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The shock of Arkansas fans was immediate.
It started as soon as Florida and Georgia on the SEC Network lightning, when the two additional opponents of the Razorbacks in the 10-game, only conference slate for 2020 and only picked up steam as national media waited in line.
“Arkansas is on the verge of serving the SMU death sentence without committing the death penalty,” wrote Big Ten reporter Rainer Sabin on Twitter. “Could take years for Hogs to recover.”
‘If you look at the whole puzzle – it’s what the league wants you to do! – we do not see the fairness in this decision at all, “wrote Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated. “Arkansas has the hull.”
“Poor Sam Pittman,” wrote AL.com editor John Talty. ‘The Exciting’ Yes sir! ‘s head coach received nothing but coal from Commissioner Greg Sankey on Friday. ”
The SEC claimed it was focused on fairness. Sankey said in a statement that the conference was intended to “create a scheme that is as competitive as possible” and the SEC Network crew asked viewers to “look at the whole puzzle” and “consider it as a whole.”
It’s important to note that stronger teams have a weaker strength of schedule and vice versa – LSU does not have to play LSU and Arkansas does not have to play in Arkansas – but that can be removed if only after the crossover match.
Two – one permanent, one rotating – were already on each team’s schedule. Looking at the whole puzzle and remembering it as a whole would mean looking at it, as well as the two extras that were revealed Friday night.
On the surface, Arkansas and Missouri added the top two teams from the other division appeared to be blatantly trying to get the conference, as Dellenger put it, to give them “the torso”, while Alabama, LSU and Georgia apparently received favorable treatment from the conference.
Upon further inspection, though, the Tigers were already scheduled to play Mississippi State and Arkansas. Those two schools finished fifth and last in the division, respectively, and combined to go just 3-13 in conference play last year, making it the easiest pair of previously planned crossover games in the SEC.
Even after adding LSU and Alabama to their schedule, the combined conference record of SECour West’s four opponents from West West is only 17-15.
On the flip side, the Crimson Tide landed games against Kentucky and Missouri, two of the three SEC East teams that went 3-5 in conference play last season. However, it is important to note that they had Georgia and Tennessee – which last year and last year respectively in the East – on their schedule. The combined SEC records of Alabama’s four cross-over opponents are actually a solid 18-14.
As good as a job as the SEC balanced schedules, it completely clashed some others.
The Razorbacks had already planned to Missouri and Tennessee, and then picked up Georgia and Florida. Those four teams went into a combined 21-11 in SEC play last season, making it by far the toughest crossover scheme. It’s two games harder than the South Carolina slate (19-13) and three games harder than Alabama and Auburn’s slate (18-14).
By adding Missouri and Vanderbilt to their previously scheduled games against Florida and South Carolina, LSU’s crossover opponents have a just 13-19 combined record – which is tied with Mississippi State for the easiest schedule.
There is an eight-game difference between the toughest crossover scheme (Arkansas’ at 21-11) and the easiest (LSU and Mississippi State’s at 13-19). As can be seen in the chart below, there is also a difference of five games between the second-most expensive and next-most easy slats.
With the addition of two more cross-division opponents, Arkansas became the only school to have all six of the SEC’s teams in demand for the preseason coaches on its schedule. Not only that, but all six are among the top 13 schools.
“We already own the nation’s strongest football schedule of 2020 and with these additions to our only SEC schedule, we now have the most challenging schedule in the history of college football,” Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek said in a statement.
Assuming the full schedule is played, that may not be hyperbole from the Arkansas AD. But did it have to be that way?
Despite the SEC’s desire for a balanced scheme, it fell short of that (predetermined) goal. In just a few hours and without the help of computer algorithms or fancy metrics, HawgBeat came up with a much more balanced scheme.
Indeed, our scheme below simply has a three-game difference between the ‘hardest’ and ‘easiest’ individual ladders.
The Razorbacks would still have one of the tougher schedules, but instead of Georgia, they would play South Carolina. However, their combined record of their 2019 SEC opponents would be just 17-15, although it matches that of Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.
Auburn, Florida and Mississippi State would have had the easiest leagues, with their cross-division opponents holding the corresponding 14-18 combined conference records.
Here’s what it would look like …
The only tool we had when creating this was a blank Excel worksheet that we filled in with each team’s previously planned crossover games and then we used the rest of the puzzle together.
Of course, using last season’s conference report is not the best way to determine the strength of schedule, as teams change from year to year. For example, would LSU be as dominant without Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow?
Just for fun, we also used Bill Connelly’s SP + keywords for preseason to come up with how difficult the schemes are expected to be in 2020. We will not worry you with all the figures, but we have reduced the standard deviation – how much the schemes differ in difficulty – by about 4 percent.
And that was on our first attempt to recreate the scheme. Given the benefit of more time and resources, it would not be surprising if it could be further adapted to further balance the crossover readings.
