As SEC schedule debate unfolds, most coaches noncommittal - ESPN

DESTIN, Fla. — Kirby Smart sounded ready to be done with the Southeastern Conference's great schedule debate.

«The most overrated conversation in the world,» the Georgia coach said Tuesday.

As is tradition, the Southeastern Conference took over a resort hotel on the Florida Gulf Coast for its spring meetings this week. The hottest topic is what the nation's toughest football conference plans to do with its schedule starting next season when Texas and Oklahoma join to make it a 16-team league with no divisions.

The options are sticking with an eight-game slate, but shifting to one annual rivalry game instead of the current two, or going to nine games with three annual rivals. The SEC has been trying to figure this out for more than a year.

«I'm a history teacher by trade,» Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz told reporters. «And every time I come to one of these meetings I'm blown away that the 13 colonies actually formed a union, but we can't agree on an eight- or nine-game schedule.»

Either way, punting divisions fixes one big problem for the SEC: Infrequent meetings between some league members.

The most glaring example is Texas A&M has played Georgia just once since joining the SEC in 2012, and the Aggies are still awaiting a visit to College Station by the Bulldogs.

«Four years, you will play everybody, home and away,» said Smart, whose team has won two straight national titles. «I get the traditional rivalries, you have three, you have two, you have one. You have this, you have that. You guys need something to write about bad when you start talking about this.»

Despite Smart's ambivalence, the eight-or-nine conversation does matter a lot to fans.

With an eight-game schedule that protects only one annual opponent,