It’s mid-November, meaning we’re in the month when college football history is made. Just this week, Oklahoma plays TCU, Oklahoma State plays Baylor, Oregon plays USC and Ohio State plays Michigan State. But it also means it’s time for a rivalry week that brings with it far less fanfare.
The SEC’s weak November non-conference games make sense, but they’re also no fun
Bama ain’t played nobody (this week).
Marvin Gentry-USA TODAY Sports
It’s the annual SEC-SoCon Challenge, y’all!
The challenge has unofficially become a staple of November college football, as SEC schools wait until November to play the FCS schools and low-rung FBS schools other major conference teams tend to play as early-season tune-ups. This year, we have another full slate of exciting games.
Texas A&M beat Western Carolina, 41-17, and Tennessee beat North Texas, 24-0, to get the SEC off to a 2-0 start in the challenge last week. This week, we get Florida-Florida Atlantic, South Carolina-The Citadel, Alabama-Charleston Southern, Auburn-Idaho, Georgia-Georgia Southern and Kentucky-Charlotte.
FCS teams and those smaller FBS teams are just 1-17 against the SEC in November games since 2013, with Georgia Southern carrying the torch by beating Florida without completing a pass.
The reasons for the cupcake games are fairly obvious. Rather than risk a loss, SEC teams are able to essentially schedule bye weeks in the middle of the season. Rather than have to play a tough SEC team before a potential trap game in the Iron Bowl, Alabama basically gets two weeks to rest up and prepare for Auburn. ACC teams seem to have caught on, too, as Florida State will play Chattanooga before ending the season against Florida. The Gators won’t play an FCS team, but next week’s opponent, Florida Atlantic, was scheduled in the same vein.
Perhaps Nick Saban said it best in preparation for Western Carolina last year ...
This is a good little team that we’re playing.
... but sometimes the games are tougher than expected, as Saban explained when he reflected on the Tide’s game against Georgia Southern in 2011.
They went through us like shit through a tin horn.
There are two schools of thought on this, and both are correct.
The first is that SEC schools are smart to schedule cupcakes late in the year.
That makes sense. Everybody else does it in September. Why not take a bye week when you’re allowed to and won’t be punished for it?
The other school of thought is that this is dumb because it’s boring.
And that’s also correct. While the Big Ten will stop playing FCS schools, and some other bluebloods like Notre Dame and USC don’t schedule them, the SEC goes as far as to schedule them during what should be the most exciting time of the season. Western Carolina might be a nice little team, but it’s not Florida, or even Vanderbilt, for that matter.
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