Thirteen Days

The Playhouse's long and not-so-well-deserved (we didn't have a great year last season) vacation ended a few weeks ago, when we closed ourselves off from the rest of civilization in preparation of actual games, which are only 13 days away. It's been hard, laborious work, reading the local papers from around the country, consuming all the preview mags and running our power numbers, but come January, we anticipate that it will turn out to be time well spent.

Our loyal reader (intentionally singular) can expect regular posts from now until the end of college hoops.


SEC Scheduling

The non-conference schedule of a typical SEC school is a bit like Tiger Woods' golf game, terrible and full of excuses. It's been this way for years, and, honestly, because of the BCS they have little incentive to step out of conference and play quality opponents, especially on the road. Nonetheless, it's still embarrassing.

The Playhouse counted 16 "games" in which the respective SEC teams could drop blotter acid ten minutes before kickoff and still win by three touchdowns. These foes include powerhouses such as Tennessee Tech, Tennessee Chattanooga, McNeese State, Jacksonville State, Louisiana Monroe (three times), Louisiana Lafayette (twice), Alcorn State, Charleston Southern, Idaho State, Furman, Tennessee Martin, Western Kentucky, Charleston Southern and Applachian State, who Florida for some reason scheduled for Nov. 20. Further, SEC teams play only nine games against teams from other BCS conferences, with only one of them coming on the road (Georgia @ Colorado).

Compare that with the Pac-10, whose teams for the most part always challenge themselves out of conference. By the Playhouse's count, the Pac-10 plays only seven "blotter-acid games" and 14 against teams either from other BCS conferences or ones more than likely to be bowl eligible at year's end (Houston, Boise State, TCU, BYU and Notre Dame). Eight of those games are on the road. 

Of course, an SEC apologist will say that because the league is so difficult, so much more intense and physically demanding than all others their schools would be foolish to schedule any other way. It's true, but only to a point. The conference has indeed had the most players on NFL rosters for the last seven years. But the numbers are not so disproportionate as to necessitate some of the crap they play in September. As of 2008, for example, the ACC had only five fewer players playing on Sunday. It's a disservice to the league to be playing these games at this rate.