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BMatt’s Monday musings

AUBURN | Sometime over the next six months, the Southeastern Conference will settle on a new scheduling model to begin in 2025 with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas to the league.

There are two current models being debated and both will allow teams to play every other conference team home and away every four years.

That’s beneficial in that never again will Alabama and Georgia go seven years, as they did from 2008 to 2015, or five, as they did from 2015 to 2020, before playing regular season games against each other.

Auburn's administration needs to prioritize schedule equity within the SEC.
Auburn's administration needs to prioritize schedule equity within the SEC. (Todd Van Emst/Auburn athletics)
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Before I go any further, I need to credit Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger’s detailed reporting on this issue, which is providing the basis for this column.

The 6/3 model, favored by a lot of the top teams in the league, would mean playing nine conference games with three permanent opponents.

The upside is protecting secondary rivalries like Auburn-Georgia and Alabama-Tennessee, and giving fans and T.V. partners more big games.

The downside is SEC teams knocking each other out of the college football playoff race with an extra game, which is more worrisome if the playoff doesn’t expand.

It will expand at some point, of course, because more games equal more money, and money always wins.

Another downside is having half of the league with five home conference games and the other half with four every season.

With the 7/1 model, you continue to play eight conference games but Auburn would play Georgia just twice every four years and not every season.

Auburn is in favor of maintaining the AU-UGA rivalry on an annual basis, thus the 6/3 model, but I’m inclined to care less about which model is chosen over how the schedule will be constructed on a year to year basis.

If AU wants to fight for the 6/3 model, more power to them, but their no-compromise, line-in-the-sand stance needs to start and end with equitable schedules among the top teams in the conference.

That’s what should matter most and here’s how it should look.

First, we need to divide the conference into two halves with the current top eight teams (yes, it’s debatable) being Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M.

The bottom eight would be Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Missouri, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

I feel your outrage Vol fans but it is what it is at the moment, and you won't be so outraged when you see your potential permanent opponents.

Let’s assume in a 6/3 model that AU’s three permanent opponents are Alabama, Georgia and a team from the bottom half such as Mississippi State, Ole Miss or Vanderbilt.

If that’s the case then every other team in the top half must also have its permanent opponents include two teams from the top eight and one from the bottom eight.

That would mean Alabama’s three permanent opponents could be Auburn, LSU and Tennessee. If the folks in Tuscaloosa don’t like that, then they better push for a 7/1 or come up with a better model.

Tennessee would be feeling pretty good if its three permanent opponents were Alabama, Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

It’s not just about permanent opponents. In a 6/3, if AU’s other six opponents in a particular season include three from the top eight and three from the bottom eight, its seven peers in the top half better have the same ratio.

In a 7/1, each team’s permanent opponent should come from its tier. One year, the top half plays the bottom half four times and the top half three, and it flips the next year.

That’s how you build equitable schedules from year to year. And if you’re cycling through the rotation every four years, it would be easy to update the top and bottom eight every 12 or so years as needed.

Maybe Tennessee will actually be back sometime in the next decade. I could make the same joke about Texas too (insert horns down symbol).

For the past coupe of decades, Auburn has been saddled with playing the toughest schedule in the SEC most years. That inequity needs to end now, and Auburn’s administration must insist on it.

***

Maybe it will be two and BBQ for Auburn again in the College World Series as its been in three of its previous five appearances.

But don’t let that potential disappointment sour you on what this team accomplished this spring or what Butch Thompson has built over the past seven seasons.

Thompson is already the third-most winning coach in program history and is poised to accomplish even more as long as the AU administration continues to support him and his staff and give them what they need.

Stanford is the No. 2 team for a reason and they’ll provide a heck of a challenge in Monday afternoon’s elimination game.

But Auburn is tough too, especially with its back against the wall. So while 0-2 is possible, so is this gritty Tiger team making a run.

It will take a heck of a run to reach the championship series. AU would have to win four consecutive elimination games over four days. If Trace Bright and Mason Barnett are on, and the offense gets rolling, two consecutive wins are certainly plausible.

After that, it would take a couple of huge performances out of the bullpen to get AU to Saturday, and probably a lot of runs.

Only four teams in the last 42 years have come back to win the CWS after losing its first game including Oregon State in 2018. The odds would definitely be against Auburn.

But they’ve been against them all year and yet here they are.

***

In today’s musical journey we go back 35 years to the day a metal rock band began a major tour that included an inflatable Harley-Davidson motorcycle an upside-down drummer and, of course, plenty of pyrotechnics. On June 19, 1987, Motley Crue began its Girls, Girls, Girls tour in Tucson, Ariz., the first of 109 shows over the next eight months. Whitesnake began the tour as the opening act before being replaced by a new band called Guns N’ Roses. The tour included a stop in Albany, Ga., on Nov. 4 with your’s truly in attendance. Bass guitarist and primary songwriter Nikki Sixx compared the tour to the movie Caligula, with the sex, booze and drugs. He was addicted to heroine at the time and his three bandmates were either deep into drug or alcohol addiction or both during the tour. Just five days after the tour ended, Sixx overdosed on heroin and was declared dead for two minutes before a paramedic revived him with two shots of adrenaline.

Sixx was in a band called London before he quit in 1981 and formed Motely Crue. He began playing with drummer Tommy Lee, who had attended high school with lead singer Vince Neil in Covina, Calif. Mick Mars was hired after Sixx and Lee saw an advertisement in a magazine that read: “Loud, rude and aggressive guitar player available.” They played their first gig together at Starwood nightclub in West Hollywood on Apr. 24, 1981. Their first album, 1981’s Too Fast For Love, didn't make a big splash but the breakthrough came with 83’s Shout at the Devil, which had several hits including the title track and “Looks that Kill.” The band toured with Ozzy Osborne and Van Halen, which helped increase their popularity. A third album, 1985’s Theatre of Pain, was the start of the band transitioning to glam metal and included “Smokin’ in Boys Room” and “Home Sweet Home.” After the debauchery of Girls, Girls, Girls, the band managed to sober up a little for 1989’s Dr. Feelgood, which is regarded as Motley Crue’s best album with several hit songs including the title track, “Kickstart My Heart,” written by Sixx of course, and “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away).” The band broke up in the early 1990’s but did release a greatest hits album in 98. They got back together in 2004 and started touring and released a compilation album the following year. They’ve broken up and reunited several time since, released another album and saw their biopic, The Dirt, become a big hit on Netflix in 2019. The soundtrack from the movie, which includes four new songs, hit No. 1 on the iTunes Album Chart. Motley Crue is touring with Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett this summer.

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