Voice of reason emerges in SEC schedule debate as Nick Saban shrinks into shadows

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. – Eli Drinkwitz walked the sidewalks here Tuesday, out for a morning stroll while wearing Missouri apparel. If you didn’t know better, he could’ve been a Mizzou fan vacationing. And most folks who walked past Drinkwitz probably didn’t know better. No lines formed of selfie seekers or autograph hunters. As far as SEC football coaches go, Missouri’s Drinkwitz enjoys relative anonymity.

But inside the Hilton Sandestin on the first day of SEC spring meetings, Drinkwitz seized the biggest megaphone. He became an unexpected voice of reason in the great debate on the future of SEC scheduling.

The dialogue continues here on whether the SEC will stick with eight conference games after Oklahoma and Texas join the league in 2024 or increase to nine conference games.

Several SEC coaches who spoke Tuesday should have worn chicken feathers while they clucked toward noncommittal stances. When asked whether they preferred eight or nine conference games, coaches like Nick Saban and Kirby Smart, hemmed, hawed, demurred and declined to plant a flag.

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That stood in stark contrast to Drinkwitz, who staked Missouri as a staunch supporter of a nine-game conference schedule. He ticked off various reasons why an additional conference game makes good sense:

– A nine-game conference schedule would allow for the preservation of more rivalries after the SEC gets rid of divisions following this season.

– SEC games and rivalries fuel fan interest.

– A ninth conference game would pull the SEC equal to the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12. Those leagues have played nine conference games for years.

It’s fairly foreign for a coach to allow fans’ preference to influence his thinking, but as Drinkwitz correctly put it, college athletics’ business model relies on fans remaining interested in the product.

Diminishing the frequency of rivalry games like Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia would do no favors for fan interest, although Drinkwitz admitted some coaches go into self-preservation mode when forming scheduling opinions, rather than considering the big picture.

The SEC's presidents and chancellors will vote on the schedule format, but don't be fooled: coaches' preferences wield influence.

You’d think Saban, who’s coached 21 seasons in the SEC, would have a few opinions on the schedule format.

Alabama’s coach is rarely shy about proselytizing from his bully pulpit, and, in fact, his stumping for a ninth conference game dates to 2012. Back then, the SEC was preparing for its first season as a 14-team league with Missouri and Texas A&M. As Saban told reporters at the time: “When you increase the size of the league by 15%, you've almost got to play more” conference games.

Suddenly, after a 2022 season marked by losses to LSU and Tennessee, the cat has hold of Saban's tongue.

“Whatever happens, happens,” Saban said on the schedule. “There’s so many things that probably sort of go into this, in terms of eight games versus nine games.”

Bawk, bawk, bawk!

Now that Georgia is atop college football, nine conference games might not look so good to Alabama, especially amid a resurgence from both LSU and Tennessee.

This spring, in an interview with Sports Illustrated, Saban bemoaned Alabama’s earmarked rivals of Auburn, LSU and Tennessee in a proposed nine-game model.

How the mighty have fallen.

Saban noted that Alabama already has two Power Five non-conference opponents scheduled for many future seasons. In 2025, for example, Alabama is scheduled to play Wisconsin and Florida State.

A couple of rebuttals to those games being a hindrance: Non-conference games can be canceled or pushed back to future years. Also, other SEC programs like Georgia and Florida have multiple Power Five non-conference opponents scheduled in future seasons, so what’s the issue?

The College Football Playoff will expand to 12 teams in 2024, and the SEC will be eligible for as many as seven bids. In other sports, strength of schedule is an important component in the postseason selection process of at-large bids.

Presumably, the same would be true for football.

Imagine an SEC team going 9-3 amid a robust nine-game conference schedule, plus two additional games against Power Five programs. Those credentials should make it worthy of the CFP.

“To me, it’s all about the College Football Playoff,” Florida coach Billy Napier said. “Is the strength of schedule going to be weighed in a fashion that would benefit the SEC to play nine games?”

While it remains to be seen just how much strength of schedule will influence at-large selection for football, I can’t see how playing fewer conference games in favor of more cupcake games would benefit an SEC school's at-large playoff credentials.

“To be the only Power Five” conference other than the ACC “playing an eight-game schedule, I don’t know that that’s the best look for our league,” Drinkwitz said.

That’s a politically correct way of saying it would be a chicken-poo look for the SEC to stay at eight conference games.

Missouri’s coach has become the voice of reason, while his coaching peers shrink into the shadows.

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.