SEC Media Days: Chris Marler on 9-Game Schedules, Texas vs. Georgia, and Dark Horse SEC Teams

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**Mike Gittins** (2:18)
SCC Media Days, we are back. Joining me is Chris Marler from louisianasports.net and other things, Locked On Gamecocks. He does a lot, but he covers the SCC almost better than anybody I know.
Chris, do me a favor. You're not Frank Sankey, you're Chris Marler. Yeah, we got that fixed.

**Chris Marler** (2:39)
He's behind us.

**Mike Gittins** (2:42)
We've heard from about half the coaches in the SCC so far. There's a couple more left to go today, but there's a lot of talk about nine game conference schedules, about strength of schedule.
The SCC has the toughest strength of schedules in the conference, but those schedules are going to help, they're going to hurt, they're going to eat some people alive, and they're going to help some people rise out of the pack. Our friends at FanDuel say that Texas, Georgia and LSU, nine and a half over unders.

**Chris Marler** (3:15)
They moved up LSU nine and a half.

**Mike Gittins** (3:18)
How many of those three, do you see them all making the college football playoff?

**Chris Marler** (3:22)
I do, I think they're the best three teams in the conference.
I hate to say that because I feel like the past couple of years, you've heard all the stuff about Texas repeatedly. I've not been a big huge proponent of Texas being good in year one in the SSC, but they did have the easiest schedule of anybody. Last year, I thought it was bizarre and stupid. They were ranked number one in the country going into the season. So it's like Arch Manning had a lot to prove, all these guys had a lot to prove. This year, I think they're the three best teams. I think Georgia's schedule is very easy. The nine-game schedule is, I mean, Greg Snickie is right behind us, so I'm going to say stupid.

**Mike Gittins** (3:58)
ESPN says that Georgia has the easiest schedule in the SEC. Yeah, it's still the 20th-hardest schedule in the country.

**Chris Marler** (4:05)
Yeah, and I think that's probably a little bit wrong.
I think they do have the easiest in the SEC. To say that 16 teams have the top 20, that's probably not the case.

**Mike Gittins** (4:16)
A little artificially inflated.

**Chris Marler** (4:17)
But it's probably 30
I mean, it's like, I don't think it's that far off. So, I think, you know, I think anytime you have to play eight conference games in a schedule, that's what was so frustrating. And now that Sankey's walked away from the booth next to us, I'll say, I think the nine-game conference schedule is stupid. I think it's going to benefit them in a financial way a lot. But I think you've already cannibalized yourself so much. And what you need is not, like the SEC kind of got, it felt like bullied into it, which is like, they got bullied into what ended up being a good financial decision. But they got bullied into it, because everyone kept saying how unfair it was, everyone's playing nine, they're only playing eight. Well, they were playing eight, but they were trying to put the mandate out there for putting like, let's have a 10th Power Four game, right? So everyone's playing, and everyone complains with the FCS games, they did away with that for next year, starting next year there's no FCS games in late November. They've done all the stuff that people complained about. Like everything that people who have not won as much as this conference complained about, they have fixed to cater to that group.