The SEC’s spring meetings are underway in Destin, and it wouldn’t be spring meetings without bringing up the Auburn-Georgia series. While no one is pushing Auburn to the East (yet), Georgia head coach Kirby Smart would like to see another big-picture change to the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.
Until 2013, Auburn hosted Georgia in even years and Georgia hosted the Tigers in odd years. Since both teams close their years with major in-state rivalries (Alabama and Georgia Tech, respectively), this allowed both schools to properly balance their schedules. Auburn hosted Georgia and visited Alabama in even years, and vice versa in odd years, while Georgia visited Auburn and hosted Georgia Tech in even years and vice versa in odd years. Such an arrangement was optimal both for both the coaching staff -- you try making a Playoff run while visiting Georgia and Alabama in November -- and the administration, since both schools had at least one end-of-season rivalry game to pitch potential season ticket buyers.
But the league’s additions of Missouri and Texas A&M while maintaining an 8-game schedule was a scheduling quagmire, so Georgia was asked to make a second straight visit to Auburn in 2013 to help the pieces all fit together. That moved definitely did the SEC schedule makers a solid, but Georgia and Auburn are still playing unbalanced Novembers, and Smart would like to be repaid by the league. A leveling of the schedule means Auburn would have to visit Georgia twice in a row.
“Yeah, absolutely. If we can get a chance to fix that and return the favor that we paid to them. I hear about that a lot,” Smart told The Athletic. “It would make it more consistent and balance that out. It would probably be helpful in the long run. But I’ve got a feeling there’s more to it than just us and them. It always affects so many other moving parts. But it would be nice to do that.”
Smart conceded that the topic was a top-level agenda item for the SEC’s coaches meetings this week, but it’s something he’d like to see addressed in the future.