NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Fans of every Southeastern Conference school got a look at the football schedule for upcoming 2012 campaign Wednesday afternoon.
The league representatives released the finished product of the 14-team game schedule months after the addition of Texas A&M University and the University of Missouri to the conference.
The announcement allowed Mississippi State University fans a first opportunity to see a schedule that doesn’t see multiple Southeastern Conference opponents in the first four weeks of the season for only the third time since 2000.
“You look at a lot of schools around the country and they don’t have to start out with top teams,” MSU coach Dan Mullen said. “Two of our first three were against the defending national champion (Auburn) and I guess a school that could be a national champion this year (LSU). It gives you the opportunity to get to nonconference games before you get to the meat of your schedule.”
The 2012 schedule is not based on any other previous or future scheduling formats prior to the addition of the two new schools, SEC officials confirmed Wednesday. And league consultant Larry Templeton said the schools’ athletics directors will convene during the 2012 spring meetings to begin formulating scheduling principles for slates beyond this one-year trial period.
“I will say that every school allowed for some give in this process,” Templeton said.
Templeton, who was director of athletics at MSU from 1987-2008, was a key member of the SEC’s transition team that is continuing to work on schedules for the other sports.
The Dispatch learned Wednesday the SEC had a 13-game schedule completed but had to scratch those plans to accommodate Missouri’s arrival to the league last month.
MSU will open its conference season with a home game against Auburn after its season opening contest on Sept. 1 against Jackson State. The Bulldogs will host A&M at Davis Wade Stadium for the first time in school history on Nov. 3. The conference game with Texas A&M will be in the middle of a four-game gauntlet that will include road games against the two teams in this year’s Bowl Championship Series national championship game (LSU and Alabama) and home games with the Aggies and Arkansas before the 2012 Egg Bowl matchup with Ole Miss in the regular season finale.
MSU’s league schedule will continue its annual crossover contest with Kentucky. The Bulldogs will make another trip to Lexington on Oct. 6.
The schedule doesn’t feature a Thursday night conference game at Davis Wade Stadium before October — something MSU had been more than accommodating to allow for the prime-time television exposure thanks to the league’s television partnership with ESPN’s Thursday Night college football time slot.
Mullen, who has always considered himself a college football tradtionalist, said Wednesday he was highly approval of the rivalry games not being disrupted and also in the same spot on the schedule; the Egg Bowl remains the final game of MSU’s season. The last time the two schools didn’t end their seasons with each other was 1946.
“When is the last time Mississippi State and the school up north played any other time except Thanksgiving weekend?” Mullen said. “That, to me, is why college football means so much to people because it transcends generations. Pro teams come and go and athletes come and go, but your college, that sticks with you forever.”
Templeton said that ideal wasn’t the ultimate goal of the transition team. The main priority was to have a full round-robin for each division as accordance to NCAA rules and for schools’ nonconference contracts not to be broken.
“The SEC transition team and our athletic directors did a great job with significant logistical challenges in a short time frame in developing the 2012 football conference schedule,” said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive. “The ability to come together for the conference is what makes the SEC so strong and that was evident yet again in this process.”
The entire slate of 2012 conference games will be televised by one of the SEC’s television partners — CBS Sports, any of the ESPN platforms (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ESPN3.com), CSS or FS South. However, Templeton said the television partners did not have any veto power or voting power in how the transition team put together this 2012 schedule.
The first conference game of the 2012 season will be Aug. 30 when South Carolina visits Nashville to take on Vanderbilt. The 2012 SEC Championship Game will be played Dec. 1, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
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