‘That’s eight more losses for our conference’: Steve Sarkisian questions SEC’s nine-game schedule

The Texas Longhorns have already lost two SEC games this season, putting their College Football Playoff hopes on thin ice. And Steve Sarkisian thinks the conference’s schedule isn’t doing its teams any favors.

Sarkisian questioned the SEC’s move to a nine-game conference schedule this season, saying that the league’s coaches had reservations about it from the start. He argued that the extra conference game means more injuries and more losses for SEC teams, which could hurt them when the playoff committee compares them to teams from other conferences.

Texas’ Rocky Season

Texas started the season ranked No. 1, but the Longhorns lost back-to-back games to Oklahoma and Florida by identical 27-24 scores. After the Florida loss, Sarkisian reportedly warned Arch Manning that he would make a change at quarterback if things didn’t improve.

The Longhorns bounced back with a 34-27 upset of No. 7 Ole Miss last weekend to improve to 5-2, but the win came at a cost, as star left tackle Trevor Goosby is reportedly out for the season with a knee injury.

At 2-2 in SEC play, Texas may need to win out to have a real shot at the playoff. And Sarkisian isn’t the only SEC coach who has taken issue with the nine-game schedule, as LSU’s Lane Kiffin has been vocal about it as well.

‘Eight More Losses’

Sarkisian said that the conference’s coaches weren’t on board with the change when it was made.

“The 16 head coaches in our conference, I think we all had some reservations about going to the ninth conference game, for a variety of reasons,” Sarkisian said during his weekly media session, via On3.

The first reason, according to Sarkisian, is the physical toll of playing another SEC game.

“That’s one more game of the physical pounding that this league takes its toll on you with, right?” he said.

“We’ve all, I mean we’re no different than a lot of the other teams, we’ve all suffered some pretty significant injuries along the way,” he said.

Sarkisian also questioned how the playoff committee will treat SEC teams with more losses.

“I think the other reservation about the ninth game was that’s eight more losses for our conference,” Sarkisian said. “Any way you slice it, it’s eight more losses.”

“So what is it really going to look like when there’s 9-3 SEC teams compared to 10-2 or even 11-1 teams from other conferences? How much value is going to be placed in that,” he added. “I think that’s why we were so adamant about if we’re going to go to nine conference games let’s go to nine when we expand.”

It’s worth noting that the Big Ten has played a nine-game conference slate since 2017 and the Big 12 has played one since 2011. The ACC began playing a nine-game conference schedule this season. So the SEC is far from the only conference dealing with this.

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