By Chris Marler
We knew the 2024 season would be different in college football for a number of reasons. This would be a season of conference realignment, NIL and new faces and coaches around the country. Another quirk to the 2024 season is the additional bye week teams would get.
An extra week of rest to play against conferences full of deeper competition seemed like a positive for most teams, especially in the SEC. But through six weeks the bye week hasn’t been that helpful at all.
SEC teams are just 3-4 coming off a bye so far this season. It’s not just that teams haven’t been successful off the bye, it’s that they’ve looked downright bad, especially early in games.
Take a look at how these teams performed at the start of games coming off the bye week:
- Georgia: trailed 28-0 in the first half against Alabama
- Missouri: trailed 24-0 at the half and 34-0 in the 3rd Quarter against Texas A&M
- South Carolina: trailed 24-3 at the half against Ole Miss
- Tennessee: Trailed 3-0 at the half and didn’t score an offensive point in the first half for the first time since 2019
All four of those teams lost off their bye week and did so by an average of 16.8 points.
There have been some teams who have had success off the bye. For instance, Vanderbilt and Florida both had big wins Saturday as home underdogs coming off their bye weeks.
But, overall you have to ask yourself, what are some of these teams doing with that extra Saturday off?
