I don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but something to keep in mind going into next year. Teams with first round byes are 1-7 with Indiana being the lone winner. The question is, is having a first round bye really that beneficial🤔

I think from the standpoint of getting people healthy, yes. But we have seen through the years the rust build up when teams sit for extended periods. If you are peaking and then sit out, I don’t see the long break as a positive.

It's all relevant.

Let’s make the playoff first and then worry about whether our seeding/bracket is optimal.  Sark spent so much time on the long game (holding dinged players out, lighter practices, etc) that the team never actually really came together for the “now.”  He needs to practice what he preaches and recognize that not maximizing now leaves the team less prepared later. 

Well even though the higher seeds were 1-7, the last two years, the favorites were 5-3. In 2024-2025, the favorites were actually 3-1 because a couple of lower ranked conference champions got byes. I think having the bye will be a GREAT problem to have next year because it will likely mean we won the SEC. If that happens, we'll just have to hope Sark knows how to get the guys ready to play after the layoff. This year we had over a month between the A&M game and Michigan and I thought the guys looked like they came out ready to play even with all the opt outs.