By Nick Gray

[email protected]

­As conferences have grown, talks of extending the SEC schedule by one game have dominated SEC meetings throughout the past two years.

UK and the other SEC members made the correct decision on Sunday.

The SEC announced that the league will continue with an eight-game conference schedule in 2016, with the added caveat that each team must play a team from one of the other four power conferences (the ACC, Big 10, Big 12 and Pac 12).

It also extends the interdivisional rivalries that are in place — including UK’s yearly matchup with Mississippi State.

Several coaches inside the conference – including Alabama head coach Nick Saban — have publicly raised support for a nine-game conference schedule. But an eight-game schedule benefits every SEC coach, their bosses and those who work in the SEC offices in Birmingham, Ala.

An extra conference game would likely remove a nonconference home game for the majority of SEC schools. Expecting athletic departments to agree to an extra road game is a silly proposition given how much revenue is generated by the schools each home game.

Also, nonconference games against lesser opponents allow teams in the bottom of the league to collect wins in the race to bowl eligibility. Teams such as Mississippi State and Vanderbilt will have to face power programs such as Georgia, Florida and South Carolina along with two teams from the dominant SEC West. The West has produced a National Championship finalist every year since 2009.

Six wins are difficult enough to achieve with eight conference games. Trading Arkansas State for Auburn on Vanderbilt’s schedule makes the race to six even more difficult.

More teams in more bowl games means one thing: More revenue for everyone involved.

UK will not have an issue with the added non-conference rule, as Louisville (ACC) is on its schedule for the foreseeable future. UK Athletics said Monday that neither head coach Mark Stoops nor Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart had any comment on the scheduling decision.

With so many rivalries already instilled in schools’ year-to-year schedules, like South Carolina-Clemson, Florida-Florida State, Georgia-Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt-Wake Forest, the rule hardly affects the conference. As long as Alabama doesn’t play the entire Sun Belt or Southern Conference, the rules change little.

The old adage “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” is used too often.

In this case, the SEC has no reason to change a scheduling format that has produced nine national champions in 10 years. Even the teams at the bottom of the conference benefit with another opportunity to get to the six-win magic number instead of facing another SEC battering ram.

That benefits everyone in the conference, from players to coaches and from school administrators to SEC Commissioner Mike Slive.