Predicting the SEC's Expanded 2020 schedule for every team
By Jake Wimberly:
Yesterday was a wild ride in college football as the SEC joined other Power Five conferences in selecting to play an all conference only schedule, due to the novel Cornonavirus Pandemic.
It was a move that was expected, but with possibly an option for one out of conference game. That didn’t happen and the league will now play 10 conference games, that will begin on September 26th; the league will play their annual conference title game in Atlanta on December 19th.
Once news broke of an expanded league schedule, instantly everyone started scurrying to figure out how the league might expand each teams normal eight game conference slate to 10 overall games.
Per Ross Dellenger of SI.com, the league will use a scheduling model on strength of schedule to determine the expanded schedule. “ I'm now told that a separate scheduling model - composed by the league office using strength of schedule - will determine the two additional opponents for 2020.”
Luckily for you fine people - you don’t have to wait - because we can schedule model here, based on existing strength of schedule models we build. Now we will see if we are actually right here in a few days, but let’s have fun with scheduling shall we?
Below is the current CFB Hourglass strength of scheduling rankings for the SEC after you take out all the non conference games.
Our goal was to tighten the overall metric values and even the schedule playing field as much as possible. 153 scheduling points separate the highest and lowest ranked teams in Auburn and Florida. While we can only do so much “tightening”- when creating match ups, I was able to close the game by 20 points to 133 overall scheduling points.
Now we still do not know how the actual games will be scheduled, in relationship to dates and locations - all we know is September 26th is opening day in the SEC. Here is who we predict, based on schedule modeling that every SEC team will add for the 2020 season.
Enjoy and discuss.
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Editors NOTE: All photos courtesy of 247sports.com
