Born in 1992, who knew it could be eliminated 34 years later. With the expansion era and the looming specter (read: it’s gonna happen) of CFP expansion to 24 teams, it seems the extra game isn’t doing anyone any favors. If you don’t believe me, hear it from Kirby Smart, who’s on the mother, as always.
Shorter Smart, fi you didn’t expand the Twix:
“Where we are right now with 12 teams, I don’t necessarily agree that it needs to quit being played. But if it gets to 16 or 24 and we’ve got to move the end of the season up and we’ve got to get everything done by the second week of January, then I’d say it probably has to go.”
Roy Kramer’s vision is being eclipsed by the expanding need for money. If it goes away, call me crazy, but it feels like the spirit of the game goes away, too. There’s a palpable difference between Sankey and Kramer, and if you can’t feel it, you need to head to the doctor and get your pulse checked.
Sigh.
Roy Kramer pretty well dictated college football protocol (not just in the SEC) during his tenure. Greg Sankey rolls over for the integer conference and gives it up like a prom date. No comparison. You notice how UGAs schedule has been noticeably tougher since Kirby dissed Sankey at the SECCG trophy presentation a couple of years ago?
Agree. “This guy is no Roy Kramer”.
It is a great game and by far the best of the conference championship games. It will be sad to see it go, but I tend to agree that in today’s setup the SECCG basically just punishes the two best teams in the conference. When you are okay with missing the game so you can rest your team and avoid injuries you know it is time to end it.
On the bright side Auburn will have more opportunities to claim false titles (in the conference) going forward with the likelihood of shared SEC Champions increasing.
Translated sadly to reality. If the playoff money is as good as the conference championship game there’s no reason to play that extra game.
If the championship game goes away would interest increase in the regular season. Remember those days? All of Butts’s and Dooley’s conference championships?
Butts: 1942, 1946, 1948, and 1959. I know the 1959 championship was shared. I don’t remember if any of the other 3 were shared and I am to lazy to look it up.
Dooley: 1966, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1981 and 1982.
I believe 1966 was shared. I know 1976 was shared, as was 1980.
Who was 1980 shared with? I think you are thinking about 1981 shared with Bama.
The clowns making decisions for college football have killed so much, what’s one more great thing? I still say go back to 1985 conference alignment. Go back to 10 games. Make a big east for the independents of tat time. Screw notre dame. Play conference championships and have an 8 team playoff. Regional rivalries can come back (Georgia vs Clemson) and the networks get a de facto 16 team playoff.
Damn, Kirby. For being someone who likes to say we’ll play anyone, any time, anywhere, you sure seem to be backing off that at this point in your career.
First, we’re seeing the long-scheduled, high profile OOC games go away rather than a rent a win cupcake to make way for the 9th conference game.
Now, we’re seeing Kirby talk about ending the SEC championship game. Does he understand there’s only going to be one trophy that matters going forward? (We wouldn’t have won the SEC trophy the last 2 years in this arrangement … no numbers on the wall).
The Senator was right. Conference realignment and playoff expansion are going to kill the sport we love.
1. The “wear and tear” from an additional game on the two best teams in the conference is “unfair”, particularly since one of them (soon to be both under 16-team format) will be playing in a week or two, most likely against a team that has had an addition week of rest. Which brings us to
2. Conference championship weekend is an impediment to schedule compression, which is desperately needed so that the football season can end in early January – we should be playing semi-finals on New Years Day, not quarterfinals, but they can’t currently do that because conference championship weekend adds an extra week. Under the new format, everyone gets one rest weekend after “Rivalry Week”, and then we jump straight to the first round in early December, quarterfinals in mid-December, semi-finals on January 1 and championship game by January 10thish.
All that said, the SEC Championship Game is a tremendous spectacle with a ton of juice, and the (inevitable) “shared” championships are definitely a downside of losing the game….
PS – I also saw something last week about them trying to get the season to start the weekend before the weekend before Labor Day (current week zero). I believe the gist of it was to give everyone two byes (which has merit), but it will be hot as ****. Also think “Rivalry Week” should stay the weekend after Thanksgiving, as people have time off, etc.
In the words of Tommy Lee Jones from The Fugitive:
https://youtu.be/hZ7-II9DooE?si=D4cQ695jpRetIB10
Kirby hasn’t come out against playoff expansion, so I assume he’s for it. If he wants to be measured by winning the ESPN Invitational at the end of every season, I don’t think he’s going to like the result.
Or he could just be resigned to the fact that playoff expansion is seemingly inevitable.
He’s been pretty vocal about how much he values the SEC title game, and the quote above sounds like it’s in response to a specific hypothetical. IF the playoff expands, and IF they’re trying to wrap up the season by the second week of January, then it doesn’t leave much room for championship weekend. That seems to be more of a fact than an opinion. And you can only move up the start of the season so much because of the academic calendar.
The bottom line is that if he isn’t going to defend the importance of the regular season and a conference championship by resigning himself to expansion, then he’s going to be evaluated by whether his team wins the only trophy that matters.
how in the hell is the SEC going to be decided with 16 teams? there could be 2-3 co champs every damn year. nuts.
Bama, Auburn and Texas approve this message. Plenty of space to hang banners.
Conference championship game is likened to “NFC East championship game”….it doesn’t really matter anymore.
If I want to watch the NFL, I’ll watch that product on Sunday. There’s a reason I don’t … that’s because I prefer the traditional Saturday product.
Still believe the in the real SEC. 10 teams from close areas with a lot in common. Stretched too far and no long time rivalries. That was just damn good football! Old guys like me ain’t liking this new football order, but it is what it is! Go Dawgs!!
FTMF….Create a problem for greed (playoff expansion) and then blame something that was not a problem in order to fix it. Sankey talks about breaking away from one side of his mouth then likely will agree to kill the greatest property the conference owns from the other. They are f*king everything and every fan to accommodate a farcical group of 16 to represent a mythical national championship controlled by Disney not the NCAA. So close to checking out. Clearly no hope of sanity ever coming back. Might as well make Pat McAfee and his bro brothers commissioners of CFB.