To hear Scott Stricklin tell it, the SEC was not caught flatfooted by the ACC’s 10+1 scheduling arrangement. In his press conference yesterday evening, he revealed that the conference was leaning towards its ten-conference-games-only plan prior to the ACC’s announcement.
The reasons were, well, reasonable. The conference wanted to push the start of the season back to late September. It still wanted the championship game in December. It also wanted an off week during the season so teams don’t have to play ten games in ten weeks, provided playing all ten games is possible.
There are only so many Saturdays between the end of September and middle of December, so non-conference games had to go.