CFB Newsletter: The End of SoCon Saturday
The SEC ends a mediocre but memorable tradition. Plus, the week here at SZD.
Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where there are no rules, according to Mike Elko.
Earlier this week, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey announced that the conference would stop scheduling FCS and Group of 6 opponents, starting in 2027. He referred to the league’s “cupcake weekend,” whereas you and I have long called it “SoCon Saturday.” The move is partly due to the SEC expanding its schedule to nine conference games.
But because this is the SEC and it just means more, you also have to remember that this move means less money for the Mercers and Citadels of the world. Those schools gladly accepted an inevitable 70-7 score in exchange for the money that could ultimately help them amongst their own contemporaries. (Just one example: FCS Eastern Illinois lost 56-0 at Bama last year. EIU got $560,000, out of a total revenue pot that usually settles between $14 and $18 million. Not a small deal!) That delta between the larger institutions and everyone else has been the story of the offseason. It keeps growing, bit by bit.
Even worse, we’re going to miss those moments where the underdog still managed to get one over the SEC team. We wouldn’t have the objectively funny trope of Diego Pavia beating Hugh Freeze’s teams if it wasn’t for that initial 31-10 New Mexico State-Auburn game.
Pavia and Jerry Kill may not have gone to Vanderbilt had it not been for that showing, which also means then No. 1 Alabama may not have lost to the Commodores in 2024. Those Vandy goalposts could still be in the end zone instead of going through Broadway and eventually a river. Kalen DeBoer’s reputation amongst Bama fans would have been overwhelmingly positive still. I am just highlighting one domino effect here, but there are countless others out there.
So while we have one more season of cupcakes, let’s treat ourselves and remember a game from the penultimate week of the season. What was your favorite? It could be an upset, or it could just be a random blowout that you remember watching back in college. I asked Richard for his:
SEC-SoCon Challenge Saturday has a very interesting and almost soft spot in my heart. Yes, the games were bad. But I do remember growing up as a kid, before the SEC Network was a thing, that games used to be on pay-per-view. And those were the types of games that would be on that.
I remember the SoCon Saturday the year the Gators won the national championship in 2006. I had a bunch of friends over for a pizza party, and we bought the game. I begged my mom to buy the game. I think I actually may have paid for it with my own money.
I remember that being a big deal. I later found out that late in the game, a walk-on running back scored a touchdown. That walk-on running back ended up being one of my high school football coaches and a teacher at my high school.
But I also remember this week going poorly for the Gators when they lost to Georgia Southern. Georgia Southern threw three passes that game. I had a former high school teammate who was on that Georgia Southern team, and I remember how inexplicable the whole day felt. The game was not going well, and it was capped by the infamous highlight of the two Florida players blocking each other.
And the whole time you’re like, there’s no way they’re actually gonna lose this game, right? They’re not playing well, but in the end they’ll pull it out. Well, they didn’t. Rest in peace, SoCon Saturday.
Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week:
The Ringer’s Joel Anderson joins Richard to talk about the NAACP’s Out of Bounds campaign, which encourages Black football players to reconsider playing for SEC schools (among a few others) in favor of HBCUs as Southern states consider dismantling Black representation. Is that a lot to ask for these young adults? They discuss collective action, generational divides, and the need for more political education. This is one of my favorite recent episodes. Take a listen or watch over on our YouTube page.
Godfrey is back to reminisce about the summer of 2016. Everyone was playing Pokémon Go and the Big 12 was flirting with expansion. It eventually happened in some respect, but that year was marked by a lot of public flirtation with the BYUs and UCFs of the college football world.
Some recommended reading:
Over at Slate, Alex chronicled some use cases for AI tools that are not using it to write or brainstorm for him.
Richard takes us inside Florida State’s offseason and examines whether Mike Norvell can turn the Noles’ luck around this time.
Remember how we quickly eulogized the SCORE Act in last week’s newsletter? Well, a couple of senators have now introduced the Protect College Sports Act. Matt Brown shared his thoughts on it over at Extra Points, and it seems like this one should be taken seriously, at least more than other legislative efforts.
David Covucci at FOIABall wrote about Marc Andreessen’s father-in-law. How is this related to college sports? He’s a big donor at Stanford, for one thing.
Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk to you next week.