Miles: Division games should decide all
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| LSU coach’s message to A&M, Mizzou: ‘Strap it up’
By RICHARD FISCHER
Tiger Rag Assistant Editor
Death, taxes and Les Miles sound bites.
Those are three of the surest things in life, and Tuesday at The Club in Birmingham, Ala., the Mad Hatter didn’t disappoint.
When commenting on the additions of Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC, Miles summed it up as only Miles could, as reported by Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News.
“I would say strap it up,” Miles said. “They’re going to really not enjoy their welcoming to this conference.”
Strap it up, indeed.
But the expansion of the league to 14 teams also brings up an interesting debate.
Miles is among a rising number of people, including several league coaches, who feel that record against division foes should be the only games used to crown a division champion. That means that (in the new format with six division games and two crossover games) the coach would like for LSU’s games versus the Eastern Division (as well as everyone else’s crossover games) to not count in the SEC standings.
“Whoever’s playing Alabama and LSU on the other side, they’re playing a very difficult opponent year in and year out and their opportunities to win their division will be reduced by the percentage of times they finish second in that game,” Miles said, according to the Birmingham News.
It must be pointed out that no American professional sport disregards conference games as if they were non-conference games, nor uses only division games to crown a division champion. On the other hand, however, no American professional sport has an unbalance like the SEC is slated to have where every team will not play five teams within its league.
“I want the schedule to be fair and I want it to give everybody the same opportunity,” Miles said, according to the Birmingham News. “I’m for the Western Division deciding the Western Division champion and the Eastern Division deciding the Eastern Division champion.”
Of course, this train of thought will foster debates regarding whether the league should even have crossover games, locked crossover games (ex: LSU vs. Florida; Alabama vs. Tennessee, etc.) or if the league should expand to nine-conference games.
The league’s representatives will hold their annual spring meetings in Destin, Fla. May 29-June 1 and discuss the issues above, among a bevy of other topics made necessary by the addition of two more teams. It is incredibly unlikely the SEC will adopt any changes for the 2012 season, but a main focus of the meetings are to adopt a permanent schedule and system for crowning a champion moving forward.
Check back to TigerRag.com for information from the SEC spring meetings, because we should know a lot more about the future of the league in a month.
Also, special thanks to Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News. CLICK HERE to read his full story.
Actually, it’s only 5 teams (about a third) that each team won’t play under the current format.
And I am against any permanent inter-divisional opponents like Auburn-UGA, LSU-Florida, and Bama-Tennessee.
There should be a rotating schedule for each inter-divisional matchup.
Les is right about the divisional games being the best way to determine division champs. The inter-division games could be used as a tie-breaker in the event of a 3-way tie. (head to head would be used in a 2-team tie)
Geaux Tigers!
Strap it up!
You’re right. Thanks for the correction and comment.
-Richard
“When commenting on the additions of Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC, Miles summed it up as only Miles could, as reported by Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News”.
Quote Les Miles: “I would say strap it up,” Miles said. “They’re going to really not enjoy their welcoming to this conference.”
Me:
I wish that Les Miles would just shut up about telling A&M, Missouri, to strap it up.
How does that kind of talk help his 2012 LSU football team?
I mean please, whats with all that “boasting”.
Remember when Les Miles said ” I would be very proud to play that team again”
Alabama 21 vs LSU 0…All that bull talk is getting old.
You bayou rednecks better be ready to strap it on when you come to college station this fall! It’s time for you to come out and get your beating! A&M - SEC West Champs 2012.
12th Man LSU will get that beating like ya’ll did in the Cotton Bowl couple years back. ha ha ha. I don’t agree with miles about only division games should count. Why play the other division at all. It will mean the same as any out of conf game. We are the SEC and every SEC game you play should count. You want to be National Champs then win SEC first.
If the games against teams in the opposite division don’t count in determining the division champions, then why play them? All they can do is hurt your national ranking. Georgia winning the East this past year without playing LSU, Alabama, or Arkansas was a rare event. And they got their comeuppance in the championship game anyway. Don’t base the long term scheduling system on an anomaly.
I do favor eliminating the perennial games that pit LSU against Florida, Arkansas against South Carolina, etc. They were put into the system when the SEC expanded to 12 teams to preserve the Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia rivalries. But this is a new age and compromises must be made. From an excitement point of view, I’d love to see nine conference games. I’m not going to drive to BR to watch LSU play Towson State but would certainly go if that game were against another SEC foe. But I am sympathetic to the coaches’ argument that nine games would be beating each other up too much and would decrease the odds that our champion will be undefeated and finish in the top four to make the playoff that will start in 2014. So I’m happy with eight conference games, all counting in the standings, but with two opponents from the opposite division rotating in and out on a home-and-home basis.