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In college football, playoff teams cannot lose in the backend of the season. A team can lose its playoff hopes even with the smallest slip up in November and December. However, for some teams, this may be hard due to their strength of schedule late in the season.
Auburn in being a team in the SEC has to go up against two of the best premier programs in all of college football like Alabama and Georgia. Now, usually, Auburn would play Georgia and Alabama in the month of November nearing the end of the season. To say the least, Auburn has a really difficult November that can either make or break their playoff hopes. This means every other year the Tigers travel to Tuscaloosa and Athens within a few weeks of each other to take on their SEC rivals.
But it seems the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry might be getting a scheduling change.
The Deep South Rivalry has taken place every November since 1937 with 2017 being the lone exception. However, Auburn has recently pushed for their matchup against Georgia to be changed due to their scheduling burden. Auburn just might get their wish.
247 sports reported, “Auburn, Georgia and the SEC are nearing an agreement to move the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry to earlier in the 2020 season in an effort to alleviate scheduling burdens for both schools, industry sources tell Auburn Undercover.” They continued to report that “The parties still have hurdles to overcome, but it is expected the 14 SEC schools and commissioner Greg Sankey will move forward to push the game to September or October, the sources said.” This would alleviate much of the pressure the Tigers face every November.
Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn seems to be fed up with the Tigers current scheduling situation and demands change.
Malzahn stated, “Whatever Allen wants is fine, but what I want is one home and one away.”
Malzahn wants to move to a home away schedule in his yearly bouts with ‘Bama and Georgia, playing both teams at home in the same season can be a bit much for any national program. It will be interesting to see how the SEC responds to the Tigers demands. But, as of now, Novembers notorious game might just switch months.
