Steve Spurrier has a way to get around this whole SEC scheduling brouhaha: Give Alabama what it wants.

Why, he says, would that be any different from the day he first arrived in the SEC in 1990 as the coach at Floridaâ€”or his last eight years as coach at South Carolina?

â€œI should have spoken up a while ago,â€ Spurrier told Sporting News Thursday.

So now heâ€™ll let it rip. The SEC wants to protect traditional rivalry games Alabama-Tennessee and Georgia-Auburn. Fine, Spurrier says. Let them playâ€”the games just wonâ€™t count as a conference game.

â€œNick Saban wants nine games, well he can have nine and be happy,â€ Spurrier said. â€œYep, nine games against conference opponentsâ€”but one of them wonâ€™t count, thatâ€™s all.â€

Saban, who has won three of the last four national titles at Alabama, was the only SEC coach out of 14 who voted last month for a nine-game league schedule. He also prefers keeping traditional rival Tennessee as a permanent partner from the SECâ€™s East Division.

Spurrier said he broached the idea last month in Destin, Fla., at the SEC spring meetings, but it gained little traction. The SEC currently uses a 6-1-1 schedule rotation, with six division games, one permanent partner from the opposite division (see: Tennessee-Alabama) and one rotating.

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In Spurrierâ€™s plan, the league would move to a 6-0-2 plan, and Alabama-Tennessee would be a non-conference game every year it is not part of the regular rotation of two games from the opposite division.

â€œOur commissioner seems to think if Alabama-Tennessee is not a conference game, no one will want to watch it,â€ Spurrier said. â€œI told him, you think no one wants to watch South Carolina play Clemson? Weâ€™ve got North Carolina in the first game of the season; a border rival, our stadium will be full. You think no one will want to watch that?

â€œIf the commissioner doesnâ€™t think thatâ€™s a big game, he should come watch it. So there you go, Nick can have his nine (conference) games. Iâ€™m all for it.â€

As wild as Spurrier's idea sounds, there is precedent. California played Colorado as a non-conference game in 2011 -- the first year CU entered the Pac12. The teams had a previously scheduled series when CU was part of the Big 12, and kept the game as a non-con game.

Slive said last month that preserving SEC rivalries was an important factor for future schedules, but that he is open to hearing different plans. Spurrierâ€™s idea, although not conventional, solves the problem.

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It also helps address another issue both he and LSU coach Les Miles have tried to solve: a competitive imbalance in the rotating schedule that favors Alabama.

Since 2000, LSU has played SEC East Division heavyweights Florida and Georgia 17 times. Alabama has played them eight times â€“ the lowest of any West Division team.

Moreover, in the last two â€œbridgeâ€ schedules in 201-2013 â€“ schedules made without specific opposite division rotating concepts â€“ have given the Tide rotating games against East Division second-tier Missouri and Kentucky.

â€œYou tell me why that happened,â€ Spurrier. â€œI still havenâ€™t gotten an answer.â€

Last year, Alabama didnâ€™t play the SECâ€™s big three from the East Division (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina) who were all ranked in the final BCS top 10. Georgia, meanwhile, didnâ€™t play the West Divisionâ€™s big three (Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M) who were all ranked in the final BCS top 10.

â€œYep, and guess who played in the (SEC) championship game?â€ Spurrier said. â€œScheduling is so important nowadays. But for some reason, we donâ€™t want to acknowledge that. We donâ€™t want to talk about that.â€

Slive said last month that the 2014-15 schedules will follow the 6-1-1 format before the league determines a fixed schedule for 2016 and beyond. That fixed schedule could include nine conference games and a new rotation schedule of 6-1-2 â€“ a schedule that would address the competitive imbalance issue.