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It will only be a matter of time before the Southeastern Conference makes a final decision on moving to a possible nine-game schedule.
The league currently plays in an eight-game schedule, with each member school playing four non-conference contests throughout the season. A nine-game schedule is possible in the future and Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart expects that “decision is going to obviously come pretty quickly.”
Barnhart favors the current eight-game format, which allows the Wildcats to play as many as eight home games per year. The format also gives the Wildcats three home games against non-conference teams per season, combined with an alternating home-and-home contest against in-state foe Louisville.
“There’s no mystery on where I stand,” Barnhart said. “Eight’s better for Kentucky. There’s obviously financial components to it, there’s competitive components to it, there’s components to it as it relates to our ability to have seven home games or eight home games. We’ve been fortunate about every two-plus years, we’ve been able to have eight home games. … If we have nine conference games, the chances of doing something like that get a little bit harder for us.”
During SEC Media Days last month, commissioner Greg Sankey said the league is considering its options.
“We’re going to continue to evaluate whether increasing the number of conference football games is appropriate for us,” Sankey said last month. “As I’ve said repeatedly, understanding how the CFP will evaluate strength of schedule and even strength of record is critically important in our decision-making.”
Barnhart said the league’s athletic director meetings set for this month will likely provide a path moving forward.
“There’s probably a pretty good chance that’s on the docket and then some decision comes out of that,” he said.
Barnhart added that league expansion is an ongoing possibility and didn’t rule out any future additions.
“I think there’s always change, and we keep talking about that at a pretty high level in different areas,” he said. “Never say never to change. We’ll be ready to respond to it, but I think our focus for what we’re doing, we’ve got to make sure that, No. 1, from the Southeastern Conference perspective we’re paying attention to the environment and the landscape within our teams and then making sure that at Kentucky we’re ready to respond to what’s going on in the world of college athletics.”
A month into the House settlement that changed the landscape of college athletics, Barnhart said Kentucky is adjusting to the changes as it continually shifts.
“The change that has occurred has been massive,” he said. “We don’t even have a governance structure in place really, to be honest with you. You’re asking people to say, hey, this is absolutely a highway or the pathway we’re supposed to go down. I don’t think that’s a reality in anybody’s world. There’s going to be a clunkiness to it and a getting started piece to all of this, and hopefully the waters will smooth a little bit, but it is going to be a little bit clunky at the beginning.”
2 Responses
I'd say in the next 2-3 years there will be a 9 game SEC schedule. Mark better evolve the program or kick rocks. I've never seen a coach so scared of his own conference schedule. Yes it's the SEC but get out of it if you don't want to compete with the other teams. We need a coach that will laugh at a 9 game schedule not run from it. All he talks about is how hard the schedule is well buddy we play in the mini NFL. Learn how to win in it or leave. The same way we are in basketball. How everyone circles the Kentucky game that's not the case in football. Georgia and Alabama get the best players like we do in basketball. Some schools like Florida and Alabama. Are great at both basketball and football. So it is possible. I would even argue Football is much harder to coach then basketball. Football is like chess basketball is like checkers. You have to have a excellent football coach to win. In basketball you can get a recruiting class that changes the culture in 1 year. In football it usually takes 3 years to do the same thing. In basketball tons of freshman start. In football usually guys don't get playing time until at least there second year. With the transfer portal and player movement you have to be ahead of the game in football. You have to have a extra smart coach. I don't think Stoops is the brightest bulb on the tree. In fact I think he might be the third smarter brother of the Stoops clan. If we would had gotten Bob Stoops he would have won a SEC championship at least by now or taken us to a playoff or 2. Mark just can't get it done. I think he is putting the right effort back into coaching but this might be a year too late. I would love for Mark Stoops to be the defensive coordinator at Kentucky. Just not the head coach. I've never seen someone so bad at offense as a head coach. If your a great defensive mind coach
You have to have a great offensive coordinator. You also have to let him call the plays knowing you know nothing about offense. That's why we are so bad on offense. Stoops wants to dictate the plays and he couldn't call offensive plays for a high school team. He sticks his foot in his own mouth.
The Crystal ball that I'm looking at doesn't see much of a chance at staying with an eight game schedule. With revenue sharing, et al, the temptation and need for additional revenue will be relentless. The real danger is over exposure and professionalization of the sport of "amateur" college football. As college football becomes more professionalized, the sport loses much of its romantic appeal of the every day athlete making a big splash in college athletics. It will become the European model of developing phenoms at earlier and earlier ages thus leaving out the average guy. Inevitably, the sport will lose that portion of the audience.
We can already see the monetization of the sport but soon, the viewership will be completely monetized. Already ESPN is playing around with the NFL taking away TV viewership in favor of the NFL channel. Soon, the same thing will happen college football. Then college football will simply be NFL-lite.