An Interesting Post

Football readers might've missed it because it got buried by a lengthy post on turnover trends, but I direct anyone interested to CFR's post on teams playing 8 home games this year. I added a lengthy comment to it, and wanted to expound a bit.

Basically, I agree with CFR in that teams playing 8 home games should be shamed. I looked at it a little closely, and it seems like for most of the teams, the 8 home game thing is an aberration, and going forward these schools aren't planning on making a habit of it. Let's all hope. Because if teams are successful playing these kinds of schedules, you'll just see more teams try to mimic it, and there'll be a significant division between teams playing almost all home or all road OOC games, plus more 1-AA opponents, both bad things. It's a prescription for a permanent elite and permanent underclass. Teams will be playing on unlevel playing fields.

How to fix it to ensure that it doesn't happen much in the future? Let the conferences impose caps on home games. The SEC is requiring all teams to play Thanksgiving weekend. Why not require the same kind of equality when it comes to home/away games. Arguably, this is within the purview of the leagues, since when only a few teams in a conference have the added benefit of a few million each year from an extra home game or two, the schools aren't playing by the same rules. It's one thing to bring in more revenue by putting a better product on the field or by adding more seats, but extra home games seems a little different.

Anyway, when is Auburn going to learn from the shit that was pulled on them in 2004-5? They really don't have an excuse for such a weak schedule.