Fixing the SEC's failure to create balanced 2020 schedules

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The outcry from Arkansas fans was immediate.

It started as soon as Florida and Georgia flashed up on the SEC Network as the Razorbacks’ two extra opponents in the 10-game, conference-only slate for 2020 and only picked up steam as national media weighed in.

“Arkansas is about to live out the SMU death penalty without being put on the death penalty,” wrote Big Ten reporter Rainer Sabin on Twitter. “Could take years for Hogs to recover.”

“When looking at the entire puzzle - it’s what the league wants you to do! - we don’t see the fairness in this decision at all,” wrote Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger. “Arkansas got the shaft.”

“Poor Sam Pittman,” wrote AL.com editor John Talty. “The excitable ‘Yes Sir!’ head coach got nothing but coal from commissioner Greg Sankey on Friday.”

The SEC claimed it was aiming for fairness. Sankey said in a statement that the conference aimed to “create a schedule that is as competitive as possible” and the SEC Network crew implored viewers to “look at the entire puzzle” and “think of it as a whole.”

It’s important to note that stronger teams will have a weaker strength of schedule and vice versa - LSU doesn’t have to play LSU and Arkansas doesn’t get to play Arkansas, after all - but that can be removed when looking only at the crossover games.

Two - one permanent, one rotating - were already on each team’s schedule. Looking at the entire puzzle and thinking of it as a whole would mean looking at those, as well as the two extra ones revealed Friday evening.

On the surface, Arkansas and Missouri adding the top two teams from the other division appeared to be the conference blatantly trying to, as Dellenger put it, give them “the shaft,” while Alabama, LSU and Georgia seemingly got favorable treatment from the conference.

Upon further inspection, though, the Tigers were already slated to play Mississippi State and Arkansas. Those two schools finished fifth and last, respectively, in the division and combined to go just 3-13 in conference play last year, making it the easiest pair of previously scheduled crossover games in the SEC.

Even after adding LSU and Alabama to its schedule, the combined conference record of Missouri’s four SEC West opponents is just 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’s important to note that they already had Georgia and Tennessee - which finished first and third, respectively, in the East last year - on their schedule. The combined SEC records of Alabama’s four cross over opponents is actually a tough 18-14.

As good of a job as the SEC did balancing those schedules, it completely botched some others.

The Razorbacks were already scheduled to Missouri and Tennessee, and then picked up Georgia and Florida. Those four teams went a combined 21-11 in SEC play last season, making it by far the toughest crossover schedule. It’s two games tougher than South Carolina’s slate (19-13) and three games tougher than Alabama and Auburn’s slates (18-14).

By adding Missouri and Vanderbilt to its previously scheduled games against Florida and South Carolina, LSU’s crossover opponents have a just 13-19 combined record - which is the easiest schedule in the conference.

There is an eight-game difference between the toughest crossover schedule (Arkansas’ at 21-11) and the easiest (LSU's at 13-19). As seen in the chart below, there’s also a five-game difference between the second-toughest and next easiest slates.

With the addition of two more cross-division opponents, Arkansas became the only school who has all six of the SEC’s teams in the preseason coaches poll on its schedule. Not only that, but all six are among the top 13 schools.

“We already owned the nation’s strongest 2020 football schedule and with these additions to our SEC only schedule, we now own the most challenging schedule in the history of college football,” Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek said in a statement.

Assuming the entire schedule is played, that might not be hyperbole from the Arkansas AD. But did it have to be that way?

Despite the SEC’s (alleged) desire for a balanced schedule, it came up well short of that (alleged) goal. In only a few hours and without the help of computer algorithms or fancy metrics, HawgBeat came up with a much more balanced schedule.

In fact, our schedule below has just a three-game difference between the “toughest” and “easiest” individual slates.

The Razorbacks would still have one of the more difficult schedules, but instead of Georgia, they’d play South Carolina. Their SEC opponents’ combined conference record from 2019 would be just 17-15, though, matching that of Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.

Auburn, Florida and Mississippi State would have the easiest slates, with their cross-division opponents having matching 14-18 combined conference records.

Here is what that would look like…

The only tool we had at our disposal while creating this was a blank Excel spreadsheet that we filled in with each team’s previously scheduled crossover games and then used to piece together the rest of the puzzle.

Obviously using the previous season’s conference record isn’t the best way to determine the strength of schedule because teams change from year to year. For example, will LSU be as dominant without Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow?

Just for fun, we also used Bill Connelly’s SP+ preseason ratings to come up with how difficult the schedules are expected to be in 2020. We won’t bother you with all of the numbers, but we did decrease the standard deviation - how much the schedules vary in difficulty - by about 4 percent.

And that was on our first attempt to redo the schedule. Given the benefit of more time and resources, it wouldn’t be surprising if it could be tweaked even more to further balance the crossover slates.