Scheduling is not explicitly among David Cutcliffe’s duties with the Southeastern Conference, but as Special Assistant to the Commissioner for Football Relations he certainly is privy to those discussions.

Cutcliffe said prior to a speaking engagement in Mobile on Tuesday that he believes the SEC will eventually move to a 9-game conference schedule, if not in 2025, then soon after. It’s been an emotional topic for coaches and fans in the SEC, with Executive Associate Commissioner Mark Womack tasked with working out the conference’s future scheduling puzzle beyond 2024, the first year with Oklahoma and Texas in a 16-team league and the first year with a 12-team College Football Playoff.

“I’ve told Mark I’m not your bodyguard, so don’t count on me,” Cutcliffe said with a chuckle prior to an appearance at a Senior Bowl Touchdown Club event at the Country Club of Mobile. “But it’s a difficult task — eight games, nine games, when games are going to be played, who you’re going to play. When you’ve got a 16-team league, you need help. We’ve got outside companies to do analytics and looking back 10 years, looking back 15 years, strength of schedule is important. Obviously, you do the best you can and Mark is a veteran, and he’s done a great job getting us ready for 2024.

“We’ll look beyond and see what that looks like. I think there will be a strong push from television to go to nine games, the only pushback may come from some coaches not wanting to play nine conference games. But I think it’s probably inevitable, just my guess. A 12-team playoff helps that picture. And I think SEC fans are going to have to get used to more losses than you would normally see.”

Cutcliffe worked as a student assistant at Alabama under Paul “Bear” Bryant in the early 1970s before going into coaching, first on the high school level in his native Birmingham and then in college. He was an assistant at Tennessee from 1982-98, famously serving as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach during the Peyton Manning era and for the Volunteers’ 1998 national championship team.

Cutcliffe later worked for a total of 21 seasons as head coach at Ole Miss (where he coached Eli Manning, Peyton’s younger brother) and Duke, with a second stint as offensive coordinator at Tennessee in between. Now 69, he retired from coaching following the 2021 season at Duke, and last year joined the SEC office.

Womack and Cutcliffe attended last week’s Alabama-Tennessee game in Tuscaloosa, the first time Cutcliffe had taken in the “Third Saturday in October” rivalry as a non-participant. He said he found the experience unusual, to say the least.

“First of all, I’ve never been able to be in there (in the press box) and enjoy the atmosphere,” Cutcliffe said. “I’m always a nervous wreck, but it was a great atmosphere. The fans are phenomenal. The color was beautiful. And then I thought Alabama won a battle of the trenches — which often has decided that game in years past — as that game went along.”

As part of his job with the SEC, Cutcliffe mostly fields calls from football coaches, addressing their concerns over a variety of topics including the transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness. He’s also made a point to visit each football program in person.

One of Cutcliffe’s successors at Ole Miss, Hugh Freeze, is now in his first season at Auburn. Cutcliffe said he believes Freeze will win consistently at Auburn, but it’s going to require patience from fans.

“It’s always difficult in the era of transfers,” Cutcliffe said. “You’re going to take a while to put your team together, bringing people in to replace people who left. Let’s face it — that’s difficult.

“But I think they’ve played well. I went up there in spring ball and talked to Coach Freeze and he knew their problems and where they existed and they’ve addressed a lot of those. They’ve had some really good moments, and the season’s not over yet. We all know he’s a really good football coach. I’m impressed with the staff he put together. But in the SEC, it’s a challenge week after week.”

Among other topics Cutcliffe touched on Tuesday …

Duke quarterback Riley Leonard, a Fairhope native Cutcliffe recruited late in his tenure

“I love Riley. I love Riley’s spirit, his athleticism, his talent. You knew it was just all in front of him. I told our staff his redshirt freshman year, I said ‘there’s our next first-rounder.’ He’s got a great mom and dad, great people. He has all of those intangibles. But let me tell you, he can throw it, he can move, he can think. He’s a quarterback in all senses of the word. I’m really proud of him.”

The ongoing discussions controversy over NIL and the transfer portal and changes that might be afoot

“I don’t think there’s any question we’re going to see changes. The direction is maybe dependent upon laws, which is never fun and never predictable. … I think there’s definitively going to have to be changes. You can’t sustain the way we’re doing things.

“And my goal is certainly coaches relations, but also mine is about players. I think that’s the forgotten entity right now. How is all of this affecting young people, their educations, their mental health, their well being the locker room, their teammates, their best friends? How does all of this enter in to what their life is about?

“So I’m trying to talk to players and listen to players. … It’s a complicated thing. I don’t have the answers. I just know we’ve got to care a whole lot and we’ve got to be careful how we move.”

The greatest lesson he learned from Bryant, who hired him as a student assistant in the early 1970s

“Coach Bryant told me, he said ‘Don’t get into college coaching because you think you love the game or you love it. The only reason you get in is you can’t live without it.’ And if you do that, you’re doing a service to your players. Let’s all understand what coaching is. Let’s do a service to our players. Let’s be there for them. Build programs still, not just try to have a team, there’s nothing wrong with that. But when that program’s strong, everybody wins from it.”