Commentary

Bielema's Big Ten proposal won't fly

Arkansas coach Bret Bielema talks to his players during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Texas A&M on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015, in Arlington, Texas. Texas A&M won in overtime, 28-21. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

— Bret Bielema threw out an idea on the Southeastern Conference coaches' teleconference earlier this week.

Why not have the SEC and Big Ten play each other in football every year in a basketball-like conference challenge?

The SEC and Big Ten have the same amount of teams and are the most profitable conferences in college athletics. Games between their members would produce high interest.

Who wouldn't want to see Alabama-Ohio State or Michigan-LSU in the regular season?

But as with many big ideas, the thought of scheduling such a series is too good to be true. The truth is it would be a logistical nightmare for teams from both conferences.

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"It would take a lot of planning," Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. "That's a lot of people you're trying to get on the same page."

College football teams are scheduling games farther in advance than any time in history. Most SEC teams have at least one marquee nonconference game scheduled for 2020 or later.

Arkansas is scheduled to play TCU the next two years and Michigan the following two. It has a game against Texas scheduled for 2021 and has had talks about playing Baylor in Houston the year before.

Georgia has a series scheduled for 2025 and '26 against UCLA. LSU has a series scheduled against Oklahoma for '27 and '28.

Teams like Georgia, Florida, Kentucky and South Carolina play in-state opponents from other power five conferences every year. While the Bulldogs have been willing, most teams won't play power five teams twice out of conference on top of an eight-game SEC schedule.

If the SEC and Big Ten were to agree to a series it would present one of two dilemmas: Either the member schools would have to play 10 of 12 games against power five teams in some seasons, or they would be forced to pay millions of dollars to breach existing contracts.

Neither seems likely.

The real problem with scheduling isn't a lack of marquee games. The SEC has mandated that its teams schedule a team from another power five conference beginning in 2016. A handful of other teams such as BYU and Navy are also acceptable.

In the SEC West alone, teams will play nonconference games against USC, TCU, Clemson, Florida State, Wisconsin and UCLA next year. Some of those are one-year agreements, while others will be played again the following season.

Like the Big Ten has done, the SEC should focus more on discouraging its members from playing teams in the Football Championship Subdivision.

Every SEC team but Florida scheduled a game against an FCS team this year. LSU's game against McNeese State was canceled because of storms.

Two of those FCS games will be played this weekend as teams use a glorified bye week to rest up for their regular season finale.

In the 10 SEC-FCS games played prior to this weekend, the SEC teams are undefeated and are outscoring their opponents by an average of 49-13.

Bielema said he would like to stop playing FCS teams, but Arkansas recently completed a schedule with a game against Alcorn State in 2016. The other 13 SEC teams have FCS teams on next year's schedule as well.

Those games typically aren't scheduled more than a year in advance. They would be easier to eliminate from the SEC schedule than to add an entire major conference to it.

And doing so would be just as good for college football.