch a potentially embattled coach later in the season when things might already be lost.

Week 10: Kentucky – As it originally existed on Tennessee’s schedule, this is the warm-up…

Week 11: at Georgia – …and this is the finisher. Having Georgia at the end could keep SEC East hopes alive throughout the season, just by having the possibility of an upset win in Athens on the table. Having spent our entire SEC East existence playing Florida (other than 2001) and Georgia in the first half of the season, we’re used to our fate being sealed by the second week of October. I hope the league office keeps the Dawgs at the end of our road; it’s an enticing option if they want to keep the Cocktail Party’s place in the order intact, and keep Alabama and Auburn on the final weekend. The Dawgs and Gators are used to facing key rivals this weekend anyway, so I’d love for Tennessee to get one of those Week 11 spots on their schedule.

Anything you’d most like to see when the schedule is released today?

Three weeks ago we had some fun with post-pandemic fantasy booking, creating a 32-team college football super division. It was a fun exercise to pass the late-July time, but only fun because Tennessee would easily make any cut of 32: if you want to know who’s most likely to be left standing on the other side of all this, follow the money.

It’s no surprise then, in the present, which schools from the Big Ten are arguing loudest for fall football in any form or fashion.

Who are the bigger programs? That’s a pretty easy answer in each of the power five conferences. What might be noteworthy, from the data in our fantasy booking story, is how much bigger those programs are than their league brethren.

Using the Wall Street Journal’s list of college football’s most valuable programs from 2018, we noted distinctions in a couple of tiers:

Thirteen programs are valued at $500+ million:

• Half the SEC (Six traditional powers plus Texas A&M)
• Big Ten: Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State
• Big 12: Texas & Oklahoma
• Notre Dame
• ACC: zero
• Pac-12: zero

Thirty-two programs are valued at $250+ million:

• SEC: 11 of 14
• Big Ten: 8 of 14
• Big 12: 4 of 10
• Notre Dame
• ACC: 3 of 14
• Pac-12: 5 of 12

Sometimes the dividing line between the haves and the have-nots is easy to spot. In the SEC, Mississippi State ($223 mil.) just misses making it 12 of 14 to clear $250 million in value. From there, it’s a steep drop to Missouri ($122) and Vanderbilt ($81). A “no” from Nashville isn’t going to be worth much.

In the ACC, there’s clear separation between the top three (Clemson, Florida State, and Virginia Tech all between $275-300 million) and the rest of the league (Georgia Tech is next at $215; no one else is above $200). But those top three are starting so much farther back than the biggest fish in the SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12 ponds, it’s uncertain how much weight they carry among the other 11 ACC institutions in a basketball conference, even when two have rings from the last decade. Washington has a healthy lead on the rest of the Pac-12 ($440 million; Oregon is second at $348), but there’s no clear separation between an upper and lower class there either, and no financial superpowers.

Who wants to play in the Big Ten? Take a guess:

It seems contractually unlikely anyone could break ranks and play out-of-conference this fall. But if you’re looking at who might be itching for something different – especially if other power conferences do play this fall – it’s the top half of that chart. They can share revenue all they want, but the longer this goes the more it becomes about survival for college athletics. And the top half of that chart is far more likely to find a way.

So now, if so much hangs on what the Big 12 wants to do?

How much of that conversation is really about what Texas and Oklahoma want to do? Especially considering half of the remaining conference also resides in one of those two states with the same politicians?

I don’t know if playing this fall is the best idea or not. But if you’re looking for teams who are most likely to come alongside it, keep following the money.

There’s no historical context for a 10-game SEC season in the modern era, so sure, you can make the argument that this kind of gauntlet, absent any FCS cupcakes or mid-major challengers, is harder than anything else the Vols have faced before. But as the major talking point is how the Vols are playing five teams in the preseason Top 15 (in the coaches’ poll), it’s a good way to compare what the 2020 Vols might/will face to what Tennessee teams of the past have seen.

(For this piece I used the preseason AP poll data from College Poll Archive, which goes back much farther than their coaches’ poll data.)

Tennessee’s schedule, as you know, is always hard: Florida, Georgia, and Alabama are ever present, ever elite. Alabama has been ranked no lower than third in the preseason AP poll for 11 years in a row, no big deal. Georgia has been ranked third or fourth in the preseason poll the last three years. And though not quite that high in the present, Florida was preseason top five three times under Urban Meyer and eight under Steve Spurrier, including six years in a row from 1994-99. Those teams are always going to be there. The Vols have two top five and three top ten teams on their 2020 schedule, but nothing about that is unusual for Tennessee.

The Vols have also played a historically difficult non-conference opponent each year. Since the league expanded to divisional play in 1992 nearly 30 years ago, Tennessee has faced a preseason Top 15 non-conference foe eight times; Oklahoma would’ve made nine this year.

So, how does playing five preseason Top 15 teams (#3 Alabama, #4 Georgia, #8 Florida, #11 Auburn, #13 Texas A&M) compare to Tennessee’s recent history? Since divisional play began in 1992, only one season can match it: Butch Jones’ first year in 2013, when the Vols played five preseason Top 10 teams: #1 Alabama, #3 Oregon, #5 Georgia, #6 South Carolina, and #10 Florida. (Preseason poll only, so that fun doesn’t include eventual national runner-up Auburn or SEC East champion Missouri, which finished fifth.) Remember that?

In four other seasons since 1992, the Vols have faced four preseason Top 15 teams:

• 2014: #2 Alabama, #4 Oklahoma, #9 South Carolina, #12 Georgia
• 2011: #2 Alabama, #4 LSU, #12 South Carolina, #15 Arkansas
• 2009: #1 Florida, #5 Alabama, #8 Ole Miss, #13 Georgia
• 2006: #7 Florida, #8 LSU, #9 California, #15 Georgia

Again, the preseason poll is prone to error: the Vols beat South Carolina in 2014 and dominated Cal in the 2006 opener. It’s all perception at this point, and an accurate one to say 2020 would be one of the most difficult schedules the Vols have ever faced going in…just not quite at the top of that list. And those Butch Jones Vols in year one were both less talented and had their chances. So if we do play this thing, there’s still reason, even in the midst of nearly unprecedented difficulty, to see opportunity.

We said for weeks if the Vols added one of Auburn/LSU/Texas A&M and one Mississippi school, in any combination, Tennessee would be getting a fair deal. Turns out, not so much: the Vols travel to Auburn and host Texas A&M (for the first time! in front of few/no fans!).

Our immediate takeaways:

The imbalance with Florida and Georgia hurts most. The Gators and Dawgs each play two of the SEC West’s top four teams, AND now they both play Arkansas as well, negating whatever advantage that already provided Tennessee. Georgia added the Hogs and Mississippi State to their already-difficult combo of Alabama and Auburn. Florida, who had the scheduling advantage before the pandemic, keeps LSU and adds Texas A&M while also facing Ole Miss and Arkansas. But the Vols will get Alabama, Auburn, and A&M. That’s two Top 15 SEC West opponents for Florida and Georgia, but three – including Alabama – for Tennessee. This is the biggest gripe, and the biggest block in the way of any dark horse hopes in the SEC East.

Arkansas has the most difficult schedule in the conference. Which makes sense for a team riding a 19-game SEC losing streak? One thing was clear: the league favored its best teams instead of balance across the board. One SEC West team had to play both Florida and Georgia, and the league decided it should be the Razorbacks.

Using the SP+ tier system from our mock schedule, here’s how each division’s schedules rank:

SEC East

• 9 tier points (most difficult): Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee
• 10 tier points: Georgia, Missouri, Vanderbilt
• 11 tier points: Florida

SEC West

• 7 tier points: Arkansas
• 8 tier points: Alabama, Auburn
• 10 tier points: Mississippi State, Texas A&M
• 11 tier points: Ole Miss
• 12 tier points: LSU

For reference, LSU plays Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt. It’s good to be the king, apparently.

How the schedule falls is now the most important thing for Tennessee. Since literally half the schedule is against a Top 15 opponent, the Vols should really hope to see those five teams every other game, alternating between:

• Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Texas A&M
• Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, Vanderbilt

But, as we’ve seen, don’t count on the powers that be in the SEC to show favor to a program that isn’t at the top right now.

One final note: Tennessee’s current athletic director comes from a time when the Vols welcomed anyone, anywhere, anytime.

If they play this thing, we’re gonna need all of that mentality.

Go Vols.

While we’re waiting for the real thing, here’s my best attempt at a mock 10-game league schedule. The guiding principles:

The two new opponents are added based on strength of schedule. I used preseason SP+ data to put each division in four tiers:

• SEC East 1: Florida, Georgia
• SEC East 2: Kentucky, Tennessee
• SEC East 3: Missouri, South Carolina
• SEC East 4: Vanderbilt
• SEC West 1: Alabama
• SEC West 2: Auburn, LSU, Texas A&M
• SEC West 3: Ole Miss, Mississippi State
• SEC West 4: Arkansas

We originally did this exercise to pick new opponents more than three weeks ago, but I made a copy/paste error on Auburn’s schedule and fooled myself into thinking no SEC West team had to play both Florida and Georgia. In reality, someone does, and I went with Auburn for a couple of reasons. The Tigers get the benefit of also playing Vanderbilt. If we anticipated full stadiums, I would’ve given Alabama both the Dawgs and Gators in Tuscaloosa. But that seems out of balance with home field worth far less this year, so this way both Auburn and Alabama play Georgia, then split the rest of the SEC East, with Auburn getting both Florida and Vanderbilt for balance. There’s also still a rivalry factor (I think) with the Gators and Auburn, annual foes before the league switched formats in 2003. Otherwise, I stuck with the two new opponents selected in that piece three weeks ago.

If each tier is worth its designated point value, every team in the league plays a cross-divisional schedule worth either nine or ten points, except now Auburn is at eight points.

Now that we’ve got the teams, the schedule itself:

Division games are played the first seven weeks, with annual rivalries taking up the odd team out slot each week. So from September 26 through November 7, each week would feature six divisional games and one annual rivalry. Every team gets a bye on November 14. This leaves room for any early season cancellations to slide over. Then the existing 2020 rotating opponent is played on November 21 (SEC West hosting this year), so we put SEC East hosts for new games on November 28 and back to the West for the season finale on December 5.

(If you can’t see the full tables, turn your phone to landscape mode or click here for a better look via Google Sheets.)

SEC East

SEC West

It’s not perfect, but really any of those first seven weeks can be moved around. The way I’ve drawn it up, the Vols get Georgia and Florida back-to-back, and Alabama plays four of its first five on the road, something I think we’d have to see the conference office do to believe it. But in a season of weirdness, I like the balance this schedule is built on. Like anything else right now, it seeks to make the best of the given moment.

When the Big Ten announced it was going to conference-only play three weeks ago, we looked at a balanced version of a 10-game SEC schedule if the league elected to move in the same direction. Like the ACC’s version, something like that would involve some willingness to get creative from the league office, to insert themselves in the interests of fairness and balance. That schedule we put together featured no SEC West teams playing both Florida and Georgia, and every SEC East team who played Alabama also playing Arkansas.

Yesterday Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger reported the SEC was indeed looking at a 10-game league schedule, and that the extra two games would come instead from the pre-existing rotation opponents from 2021 and 2022:

So this is a straightforward solution, and it involves no additional decision making from anyone. But how fair is it?

For Tennessee, it’s one of several balanced options. Because the Vols were already playing the presumptive best and worst teams in the SEC West, any combination of one of the Mississippi schools and one of Auburn, LSU, or Texas A&M would’ve been the most fair way to add to Tennessee’s slate. Here the Vols get Ole Miss in Knoxville and LSU in Baton Rouge, giving Tennessee one of the most even slates in the league.

The biggest news for Tennessee: now Florida and Georgia both have to play Alabama. So after a dozen or so years of complaining about it, in 2020 the Vols have zero disadvantage from playing the Crimson Tide in comparison to their SEC East rivals. In fact, consider the balance or lack thereof here:

• Florida: LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama, Texas A&M
• Georgia: Auburn, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi State
• Tennessee: Alabama, Arkansas, LSU, Ole Miss

The Gators had a huge advantage coming into this season with both Georgia and Tennessee playing Alabama. Now? Not only do the Gators pick up the Tide, they get Texas A&M as well. Florida plays three SEC West contenders; the Vols and Dawgs just two.

Also, potential advantage Kentucky:

• Kentucky: Mississippi State, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss

…who doesn’t face Alabama at all and still gets both Mississippi schools. This arrangement is a big boost to the Cats.

In our post three weeks ago, we used the 2020 SP+ projections to put each division in four tiers, and sought to create a schedule with the most balance across the board. In what we came up with, every team’s cross-divisional opponents had a total of nine or ten tier points. If the league just sticks with the future rotations, the tier points would look like this:

• Florida: LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama, Texas A&M (8 tier points)
• Georgia: Auburn, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi State (10)
• Kentucky: Mississippi State, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss (10)
• South Carolina: Texas A&M, LSU, Auburn, Arkansas (10)
• Tennessee: Alabama, Arkansas, LSU, Ole Miss (10)
• Vanderbilt: Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Alabama, Mississippi State (9)

• Alabama: Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Vanderbilt (8 tier points)
• Arkansas: Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, South Carolina (9)
• Auburn: Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Missouri (9)
• LSU: Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky (8)
• Ole Miss: Florida, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Kentucky (9)
• Mississippi State: Missouri, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Georgia (10)
• Texas A&M: South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Missouri, Florida (11)

The winners in this setup: Kentucky to some degree, but look at Texas A&M: no Georgia, no Tennessee, no Kentucky. Meanwhile Alabama is easily the biggest loser here – and hey, if I’m a Bammer, maybe I’m saying screw all this, we’ll beat everybody! – but the difference between their cross-divisional schedule and Texas A&M’s is huge. And Florida, as we’ve discussed, went from one of the East’s easiest slates to its most difficult.

If the SEC does go this route, it’s more simple but less fair.

But not to Tennessee.

If the only certainty right now is uncertainty, college football echoes it best by the absence of any central leadership. The NCAA offers little top-down guidance when it comes to football, and we’re seeing it play out in real time. The simplest solution to a lack of central leadership in college football – the Power Five conferences working together – is already out the window with the Big Ten and Pac-12 going to a league-only model without waiting for (or perhaps even trying to build?) consensus.

That doesn’t mean the most lucrative path forward isn’t Power Five only college football. Stewart Mandel said it best in The Athletic yesterday:

But more than anything, this crisis has laid bare that there are a small handful of schools (the Power 5 and a few others) with the resources to even be trying to field sports teams this fall. The other 200-something Division I athletic departments are just trying to survive until next year.

(He goes on to point out that if the College Football Playoff – governed by a board of managers with equal representation from all ten conferences and Notre Dame – voted to move the CFP to the spring, would individual conferences buck that kind of system to play in the fall anyway?)

Maybe we get a vaccine that works and is widely adopted by the public in time to have a fully-functional football season in the spring. Maybe that leads to college football looking more or less the same, at least on the Power Five level, in 2022: eight or nine conference games, a major out-of-conference games, two mid-majors and an FCS opponent.

But if the maybes get thin, the bottom starts falling out for mid-majors, and no one’s in charge at the top? There’s no telling what college football might look like. There’s no telling if the flow of a season we’ve come to know for almost 30 years since the SEC went to divisional play and dominoes started falling toward the Bowl Alliance and BCS…might’ve been seen for the last time in 2019.

Who knows. But to whatever degree we’re able to think long-term right now, one question becomes, “How could the SEC be improved?”

Things that are normally reserved for fantasy booking now have a chance at reality, even if only because if feels like everything is on the table. For example, if all of college football went wild west, the SEC could just stay as it is and play round robin every year. Thirteen games and a fair champion (unless you get a three-way tie) because everyone plays everyone. Suddenly 8-5 doesn’t look so bad! To make it more interesting for all involved, take your top four teams at the end of the regular season and play an SEC Final Four, with semifinal games at home sites and the SEC Championship in Atlanta. This way 28.5% of your league makes the playoffs, still a far more meaningful number than we usually see in sports.

But this and any scenario that involves removing FCS/mid-major players would fundamentally change an idea that Tennessee and the league’s traditional powers have been chasing for those same 30+ years: perfection is attainable.

I used to believe it’s what made college football great. It’s what happens when you grow up in a time when your team has a chance to go undefeated every year and actually does it once.

But the last dozen years have been both humbling and enlightening. And even before then, I’ve found some of the most enjoyment from some of Tennessee’s most compelling stories, and those came in seasons with plenty of adversity like 2007 in football and 2010 in basketball.

Since 2008, Alabama is 150-17 (.898). The next closest teams in wins are Clemson and Boise State with 133. In winning percentage, it’s Ohio State at .845. And in the SEC, LSU is second-best in the last twelve years with 120 wins. That’s thirty fewer victories in a dozen years.

So who’s to say Alabama wouldn’t just keep winning if they were playing the full SEC gauntlet? Who’s to say new cupcakes wouldn’t emerge over time to replace the old ones? But I think an SEC-only setup that gave four teams from the league a chance to “win it all” every year would do some tremendous good for the mental health of a fan base. Much better than losing to Alabama in the SEC West (or Spurrier’s Florida in the 90’s in the East) and feeling like your whole season is over for one blemish. If you do earn perfection, it means more than ever before. And when you almost certainly don’t, you’re not a crazy person just because your team went 10-3. This kind of setup produces more compelling stories.

It would certainly mean compelling match-ups every time out. The year before the SEC went to divisional play, do you know who Tennessee played in the non-conference in 1991? Louisville, UCLA, Notre Dame, and Memphis (State). There’s saying every game matters, and then there’s scheduling like it. If the “least-appealing” game in your schedule is Vanderbilt, it still counts in the standings. Plus, rivalries past become rivalries present: hello, Auburn. In West Tennessee, hello Ole Miss. And goodbye, disadvantage of being the only SEC East team to play Alabama every year.

This is never the best question to ask to pursue a more fruitful solution, but how much would you mind if something like this happened? If it did, I think the majority of SEC fans would take it. An SEC team has won the national championship 12 times in the last 22 years, plus undefeated Auburn in 2004, plus SEC teams that played for the title and lost in 2013, 2016, and 2018. That’s 16 out of 22 years before we even have to bring up what the Vols did in the SEC Championship Game in 2001. No SEC Champion has anything to prove to anyone. If we just played within our own league every year and crowned a champion, you’d feel just fine about the end result and the champion could still talk trash to Clemson or Ohio State in theory.

Are there better, more inclusive models out there? Sure; we’ll keep fantasy booking and look at some of those another day. But if a worst-case scenario for the SEC with no NCAA leadership and not enough cooperation within Power Five leagues is just to play itself round robin every year? That’s a pretty good safety net.