A lot has been made about the competition between the different conferences across the country, and Rick Neuheisel had some interesting comments regarding the various ways other conferences determine their schedules.

Neuheisel began by addressing the decision of certain conferences, including the Big 10, Big 12, and Pac 12, to schedule nine conference games in a season. This is a point that people use to downgrade the strength of schedule for SEC teams, who currently play eight conference games a year.

According to Neuheisel, those conferences that schedule nine conference games a season do so for a reason, and it is tied back to economics:

“They have decided to do it,” Neuheisel explained, “And they’ve decided to do it for economic reasons.”

He went on to break down Alabama’s scheduling under Nick Saban. He labeled the scheduling during his tenure as smart and believes it is unfair to label it as cheating:

“The most amount of games that Nick Saban has ever played against P5 opponents without a break, without a bye, without a game against a Group of 5 opponent is 5 games in his entire tenure at Alabama,” said Neuheisel. “That’s smart. We can’t sit there and say you guys are cheating, you’re just being smart.”

ESPNU Radio shared audio of all of Neuheisel’s comments:


Regardless of how people feel about scheduling in the SEC versus other conferences, Georgia and Alabama punched their ticket to the national championship game and have earned a shot at the national title.