Scheduling Imbalance - Why it exists and why we're noticing it more now

With so much whining and hand wringing over scheduling I want to talk logically about scheduling imbalance.

Why does it exist?
Why are we noticing it more now?
What can help fix it?
What won't help fix it?

1. Why does it exist?

The root cause of scheduling imbalance is lack of round robin play. Picture a league where everyone played everyone else. The league schedules are 100% balanced. The SEC however is too large for round robin play, meaning some teams will not play other teams. This is the core reason behind scheduling imbalances. If you happen to miss some of the good teams and someone else happens to miss some of the bad teams, there's your imbalance.

2. Why are we noticing it more now?

The closer you are to round robin play, the less likely imbalances will exist and the less chance those imbalances will be large. For the last few decades the SEC has had 12 teams and you played 8 conference games. That's 8/11 matchups you had (72%). The SEC recently expanded to 14 teams and still plays 8 conference games, therefor now there is only 8/13 coverage (61%) What this means is that the odds of major scheduling imbalance are much higher than they were before, which is why it's being noticed so much.

3. What can help fix it?

The closer you get to round robin play, the more you eliminate potential imbalance. Expanding the conference schedule to 9 games will greatly reduce the chance for imbalance. It would get the % roughly back to where it was pre-expansion (9/13 = 69%) It will not eliminate it though, nothing short of full round robin (which is impossible) would completely eliminate it.

4. What won't help fix it?

Switching from permanent opponent cross division rivals to rotating ones will not help scheduling imbalance at all. Even with rotating fixed division opponents there will be years one team draws a few very strong teams and another team draws a few very weak teams. Program's strengths are very fluid. Outside of perennial doormats Vanderbilt and Kentucky, pretty much every team in the SEC has had long periods of being strong, long periods of being mediocre, and long periods of being bad, and even Vandy and Kentucky can have strong teams occasionally. It's impossible to predict long term how strong an opponent will be. So even with rotating cross-divisional play schedule imbalances will occur just through the natural rise and fall of programs.

Cliff Notes:

Scheduling imbalance is real, it exists because there isn't full round robin play, we're noticing it more now because the league is bigger and we're further away from round robin than we were, expanding to 9 conference games will help the situation out somewhat, scrapping permanent opponents for rotating ones will not help the situation out at all.