The Southeastern Conference officially expanded to 16 schools at the start of the month, adding the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns to the mix ahead of the 2024 college football campaign. The storied programs will inevitably make an already tough SEC even more competitive in years to come.
So what does this mean for league members as far as the cost versus benefit of adding the new programs — including the newcomers? The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel attempted to tackle that topic for all of the Football Bowl Subdivision conferences, including the Florida Gators along with the rest of the SEC.
Surprisingly, Mandel expects the Orange and Blue to benefit overall — but not specifically from the expansion of the conference. Rather, the impending 12-team playoff model is what appears to benefit Florida the most moving forward, grading the Gators with a plus-2 in Mandel’s “new world status”.
Methodology
“To assess, I’ve given all 67 power-conference schools a score between minus-5 and plus-5,” Mandel begins.
“The score is solely about a team’s ability to win, and does not take into account the team’s current coaching staff or roster. Scoring a 0 means the school is neither better nor worse off. A score from 1 to 5 ranges from mildly better to far better, and minus-1 to minus-5 ranges from mildly worse to… uh oh.”
Why Florida benefits
“Florida must play Georgia every year while mixing in Texas and Oklahoma,” Mandel notes. “But a 12-team playoff could prove a godsend; the Gators would have made the postseason three consecutive times under Dan Mullen and 10 times since 2000.”
Which SEC team benefits the most, least?
The Alabama Crimson Tide (4), Georgia Bulldogs (4), LSU Tigers (3), Texas Longhorns (3), Ole Miss Rebels (2) and Florida (2) are the six schools with positive values in Mandel’s assessment, while the Tennessee Volunteers grade out at an even zero.
The Auburn Tigers and Missouri Tigers both graded at minus-1, followed by the Arkansas Razorbacks and Texas A&M Aggies at minus-2; the Kentucky Wildcats, Oklahoma Sooners, Mississippi State Bulldogs and South Carolina Gamecocks at minus-3.
The Vanderbilt Commodores have the least to gain, coming in at minus-4 on the scale.
Florida’s 2024 season opener
The Florida and the Miami Hurricanes open their schedule on Aug. 31 in Gainesville, Florida. Kickoff time is slated for 3:30 p.m. ET and the game will be broadcast on ABC Sports.
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