2020-21 Football Predictions

[McLoofus 35,182]

7 minutes ago, gr82be said:

anyone who thinks Auburn was going to get an easier path along the way to an SEC championship was dreaming. 

I don't think you really addressed why you think this is, though. Do you believe that there is an anti-Auburn bias in the SEC office? I won't argue with you if you do. Just curious why something approaching parity in conference scheduling should be a dream for Auburn fans. 

[AUsince72 11,084]

Hard to make a prediction here.

Normally we know 4+ losses are a given under the current administration but if the craziness continues and there's abbreviated seasons (or at least practice times) I'm not sure if that gives Gus an advantage or disadvantage. 

I'm just gonna stick with the 4 losses I've grown comfortable with.  

[gr82be 14,423]

Just now, McLoofus said:

I don't think you really addressed why you think this is, though. Do you believe that there is an anti-Auburn bias in the SEC office? I won't argue with you if you do. Just curious why something approaching parity in conference scheduling should be a dream for Auburn fans. 

No, I don't think that it's an anti-Auburn bias but the facts are that we played Georgia and Bama in November for years and years. Used to play Florida before those two until the split into divisions. I'm not saying that anyone hated Auburn. I'm saying that I don't think they could suddenly replace Georgia with Arkansas, whom we've pounded for the past several years, without looking like they were giving us an advantage. 

Now would I like an advantage? Sure. I just don't see it ever happening. 

[ArgoEagle 1,786]

30 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

Sorry, but I just don't see any way that uga > Liberty > bama (2018, with both rivalry games on the road) to LSU at home > bama away is an upgrade for us. 

Why couldn't we have replaced uga with Arkansas, or one of the Mississippis? Other than the logistical complications of that, which didn't seem to prevent them from choosing LSU?

I'm not sure anyone in the country consistently has a November as difficult as ours. I doubt many teams go through it once in any given 5-year cycle, much less every single season.

The home/away thing is a win, but it's still a net no-gain at best in my mind, at least from a competitive vantage. I'm not privy to the cost-benefit analysis from an economic/logistical/admin perspective. There could be considerations there. I'm sure local businesses would prefer there be a guaranteed money maker Saturday every November. Might even raise their total 2-year margins. (Only one big home game to focus on each fall, so that game might bring more business each year than either big game has typically brought in individually on the odd years.)

But competitively? It's two steps back IMO.

I agree with you on the Arky, Miss. teams needing to be in the spot they put LSU in. We need to play LSU in either Sept. or Oct., UGA in Oct. and find a way to schedule either ARKY, one of the Miss. teams in our league, or a middle of the road team like (Southern Miss for instance) , a team that could give us some competition, but  is not likely to beat us. I know scheduling cant be tailor made by anyone, but there is enough wiggle room there to not have to schedule an LSU, UGA, FLA in that one slot just before Bama.

[McLoofus 35,182]

 

10 minutes ago, gr82be said:

I'm saying that I don't think they could suddenly replace Georgia with Arkansas, whom we've pounded for the past several years, without looking like they were giving us an advantage. 

Ah, okay. That makes sense. Kinda crazy that it can't just quickly be explained that we are not being given an advantage but merely being freed from a disadvantage, but we all know that college football doesn't run on intellect or reason. 

Also, I just looked at the SEC helmet schedule for 2020. South Carolina has a nightmare November schedule. A case could be made that LSU and bama both have a tougher November than we do, and TAMU's is just as tough. Nobody else really comes close, IMO, but there is some parity for the big dogs in the West. And South Carolina will continue to get the short end of the stick. 

[Zeek 16,650]

For the scheduling debate... there’s 3 teams we really want to separate (Bama, UGA, LSU) and realistically whatever Out Of Conference team we schedule.

So that’s 4 out of 12 games to have separated.

Play the OOC team first like we’ve been doing (honestly we’ve won all of those until Clemson got going)

game

game

game

Play UGA (play them earliest so that if there’s a rematch it’s at least later)

game

game

game

Play LSU

game

game

Play Alabama

Is that so hard??? So for this year it could look something like:

North Carolina

Alcorn State

Ole Miss

Southern Miss

Georgia

Kentucky

Texas A&M

Arkansas

LSU

Missississippi State

UMass

Alabama

Set the home-and-away so that we’re never away for both Georgia and LSU (our two toughest road venues). 

[McLoofus 35,182]

9 minutes ago, Zeek said:

Is that so hard???

Not logistically. Or at least I wouldn't think so. Seemed awfully easy to swap one big time opponent for another, so one would think that it would be just as easy to choose another SEC opponent. 

But I agree that optics might be in play. Shouldn't be, but probably is. 

[I_M4_AU 7,810]

18 minutes ago, Zeek said:

For the scheduling debate... there’s 3 teams we really want to separate (Bama, UGA, LSU) and realistically whatever Out Of Conference team we schedule.

So that’s 4 out of 12 games to have separated.

Play the OOC team first like we’ve been doing (honestly we’ve won all of those until Clemson got going)

game

game

game

Play UGA (play them earliest so that if there’s a rematch it’s at least later)

game

game

game

Play LSU

game

game

Play Alabama

Is that so hard??? So for this year it could look something like:

North Carolina

Alcorn State

Ole Miss

Southern Miss

Georgia

Kentucky

Texas A&M

Arkansas

LSU

Missississippi State

UMass

Alabama

Set the home-and-away so that we’re never away for both Georgia and LSU (our two toughest road venues). 

My first thought when I saw LSU was in the former UGA slot was the SEC didn’t like Auburn crying about the schedule, soooo let them complaint about this.  In other words; the SEC told Auburn just shut up or it could get worse.

[DAG 33,982]

1 hour ago, I_M4_AU said:

My first thought when I saw LSU was in the former UGA slot was the SEC didn’t like Auburn crying about the schedule, soooo let them complaint about this.  In other words; the SEC told Auburn just shut up or it could get worse.

Pretty much this. Crying about it isn’t going to help. We got dealt our cards. Now we have to work with it. Or we can be like Arkansas fans and want out of the SEC. 

[Mikey 16,586]

@I_M4_AU LSU is not in the former UGA slot. They are a week later than UGA was. Last year the regular season ended Georgia, Samford, Bammer.  Why not LSU, Samford, Bammer? Why jam us up with two of the three biggest games of the year back to back? Again, we were better off before this change. We got hosed big-time.

[1auburn1 1,120]

At least Bama got UT Martin bumped back a week and has TAMU the week before AU.

[McLoofus 35,182]

5 minutes ago, 1auburn1 said:

At least Bama got UT Martin bumped back a week and has TAMU the week before AU.

Yeah. It really is brutal in November for all of the top 4 in the West, with bama and LSU actually having it the hardest (unless TAMU is just garbage). 

The East, eh, notsomuch. Nothing new there. 

[bigbird 60,521]

9 hours ago, Sizzle said:

I feel confident for whoever on the right side of the line but that left could be rough. Sheesh

Zierer getting hurt and Coffey coming in late really hurts

[bigbird 60,521]

5 hours ago, Zeek said:

For the scheduling debate... there’s 3 teams we really want to separate (Bama, UGA, LSU) and realistically whatever Out Of Conference team we schedule.

If the SEC was smart, they would set their major rival/big dog games every two weeks.

 

September

AU vs LSU

Week

TAMU vs UA

Week

October

AU vs UGA

Week

LSU vs UA

Week

November

Week ( UGA vs UF)

LSU vs TAMU

Week

AU vs UA

 

Stagger the the West's "off" weeks with SECe matchups or cross conference big rival games. Then just fill in the rest accordingly...

 

[Sizzle 3,912]

1 hour ago, bigbird said:

Zierer getting hurt and Coffey coming in late really hurts

And Troxell is coming off his 100th ACL surgery. Nobody has a clue who our LT will be

[Zeek 16,650]

58 minutes ago, bigbird said:

If the SEC was smart, they would set their major rival/big dog games every two weeks.

 

September

AU vs LSU

Week

TAMU vs UA

Week

October

AU vs UGA

Week

LSU vs UA

Week

November

Week ( UGA vs UF)

LSU vs TAMU

Week

AU vs UA

 

Stagger the the West's "off" weeks with SECe matchups or cross conference big rival games. Then just fill in the rest accordingly...

 

Too bad we know they’re not smart lol

[Tiger96 127]

https://www.bannersociety.com/2019/8/15/20734585/college-football-divisions-pod-system

I'm sure it's been discussed before, but I wish the SEC would go to Pod scheduling. It would solve some issues and provide old rivalries to be played more often.

[Zeek 16,650]

4 minutes ago, Tiger96 said:

https://www.bannersociety.com/2019/8/15/20734585/college-football-divisions-pod-system

I'm sure it's been discussed before, but I wish the SEC would go to Pod scheduling. It would solve some issues and provide old rivalries to be played more often.

I prefer any solution where if you’re in the SEC championship it’s not a rematch.

It would be cool (unrealistic) if we just played all 11 SEC teams and Georgia Tech. Beyond brutal but season tickets would be more than worth it.

[gr82be 14,423]

Here's my SEC scheduling idea. Critics are welcomed but hear me out.

Base the schedule on the previous season's results and seed it like a play-in tournament. Unless I'm really overlooking something my idea let's you play 10 SEC games plus eliminate the conference championship game in its current format.

Based on 2019 results and for the sake of making my point I'm not including tie-breakers, here is my seeding.

LSU

Georgia

Alabama

Florida

Auburn

Tennessee

A&M

MSU

Kentucky

USCe

Missouri

Ole Miss

Vandy

Arkansas

November would be a tournament.

Left side bracket would be

1- LSU, 3- Bama, 5- Auburn, 7-A&M, 9-Kentucky, 11- Missouri

Right side would be 

2- Georgia, 4- Florida, 6- Tennessee, 8- MSU,  10- USCe, 12- Ole Miss

Arkansas and Vandy are not in the tournament similar to the SEC Baseball tournament- based on finishing at the bottom you have to do better (I admit that's not going to be popular).

You play across the brackets so it would be LSU/Ole Miss, Georgia/Missouri, Bama/ USCe and so on. Because of this a school wouldn't play the teams in their bracket during November so those would be the teams they would play in September and October. For example Auburn would play LSU, Bama, A&M, Kentucky and Missouri and either Vandy or Arkansas. Then they play 4 games in November against the other side of the bracket. If Auburn beat MSU, they would play another winner the next week. If they lost they'd play one of the losers. Either way they are playing a conference team. The winners keep playing the winners until the last week of November when you have only 2 teams that have won every week in November. The winner is the champion and an extra game in December is avoided. 

I'm sure I missed a detail but it seemed good on paper. I'm sorry for the long post and really apologize if this doesn't make sense but I swear it seems to work in my head. 

 

[KnightTiger 205]

Alcorn State - W

UNC  - L - their QB is scary good if their D can rattle Bo things will be interesting

@ Ole Miss - W

Southern Miss - W

Kentucky - W

@ Georgia - L - we haven't won in Athens since 05 sadly don't see that changing

Texas A&M - W - I was tempted to put this as a loss this game scares me

@ Mississippi State - L - for some reason I have a feeling we lose to one of the Mississippi schools on the road

Arkansas - W

Umass - W

LSU - L

@ Alabama - L - haven't won in turd town in ten years 2010! same as uga sadly I don't see it changing

 

7-5 and we beat some acc team in a bowl game Gus promises we will get butter during the entire offseason!

[Win4AU 4,052]

I may be in the minority but I personally like ending with LSU at home before traveling to Bama.  With the exception of last year LSU has been a good not great team under Coach O.  Without a complete Gus dump in 17 and the PI controversy in 18 Auburn would be 2-1 against O.  Getting a big game to end the home schedule on is so much more satisfying than playing a cupcake.  Also it’s not like Bama has it any easier.  I think we’ll start to see the recruiting pay off for TaMu this season.  I’ll go as far as say they may win the West this year.  

[I_M4_AU 7,810]

1 hour ago, KnightTiger said:

Gus promises we will get butter during the entire offseason!

Yes, Gus is a slippery one.  If he goes 7-5 he’ll need that butter.

[Win4AU 4,052]

Gus May be safer than ever this season due to the financial impact this virus has not only had on the university but also on potential donors.  Firing a college football coach has probably fallen way down on people’s priority list.

[I_M4_AU 7,810]

39 minutes ago, Win4AU said:

Gus May be safer than ever this season due to the financial impact this virus has not only had on the university but also on potential donors.  Firing a college football coach has probably fallen way down on people’s priority list.

All universities are going to be hit hard economically this year.  If America doesn’t have college football this season a big part of it’s revenue will be missing.  I wonder if the coaches at Auburn have a Force Majeure cause in their contract which frees both parties from liability and obligation in the event of something extraordinary?

[Zeek 16,650]

4 hours ago, KnightTiger said:

Alcorn State - W

UNC  - L - their QB is scary good if their D can rattle Bo things will be interesting

@ Ole Miss - W

Southern Miss - W

Kentucky - W

@ Georgia - L - we haven't won in Athens since 05 sadly don't see that changing

Texas A&M - W - I was tempted to put this as a loss this game scares me

@ Mississippi State - L - for some reason I have a feeling we lose to one of the Mississippi schools on the road

Arkansas - W

Umass - W

LSU - L

@ Alabama - L - haven't won in turd town in ten years 2010! same as uga sadly I don't see it changing

 

7-5 and we beat some acc team in a bowl game Gus promises we will get butter during the entire offseason!

7-5 and he’s gone I guarantee. No excuse at this point.