Quick Slants with Uva: Buckle up for 2024
While we’re still months away from the start of the 2023 season, this week on Quick Slants we’re looking ahead to 2024. Why? Well, it’s hard not to after the SEC announced the 2024 opponents for conference teams on Wednesday night.
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1- It’s the SEC, nothing is easy
One thing that was inevitable heading into last night is that people were gonna complain. Complain either about how tough the schedule was, where USC needs to travel to, or just who the Gamecocks are or aren’t playing in 2024.
If you’re looking for my thoughts on not playing Florida, Tennessee, or Georgia, we’ll get to that. But overall, I thought the SEC did a good job with their selection of games.
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Let’s state a few obvious facts. Adding Texas and Oklahoma is only gonna make things more challenging. And with divisions going away starting in 2024, who you draw for your conference games could be the difference between finishing towards the the top or the bottom in what will be a 16-team standings. Looking at other team’s 2024 SEC schedules, nothing is a cakewalk. But I felt like the SEC could’ve made things more challenging for USC if they wanted to. I’m talking about removing Vanderbilt or Kentucky for a Georgia or a Tennessee. Again, we’ll talk about those teams shortly but I use those teams just for the sake of this point. USC’s SOS will be tough, just like a lot of teams in the SEC in 2024, but I don’t think you can say they were porked with the draw they got.
2- The reality of it
I’m not gonna dance around with this one because it might piss some people off. So, let’s just pull the bandaid off quickly and get straight to it. The SEC doesn’t owe South Carolina anything. USC’s first season in the SEC wasn’t until 1992. And while three decades at some jobs might earn you seniority, they’re still considered one of the babies in the conference. Not including the additions of Texas and Oklahoma in 2024 only Texas A&M and Missouri have been in the SEC for a shorter time period than USC. The Gamecocks and Arkansas became the 11th and 12th teams to join the conference. The other ten schools have all been playing in the SEC since 1932.
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So while I understand there’s history with South Carolina between schools like Georgia, a team that the Gamecocks first played in the 1800s and have met on the football field 75 times, unfortunately it still wasn’t gonna be viewed a priority by the SEC compared to some other games. We can say the same with games against Tennessee (41 meetings dating back to 1903) and Florida (43 meetings dating back to 1911). The message the SEC sent is that the importance of keeping those meetings alive didn’t outweigh the criteria of balancing the overall schedule strength. Which again, the SEC could’ve made USC’s schedule even more of a gauntlet if they chose to. And instead of those people who are complaining about not playing certain teams they’d be complaining about the SOS.
3- Remember
Change can suck but it’s not permanent. While this new era of SEC football is new for all of us, in 2025 the Gators, Bulldogs, and Volunteers could all end up back on South Carolina’s schedule. By using the same logic that the SEC applied in determining the 2024 slate, I could see the SEC using a similar approach like the NFL does. What I mean by that is looking at how teams did the previous year (or in this case two years ahead) and building some of those games around that. This would hopefully level the playing field as much as they can.
Another thing to keep in mind with this change is that starting in 2024 the College Football Playoffs will be expanding to 12 teams. With some of the SOS that will be produced in the SEC in the coming years it’s hard to imagine not seeing three SEC teams or maybe even four teams make the CFP in the same year. So while winning will remain a premium, the stock on the quality of a loss should only rise for SEC teams.
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