vegasvolfan
Marketing Professional With 25 Years of Experience
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Wow you put a lot of thought into that. I think Both Bama teams would go East and TX and Ok would stay in the West, Missouri would he moved West and the East would be the stronger conference again. Tennessee already plays Bama every year so it wouldn’t hurt them as much as it would other teams.I think the best way to handle such realignment would be 4 Pods that couple each year for a rotating division. This allows you to play every team in the conference within 3 years, maintain only 8 conference games, and keep the SECCG as only 1 game instead of 2.
3 intra-pod games. 4-rotational division pod games. And 1 rotating opponent from the most distant (in time) pod yours will couple with, OR a rotating list of rivals you would play when not in your coupled-pod schedule.
Pod 1:
Tennessee
Vandy
Alabama
Auburn
Pod 2:
Georgia
Florida
Kentucky
South Carolina
Pod 3:
LSU
Ole Miss
Miss St
Mizzou
Pod 4:
Arkansas
Texas A&M
Oklahoma
Texas
The winners of each “coupled-pod” division will play in the SECCG that season.
Year 1:
Pods 1 & 2 make “East” Division
Pods 3 & 4 make “South” Division
Year 2:
Pods 1 & 4 make “East” Division
Pods 2 & 3 make “South” Division
Year 3:
Pods 1 & 3 make “East” Division
Pods 2 & 4 make “South” Division
Year 4:
Back to Pods 1&2 VS 3&4.
Year 1 example schedule for Tennessee vs Pod 2:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
The three intra-pod games.
4. Florida
5. Georgia
6. South Carolina
7. Kentucky
The 4 “coupled-pod” opponents.
8. Mizzou (“most distant pod in rotation” rotating opponent)
Year 2 vs Pod 4
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. Texas
5. Oklahoma
6. Texas A&M
7. Arkansas
8. Kentucky
Year 3 vs Pod 3:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. LSU
5. Ole Miss
6. Miss St
7. Mizzou
8. Arkansas
Year 4 vs Pod 2:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. Georgia
5. Florida
6. South Carolina
7. Kentucky
8. Ole Miss
Year 5 vs Pod 4:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. Texas
5. Oklahoma
6. Texas A&M
7. Arkanas
8. South Carolina
Year 6 vs Pod 3:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. LSU
5. Ole Miss
6. Miss St
7. Mizzou
8. Texas
Year 7 vs Pod 2:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. Georgia
5. Florida
6. South Carolina
7. Kentucky
8. Miss St
Year 8 vs Pod 4:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. Texas
5. Oklahoma
6. Texas A&M
7. Arkansas
8. Florida
Year 9 vs Pod 3:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. LSU
5. Ole Miss
6. Miss St
7. Mizzou
8. Oklahoma
Year 10 vs Pod 2:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. Georgia
5. Florida
6. South Carolina
7. Kentucky
8. LSU
Year 11 vs Pod 4:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. Texas
5. Oklahoma
6. Texas A&M
7. Arkansas
8. Georgia
Year 12 vs Pod 3:
1. Vandy
2. Bama
3. Auburn
4. LSU
5. Ole Miss
6. Miss St
7. Mizzou
8. Texas A&M
Rotation complete.
You would play 3 teams every year and ALL the others at least once every 3 years. You would play ALL the other non-pod SEC teams at least 5 times in a 12-year span.
And this is only with an 8-game SEC schedule. The rotation could be improved with a 9-game schedule at the cost of uneven home/away games.
At current, with the one permanent cross-division opponent and one rotating, you play every other SEC team every 6 years. For instance, we just played Arkansas last season and likely won’t see them again until 2026. We play Ole Miss at home this season, but under the current format (maintaining a home & home series) we won’t see them in Knoxville again for 12 years!
Under the format I described, we would have a home & home with every team at least every 4 years, not including the “most distant pod” rotational game.
Take Mizzou in my scenario: By Year 13 we will have played 3 home & home series as non-pod opponents by the time we would play just one home & home as cross-divisional in current format.
In an 8 vs 8 non-pod divisional format even without locked-in cross-division rivals, it would take 8 years to have a home & home with every other team, even if we have 2 cross-division opponents each season.
9-game SEC schedules would be difficult from the standpoint of inability of maintaining equal home vs away schedules.
Ever since realignment happened with A&M and Mizzou I have spent WAY too much time about a 16-team SEC with a pod schedule, lol.
Thoughts? Critiques?