re: Interesting facts about neutral site games, mostly Bama related.

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A LOT better....but we are screwing the on-campus experience with the bogus games.....It's probably time to feed a quality OOC home game to Town. I can remember when Penn State came to town, along with USC and Notre Dame.

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Since we should keep the neutral site non-conf P5 openers, I think it's better to add a 9th SEC game and ditch the FCS games. With permanent cross-division rivalry games, there's only a single 8th slot for rotating the other 6 cross-division teams. It takes 6 YEARS to rotate back on the schedule! With a 9th SEC game we'd play all 6 rotating teams in 3 years, with only a 2-year gap between a rotating team's home/away flipside:

Years - 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
Week-6 @SC, vsGA, @ FL, vsSC, @GA, vs FL
Week-8 vsTN, @TN, vsTN, @TN, vsTN, @TN
Week12 vsKY, @VB, vsMO, @KY, vsVB, @MO

2019 Schedule with 9 SEC Games (rotations)
Week-1 ns Duke (neutral site non-conf P5)
Week-2 vs G5 team
Week-3 vs Ole Miss
Week-4 at Texas A&M
Week-5 vs G5 team
Week-6 at S Carolina (GA, @FL, SC, @GA, FL)
Week-7 vs Arkansas
Week-8 vs Tennessee (no rotation)
Week-9 OPEN DATE
Week10 vs LSU
Week11 at Miss State
Week12 vs Kentucky (@VB, MO, @KY, VB, @MO)
Week13 at Auburn
Week14 ns SEC Title Game

A 9th SEC game causes 1 more away every other season, but neutral site non-conf openers pay too well to give up for offsetting home/aways. The KY/VB/MO rotation is an easy enough "breather" before the Iron Bowl and SEC-CG.

Simple schedule changes to implement and it's so much better -- in every way! Let's do this!

That scheduling model delivers a much better product offering for ticket sales and TV contract revenues. It also supports existing permanent SEC cross-division rivalries (e.g., UA vs UT, AU vs UGA) and non-conf rivalries -- UF vs FSU, USC vs Clemson, UK vs L'ville, UGA vs GaTech.

The weaker SEC teams are against 9 SEC games because they want bowl eligibility. They could still have a good shot at it by scheduling 3 beatable non-conf teams. That's 3 wins. If they can't win 3 of their 9 SEC games they should be thankful they get equal SEC revenue sharing, and invest that "gift" money more wisely in improving their football programs.

Imo, Sankey should push hard for 9 SEC games.