ON MY MONDAY MIND:
SEC ROAD SCHEDULE DIFFICULTY: Sometimes it’s not so much who you play but where you play them. Here’s a quick glance -and assessment of difficulty- of SEC team’s conference road schedules
GAUNTLET (3 or more Testers)
ALABAMA: @Ole Miss; @Arkansas; @Tennessee; @LSU
Tide travels to all the
real West contender’s stadiums
AUBURN: @Miss St; @Ole Miss; @Georgia; @Alabama
As if the seat wasn’t hot enough for Malzahn
KENTUCKY: @Florida; @Alabama; @Missouri; @Tennessee
At least the Cats get to go to Columbia
MISSISSIPPI ST: @LSU; @Kentucky; @Alabama; @Ole Miss
Even year slates don’t do the Bully Dogs any favors in the West
MISSOURI: @LSU; @Florida; @South Carolina; @Tennessee
Tigers are probably glad to get away from home
GRIND (2 Testers)
FLORIDA: @Tennessee; @Vandy; Georgia (Jax); @Arkansas
I can never figure out how to factor in Jacksonville
ARKASAS: A&M (Arl); @Auburn; @Miss State; @Missouri
I guess Jerry’s World is a road game
LSU: @Auburn; @Florida; @Arkansas; @Texas A&M
Gave the Tigers credit for historically tough stops
OLE MISS: @Arkansas; @LSU; @Texas A&M; @Vandy
Baton Rouge and Fayetteville + College Station =2
SOUTH CAROLINA: @Vandy; @Miss St; @Kentucky; @Florida
Grading post-Spurrier Gamecocks on the curve
TENNESSEE: @Georgia; @Texas A&M; @South Carolina; @Vandy
Vols caught a break with the Aggies and Gamecocks in a down trend
TEXAS A&M: @Auburn; @South Carolina; @Alabama; @Miss State
Game at Auburn may be a coach’s loser leave town match
VANDY: @Kentucky; @Georgia; @Auburn; @Missouri
Everywhere is challenging for the Dores
GOT NAKED PICTURES OF SOMEONE (Scheduled their own)
GEORGIA: @Missouri; @Ole Miss; @South Carolina; @Kentucky
Vince Dooley is still in charge of scheduling I see.
SEC NON-DIVISION SCHEDULE STRENGTH: In a 14-team league that plays only an eight-game league schedule the Division Champion can easily be decided by who plays the most navigable non-division schedule. With that in mind here are the non-division slates for the six teams (Bama, LSU, Ole Miss, Tenn, Ga and Fla) with a true chance to make it to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game.
EAST:
FLORIDA: LSU; @ARKANSAS
GEORGIA: @OLE MISS; AUBURN
TENNESSEE: @TEXAS A&M; ALABAMA
WEST
ALABAMA: KENTUCKY; @TENNESSEE
LSU: MISSOURI; @FLORIDA
OLE MISS: GEORGIA; @VANDY
SYNOPSIS:
-All six teams vying for a division championship have one of the contenders on their schedule
-Georgia (@Miss); Alabama (@Tenn) and LSU (@Fla) have to travel to play their cross-division contender which may provide a slight advantage to Florida and Tennessee in the East and Ole Miss in the West
-Alabama and Ole Miss catch a break in the West race with the Tide playing Kentucky and Rebels catching Vandy. LSU on the other hand gets Missouri who isn’t exactly a pick-to-click in 2016
-All of the East contenders have two testers from the West which isn’t surprising since that side of the conference is still much stronger from top-to-bottom
-Tennessee appears to have the toughest non-division slate with perennial SEC Champion contender Alabama in Knoxville and a trip to College Station since the Aggies appear stronger in 2016 than either Arkansas (Fla) or Auburn (@Ga)
FAVORITE INTERSECTIONAL OPPONENT: After my Friday tirade on the
Tony Basilio Show concerning the SEC’s cowardly scheduling I started thinking just how lucky we are that Tennessee has rarely subscribed to this approach. Through my period of fandom, the Vols have squared off with Cal, Clemson, Iowa, Miami-Fla, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oregon, Syracuse, UCLA and USC in regular season series at times when all were very strong.
With that in mind my favorite series of the bunch has been with UCLA. The Vols and Bruins have met 15 times with Tennessee holding a slight 7-6-2 edge. The significance of the games seems staggering considering the modest number of meetings:
1965 The 37-34 Rose-Bonnet Bowl win in Memphis vaulted Tennessee back into the national spotlight.
1967 The Bruins got their revenge with a 20-16 win in Los Angeles and QB Gary Beban went on to win that year’s Heisman Trophy
1974 Condredge Holloway came back from the hospital and onto the field to lead a furious late-game drive to secure a 17-17 tie
1985 The Bruins scored the last 16 points of the game to force a 26-26 tie but Tennessee was clearly as good as a UCLA team that the week before had beaten 8th ranked BYU in Provo. The Vols performance left my lifelong buddies Jeff and Tim Friar and I agreeing from our perch in Z-12 (where we remain today) that we had a
“damn-good football team”.
1989 Tennessee introduced the Cobb-Webb tandem to America in route to bludgeoning the 6th ranked Bruins 24-6 in Pasadena. The house-full of guests watching the telecast beamed into my living room via a satellite dish that looked like a UFO -in the days when EVERYTHING was in the clear- agreed we had a
“damn-good football team”.
1997 Peyton and the Vols defeated the Bruins 30-24 as Fab-5 Freddy and I were in attendance. It marked my first and only trip to the venerable Rose Bowl and my first of many to Las Vegas.
2008 Unranked UCLA beat the #18 Volunteers 27-24 in OT in what was the beginning of the end of the Phillip Fulmer era.
Honorable Mention:
NOTRE DAME: The 1979, 90 and 91 games are some of the most memorable in Tennessee’s long history
WHO’S NEXT: I certainly hope the Vols will always be at the forefront of playing quality non-conference games and recent history suggests they will. My top three suggested opponents for future series would be:
3-Ohio State: The Buckeyes and Vols have only played once (1995 Citrus Bowl) and never in the regular season. People still talk about the game in Orlando and Urban Meyer’s Florida history would spice up the affair even more.
2-Texas: The only meeting since 1952 was the Cotton Bowl on January 1st 1969 and I’m not sure I’m over that ass-whippin yet. We need to settle who’s the real UT however and I don’t think Charlie Strong will break out the Wishbone on us.
1-Michigan: Two of the great college football programs of all-time who seem to mirror one-another in many ways. The only meeting was Tennessee’s decisive 45-17 win in whatever the Bowl was called in Orlando at that time.
MONDAY MUSING: Butch Jones needs to investigate what turned the diving pool green in Rio and apply that to Shields-Watkins Field. That way we wouldn’t have to resod the playing surface in December to impress kids that don’t know grass turns brown in winter.