DESTIN, Fla. -- Whether the SEC will adopt an eight- or nine-game league football schedule for 2024 dominated the dialogue ahead of this week's spring meetings.
Inside the Hilton Sandestin on Tuesday, it was more of the same.
Several coaches, including two of the biggest names in the sport in Georgia's Kirby Smart and Alabama's Nick Saban, weighed in on the matter.
Long a proponent of additional SEC games, Saban said he is taking a "whatever happens, happens" approach to the scheduling debate. But he did allude to balance being among the most important factors.
When asked straightforwardly whether he preferred eight or nine games, Saban sidestepped in a way and remarked that all SEC teams should only play Division I opponents outside of league play.
"One of the more difficult things with going to nine games is we've tried to schedule two out-of-conference Power 5 games to try to improve our strength of schedule over the next seven, eight, nine, 10 years, and if we go to nine games we'll have to unwind that," Saban said. "My deal was always play more SEC games because we couldn't get other people to schedule.
"Now I think there's more people in tune to scheduling. ... I think there's so many things that probably sort of go into this in terms of eight games versus nine games, including TV contracts and things that are way beyond my scope of visibility."
Smart, who has coached Georgia to two consecutive national championships and will likely be favored to three-peat in 2023, met the scheduling model question head on. Then he dismissed it.
He said a more interesting topic for him would be if a team is going to potentially gain an advantage in terms of the College Football Playoff by not playing in the SEC Championship Game.
"It's the most overrated conversation there ever was," Smart said of the eight- and nine-game discussion. "Four years, you'll play everybody home and away. I mean, I get traditional rivalries. You have three, you have two, you have one, and you have this and you have that.
"You guys need something to write about bad when you start talking about this. It's just not that big of a deal to me."
With Texas and Oklahoma joining the conference next year, one of the games that would likely no longer be played on an annual basis with the eight-game model is Georgia-Auburn, which is labeled as the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry. The programs have met 127 times, played each season since 1944 and have produced a healthy amount of memorable moments and games.
Smart was a part of the rivalry as a player for the Bulldogs, and first-year Auburn Coach Hugh Freeze this fall will coach in the series for the first time. Smart said losing the game is one of the costs of progress for the SEC, and Freeze said he wants what is best for the SEC and Auburn.
"Ultimately I think we as coaches just say, 'Hey, give us our marching orders. Tell us what it is and what is best for our conference,' and hopefully it aligns with what is best for our school," Freeze said. "But ultimately I think it's in the right hands with it being [with the] ADs, presidents and commissioner [Greg Sankey] and his staff.
"Whatever comes out of that, let's go do it."
Missouri Coach Eliah Drinkwitz said Tuesday he favors nine SEC games. Florida's Billy Napier and Vanderbilt's Clark Lea were noncommittal, but Lea added that he is a bit influenced by his time at Notre Dame, which had scheduled Atlantic Coast Conference matchups with regular turnover.
"In my mind, I'm less focused on what that decision will be," said Lea, whose Commodores were 5-7 overall and 2-6 in the SEC in 2022. "Once they make it, I'll be excited to see how it plays out. I think no matter what, the models they're presenting are increasing the number of times you play different opponents and creates diversity in the scheduling. I think those are wins.
"If it's eight, that's great. If it's nine, that's great. They'll put them on the schedule, and we'll line up, put the ball down and we'll play."
Freeze said he does not expect "real spirited" debate on the schedule model within the coaches' meetings this week. He said the coaches who he knows personally simply want to know what the next move is and to move on.
Smart certainly is not going to get lost in the conversations.
"I don't know why people get wrapped up in it," Smart said. "I think with the nine there are three permanents and that creates a lot more debate. Some teams are like, 'Wait, I've got to play them?' I'm concerned with who I have to play. I'm looking at it like you're probably going to play one or two of those three anyway because it's going to circle so quickly.
"I don't get caught up in it a lot."