10/19 NCAA Scheduling Bias
It’s the eve of the annual Alabama – Tennessee matchup, and I thought this was a good time to talk about something that has really bothered me for some time, that is the NCAA and SEC bias towards Tennessee (and arguably against Alabama). I’m not going to talk about the whole NCAA probation thing where the NCAA used the Tennessee coach as a “secret witness” against Alabama. I’m not going to talk about the NCAA dropping an investigation against Tennessee related to academic improprieties, even though ESPN documented case after case after case. I’m not going to talk about the documented payments given to UT’s QB during their national championship year by a UT season ticket holder being ignored because the NCAA deemed that person to not be a booster. I’m not going to talk about the way a UT booster took the father of a UT prospect to the casinos in Tunica, where that father incredibly hit it big, winning thousands and thousands of dollars (miraculously enabling that prospect to transfer from Alabama to Tennessee and pay his own way). I’m not going to talk about any of that. Instead, I’m going to talk about another subject that really gnaws at me, and if you’re a Bama fan, it should really gnaw at you too. That subject is scheduling.
Yes, it might seem that scheduling is a rather mild subject in comparison to everything else that has occurred, but scheduling is something that is out there for public view, and it is not disputable. And when scheduling is done in such a way that it puts one team at a huge disadvantage in comparison to other teams, it’s something that should be examined. And if you don’t think that off-weeks help a team recover from injuries and prepare for a specific team, you’re wrong.
Here is my bone of contention. If you look at Alabama’s schedule, and the schedule of our opponents, you’ll notice something very odd, and to me, very troubling. Five of our opponents (not counting our first opponent), have off-weeks before they play us. Those teams are Arkansas, Florida State, LSU, Mississippi State, and Auburn. Think about that. Of the eleven teams that we play (again, not counting our first opponent), five of them have off weeks immediately before us, giving them an extra week to work their game-plan specifically for us. Doesn’t sound so bad? Let’s look a little deeper. If you consider the placement of the off-weeks to be random, that means that each one of those 11 opponents have 1 off week, so the odds of that random occurrence happening immediately before us is 1 in 11. I worked out the odds, and it turns out that the odds of 5 opponents having off-weeks immediately before they play us is 617 to 1. If it’s a coincidence, then we’re just really, really unlucky!
But let’s look at Tennessee. How many opponents have their off-weeks immediately before playing them? Brace yourself; it’s one. That’s right; one team. Oh, but I’m not done yet. Who is that one team that gets the extra week to tweak the ol’ game-plan before they play the Volunteers? Louisiana-Lafayette. Yep, the dreaded Ragin’ Cajuns. Not only do they only have one team with an off-week before they play them, but it’s a team that has no hope whatsoever of even challenging Tennessee. Again, the teams with off-weeks before they play us are Arkansas, Florida State, LSU, Mississippi State, and Auburn. See the discrepancy?
I actually don’t hate Tennessee. It’s a really good school, and I had some friends earlier in my life that attended UT, and I thought the world of those guys. Plus, I think Fulmer is a really good coach. He recruits very well, he teaches a physical style of football that will always be effective, and he understands clock management, which for some reason seems to be a rare commodity. But something is going on somewhere in the SEC and/or NCAA offices that is giving them an unfair advantage over other teams, and in this case, Alabama is certainly one of those other teams.
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