In a new study done by the folks over at Gridiron Now, the SEC will play the most FCS opponents of any Power 5 conference, for the 3rd time in 4 years.
The SEC has 14 games against FCS opponents, with each league member playing one.
Now if you think this is just a skewed number based on the fact that the SEC has 14 teams, tied for the most of any Power 5 conference, you’d be wrong. The SEC will play 16 games against Power 5 opponents, but that’s just 28.6 percent of the league’s non-conference match ups, which is the second-lowest percentage among Power 5 conference (beating just the Pac-12). The Big 12’s percentage of non-conference games isn’t much higher, but it is higher at 33% (1o of 30 non-conference games against Power 5 teams).
Other notes about the Big 12 scheduling include that Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas are the only schools without an FCS team on the schedule.
All in all, the Big 12 is being carried by a couple of usual suspects in Oklahoma and Texas, who play really solid non-conference games. Also, one of the sneaky impressive non-conference schedules in the Big 12 is Texas Tech. The Red Raiders play a really good FCS opponent in Eastern Washington, then Power 5 Arizona State, and a quality Houston program. It’s not murderer’s row, but it’s pretty darn good.
Of course the SEC continues to do it’s thing where the conference goes around touting how good and deep of a conference it is like it’s still 2007.
Unfortunately for the SEC, it’s not. The conference has become Alabama and everyone else. But the rest of the conference rides Alabama’s coattails, tells the rest of the country how good it is, while playing fairly mediocre non-conference competition.
That’s the SEC’s formula. Thankfully, most people are catching onto it … out of SEC fans, and, of course, ESPN.
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