Could ESPN be making too much out of night games in Tiger Stadium?
A poster on TexAgs analyzed the last five seasons and looked at the percentage of home night games each SEC team has had. It won't surprise many conference fans that one school has had way more night games than everyone else: LSU.
The pure percentage of evening kickoffs in Death Valley in Baton Rouge can't be ignored compared to the rest of the league. Already one of the most challenging places to play in all of college football, LSU has seen an eye-popping 83 percent of games kick off at night in the past five seasons. That's a ton, and could be coming due to the amount of money that ESPN networks can milk out of a night game in Tiger Stadium, one of those bucket-list items for most college football fans.
The closest to the Bayou Bengals? South Carolina at 54 percent. That's a whopping 29 percent fewer night games at home for the Gamecocks compared to Brian Kelly's squad.
When it comes to Auburn, there is a belief that once the sun goes down, Jordan-Hare Stadium becomes a much tougher place to play than when the game kicks off earlier in the day.
The stats get even stranger: Georgia, one of the top teams of the past five seasons in the SEC with two national championships under its belt, has had the second-fewest night games in the conference at 28 percent, with Arkansas having the least at 23 percent.
Kentucky, mostly an also-ran in the conference, has had 53 percent of its home games at night, but given its contract not to have day games in October because Keeneland is open, that makes more sense.
Auburn has seen the sixth-fewest night games over the past five seasons, at 41 percent.
Here is the complete list (not counting Oklahoma or Texas, who joined the SEC last season):
Alabama-49%
Arkansas-23%
Auburn-41%
Florida-50%
Georgia-28%
Kentucky-53%
LSU-83%
Mississippi State -42%
Missouri-39%
Ole Miss-44%
South Carolina-54%
Tennessee-31%
Texas A&M-49%
Vanderbilt-40%