BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The SEC scrambled to create a 2012 football schedule. Now come the harder, long-term questions from 14 different perspectives.

SEC athletics directors meet Wednesday in Nashville to discuss future scheduling options in many sports, especially football. They will discuss going to nine SEC football games, although there's not much initial support.

"I think everything has to be on the table, including playing nine games, which I know terrifies some people when you say it," Tennessee Athletics Director Dave Hart said. "I do want to talk about nine games."

Discussions probably will focus on the number of SEC games, whether to keep permanent partners from opposite divisions, and if so, how to schedule them, said Larry Templeton, chairman of the SEC transition committee. The SEC has not decided how long it wants the next scheduling plan, starting in 2013, to last.

The ADs will review six or seven formats during Wednesday's work session, and Templeton didn't rule out a vote. They meet again next week at the SEC men's basketball tournament.

At least one AD, Mississippi State's Scott Stricklin, believes the SEC must be creative in scheduling for 14 members, noting that the league's predecessors developed a model in the early 1990s so that teams played each other more often.

"I think the fans enjoyed it and it served its purpose really well," Stricklin said. "They didn't get stuck in the past."

The challenge becomes how to move the SEC forward into a new era while preserving the past and building consensus.

"There's no easy solution, unfortunately," Georgia AD Greg McGarity said. "There are so many moving pieces that there will be some lively discussions."

The SEC agreed to play eight games with a 6-1-1 model for at least 2012. That means a team plays six divisional games, one permanent cross-division opponent and one rotating cross-division team.

The model protects Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia annually, but means it would take 12 years to play every team from the other division, compared to five years now. Fans and TV may frown on more infrequent high-profile games.

McGarity said most SEC ADs and coaches want to stick with eight games, but he supports at least discussing nine games.

"Many SEC fans have a decision whether to come to our game, or sit at home in front of their 60-inch HDTV," McGarity said. "Would they be more likely to come to a conference game as opposed to a guaranteed (nonconference) game? I'd probably say yes."

No round-robin in divisions?

The complexity of the discussions that have occurred privately for months was evident when The Birmingham News spoke with officials from seven of the 14 SEC members. Athletics directors at Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas, LSU, Kentucky, Florida and Texas A&M declined to be interviewed.

Stricklin opposes nine SEC games because it could leave Mississippi State ineligible for a bowl. So he wonders about trying to change the NCAA rule requiring round-robin divisional play to stage a conference championship game. That could produce schedules with five of six divisional opponents, one cross-division permanent partner and two rotating opponents from the opposite division. The drawback, Stricklin noted, occurs if the two best teams in a division don't play each other.

"You have to figure out what's more important: Do you just worry about playing everybody in your division, or play everybody as often as possible?" Stricklin said. "I don't know the answer."

Another idea Stricklin has for all sports with unbalanced schedules: Play some teams based on the previous year's standings. For instance, football division champions would always play the next year, as would the second-place teams, and so on.

Nonconference scheduling is an X factor. The SEC soon could have more trouble scheduling high-profile teams out of conference once the ACC switches to nine league games and an annual series between the Pac-12 and Big Ten starts in 2017.

"I don't think what anybody else has done has correlation to what the ADs want to do in this league," Templeton said.

McGarity said nine games could prevent Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Kentucky from ever scheduling attractive games outside of their annual nonconference rivalries. On the other hand, nine games would help schools that want to sell another high-profile SEC game while saving $1 million or more on guaranteed nonconference games every other year, he said.

To better sell tickets, outgoing Ole Miss AD Pete Boone prefers no permanent partners and eight games. His guess is one permanent, traditional rival will be kept.

"That's just a psychological thing that's hard to overcome," Boone said. "All of these discussions are almost in the eye of the beholder."

Differing views

The adage says all politics is local. So is SEC scheduling.

For example, Vanderbilt vice chancellor for athletics David Williams said his priorities are keeping eight SEC games and permanent partners and getting better scheduling flexibility. Vanderbilt wants to play SEC teams in its season finales, not Wake Forest, and create room in weeks 4 to 6 for a nonconference game or bye.

"I understand those who say from an attractiveness side that going to nine is good," Williams said. "From my side, I don't want it. I'd rather go to seven games."

Then there's South Carolina Athletics Director Eric Hyman, who said he's open-minded but not enthusiastic about nine.

"Somebody would have to convince me," said Hyman, who wants to keep rivalries with SEC East teams and is flexible on permanent SEC West partners. "I want to hear the debates and the discussions."

Missouri prefers eight SEC games and a rivalry with Texas A&M because so many Mizzou students come from Texas, Missouri Senior Associate Athletics Director Mark Alnutt said. Missouri is willing to stay in the East or move to the West.

"If there's a way we can play more of the schools regularly than the existing format allows, that would be an opportunity for us to familiarize ourselves with these schools," Alnutt said. "We have an opportunity with a great rivalry south of us with Arkansas. Could there be a configuration of North/South? You never know."

Arkansas Athletics Director Jeff Long expressed interest in November for Missouri, the Razorbacks' closest SEC member, to join the West.

"There are a lot of outstanding SEC rivalries that we don't want to lose," Alnutt said. "Us and A&M know we're new to the table and we're not going to be overbearing. But the way we've been embraced, we also feel our voice will be equally valuable."

The priorities for McGarity and Hart are keeping the Georgia-Auburn and Tennessee-Alabama games every year. Hart said he doesn't anticipate ADs changing their favorable view of those annual games after deciding to keep them for 2012.

According to Williams, some SEC ADs want permanent partners for everyone, some want them entirely gone, and some want them for a handful of schools. Williams' view is it's unfair for only some schools to keep permanent rivals.

"But if permanent partner is the hardest decision we have to decide, I'm happy," he said. "There are harder decisions we'll have to make. We brought in two new teams. How do we keep the revenue stream going?"

The answer usually lies in keeping television happy. For instance, Templeton said ESPN and CBS want the SEC to schedule more conference games during the first two and last two weeks of seasons.

Cumbersome scheduling decisions are the price of expansion, said Hart, who experienced a scheduling overhaul in the ACC.

"Unless you're in the room, it's hard to understand how complex it is," Hart said. "But at the end of the day this conference always puts the greater good in front of everything else."

E-mail: jsolomon@bhamnews.com

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