What would an SEC only schedule look like?

While the SEC has not yet officially ruled out playing a full 12-game season, there's little hope at this point it is going to happen. The Big Ten and PAC-12 both made the move to conference-only schedules for fall sports and other Power Five leagues are expected to follow relatively soon.

The conference's athletic directors had a conference call on Friday and it was reported by Sports Illustrated they will meet in person on Monday. Nobody is certain that a season will happen in any form this fall, but if it does, the near unanimous expectation at this point is that it will feature only league games.

Even if the SEC decides to go to league-only contests, there are plenty of questions about what that might look like. We ran through some of the questions and scenarios on Friday morning. Today, we take a look at how Mizzou's schedule could shape up based on some of the different possibilities on the table.

The easiest way to convert to a league schedule in which each team plays the eight games it is scheduled to play. Convert every other week to a bye week. This would allow plenty of time for pauses in play and would also allow games to be moved around if cancellations happen due to infections and quarantines. This isn't something we believe is likely, but if that's the case, here is Missouri's schedule:

9/5: Off

9/12: vs Vanderbilt

9/19: at South Carolina

9/26: Off

10/3: at Tennessee

10/10: Off

10/17: vs Georgia

10/24: vs Kentucky

10/31: Off

11/7: at Mississippi State

11/14: at Florida

11/21: Off

11/28: vs Arkansas (Kansas City)

Sure, it's disjointed, but it gives the Tigers no stretch of more than two games in a row, five off weeks sprinkled in and plenty of room for flexibility. It also allows the SEC to keep division formats in place and set up a conference championship game which could feed into a postseason and the College Football Playoff should those occur.

Another model that is possible is playing the games that are already on the schedule and adding one or two conference opponents for each team. That would result in a nine- or ten-game schedule for each team, three or four byes throughout the season and the same ability to keep divisions and play a postseason. Here's our best guess at what that could look like for Missouri, taking into account geography and common open dates.

9/5: vs Ole Miss

9/12: vs Vanderbilt

9/19: at South Carolina

9/26: Off

10/3: at Tennessee

10/10: at Texas A&M

10/17: vs Georgia

10/24: vs Kentucky

10/31: Off

11/7: at Mississippi State

11/14: at Florida

11/21: Off

11/28: vs Arkansas (Kansas City)

In this scenario, we've added Ole Miss and Texas A&M to the Tigers' schedule as the two most geographically reasonable teams they aren't already playing. The Rebels are supposed to play Baylor on Sunday night in week one, so that would be an open date assuming all conferences eliminate non-conference games. Ole Miss would replace Central Arkansas as Mizzou's home opener.

Our other replacement is a trip to College Station on October 10 to face Texas A&M, which is supposed to host Fresno State that week. It's the same day Mizzou is scheduled to play at BYU. So the Aggies keep a home game, the Tigers don't add an extra road game and the former Big 12 mates play against each other for the first time in six seasons.

This model won't differ that much from the last one. In this case, we're keeping division games but getting rid of the traditional "cross division rivalries" and putting a new team on the schedule. One of the criticisms of the SEC slate is that a player at Mizzou will face Arkansas four times, but might never get to play Alabama (you can disagree on whether that's an actual problem, but that's a different discussion). Anyway, for our third hypothetical, here's a ten-game schedule which keeps Missouri's six division games, but mixes things up a little from the West.

9/5: vs LSU

9/12: vs Vanderbilt

9/19: at South Carolina

9/26: Off

10/3: vs Auburn

10/10: at Texas A&M

10/17: vs Georgia

10/24: vs Kentucky

10/31: Off

11/7: at Mississippi State

11/14: at Florida

11/21: at Tennessee

11/28: OFF

This isn't perfect and would probably require some shuffling of dates because Missouri is done with the home schedule on October 24th and finishes with three straight road games, but we tried to construct it without moving the dates of any other conference games. In this case, Mizzou opens with LSU, which it has played just once since joining the SEC and never at home. It also gets Auburn and Texas A&M out of the West, along with Mississippi State, which are the four cross-division opponents who have been absent the longest from the Tigers' schedule.

We'll just say up front, this one isn't even based in reality. We just wanted to put together a 10-game league schedule that we wanted to see. What would be the most entertaining games, opponents Mizzou doesn't see as often, along with an entertaining home schedule (on the off chance fans can go to games) while also making some geographic sense? We completely abandon divisions here, simply having 14 teams in a single league and the two best meet in the conference title game. That means games that get played every year between East opponents might disappear (as they do with Florida and South Carolina due mostly to distance). In this scenario, we're starting from scratch, no other team has any games scheduled, we're drawing it up from a blank slate.

9/5: vs Kentucky

9/12: at Auburn

9/19: Off

9/26: at Tennessee

10/3: vs Georgia

10/10: Off

10/17: at Mississippi State

10/24: vs LSU

10/31: at Texas A&M

11/7: Off

11/14: at Ole Miss

11/21: vs Vanderbilt

11/28: vs Arkansas

We kept Arkansas on the schedule here because it makes sense. We give Mizzou games against LSU, Ole Miss and Auburn in the West (the first LSU visit to CoMo and the first Mizzou trip to the Plains) and we keep Mississippi State on the schedule as well. Vandy, Kentucky and Tennessee stay on for geographic and competitive reasons and Mizzou still gets the game against Georgia as it's marquee "division" game even though we're going with no divisions.

Again, there's no real basis in reality for this one (although, is there a basis in reality for anything around sports at this point?) other than this was our activity so we chose the schedule.

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