GoVolsXtra.Com: SEC Schedule is Hard (really!?!)

If you haven't seen this Michael Vick skit from SNL, then you have no appreaciation for the tone of that "really?" in the title for this post...so watch that first:



Now that you fully appreciate it...read this article from John Adams (the college football writer, not the former president) over at GoVolsXtra.com:

http://www.govolsxtra.com/news/2007/aug/05/adams-scheduling-provides-big-edge-sec-chase/

Really, John Adams!?! SEC teams that play a lot of tough teams in a row are at a disadvantage? Cutting edge stuff right there.

Of course certain teams are going to have it tougher from year to year. Any South Caolina fan starts to sweat when anyone mentions the words "Orange Crush" simply because for many recent years, our schedule ended with Tennessee, Florida and Clemson. I mean, thank Mike Silve (or God, or whoever you pray to) that the SEC saw fit to at least move Tennessee up on our schedule and replace them with...Arkansas. Just in time for Arkansas to have a Heisman candidate at running back. Thanks for that one, Mikey.

Adams does make a valid point that some teams have scheduled easy non-conference opponents during the middle of the conference schedule to gain almost another bye week. And I guess, Mr. Adams would find South Carolina guilty of this because they scheduled the battle of the Carolinas in the middle of the SEC schedule. But if SC was trying to gain an advantage by doing this, man, did they sure screw up.

The opponent the week before?? Kentucky. The opponent the week after?? Vanderbilt. Man, I almost feel like we're cheating by sandwiching a nonconference game inbetween those two. Not to mention the fact that the nonconference game is against a team from the ACC, not (insert mid-major conference here).

If you need better (IMHO) reinforcement that SEC teams face the toughest schedules each year, try this article from SI.com:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/football/ncaa/06/19/schedules.top25/4.html

In their list of the toughest schedules for 2007, 5 of the top 10 are SEC schools. 8 of the top 25 are in the SEC.

South Carolina comes in at #2 in this college football (read: unscientific) poll. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure this is one poll in which we don't want to be ranked in the top 10.