Revised SEC Scheduling

#1
VolRoger

VolRoger

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#1
Another article about SEC Scheduling has been written online, this time by Bill Connelly of ESPN. I reference the article's url address just below along with pasting the main highlights of the article in case some doesn't wish to or can't use the link. I think most on the board have seen these kinds of suggestions before, but I thought his points in the article and the solution given was actually pretty good as it keeps each team at an 8 game SEC schedule and ensures that they get to play every one in the conference home and away at least once every four years. I'd be interesting in what you think. BTW, he had Bama on our every year pod schedule along with Florida and Vandy. Since we would get to play them twice every four years anyway, I changed out the Tide for the Wildcats to make things a little more balanced.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/27759331/why-sec-needs-scrap-divisions-more-week-6-college-football-thoughts

Just ban divisions altogether.
I've written about this before, but it has picked up steam in the run-up to Auburn-Florida. Let's walk through the basics of what we'll call the conference pod structure.
1. Instead of divisions, each team has a set of three permanent rivals. We have taken to calling them pods. Having three for each team satisfies most rivalry needs, as you'll see below.
2. You play your three permanent rivals every year, and you rotate between the other 10. Home-and-homes against five of them for two years, then home-and-homes against the other five the next two years. Within a student's four years on campus, you have played everyone in the league at least twice. Now that's a conference.

Hypothetical SEC rivalry pods

Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Kentucky
Arkansas: Missouri, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State
Florida: Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Alabama, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
LSU: Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Mississippi State: Auburn, Missouri, Ole Miss
Missouri: Arkansas, Mississippi State, Texas A&M
Ole Miss: Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State
South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Vanderbilt
Tennessee: Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt
Texas A&M: Arkansas, LSU, Missouri
Vanderbilt: Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee
 
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#3
#3
How is LSU and Texas A&M a rivalry bigger than LSU and Auburn?
 
#5
#5
VolRoger said:
Another article about SEC Scheduling has been written online, this time by Bill Connelly of ESPN. I reference the article's url address just below along with pasting the main highlights of the article in case some doesn't wish to or can't use the link. I think most on the board have seen these kinds of suggestions before, but I thought his points in the article and the solution given was actually pretty good as it keeps each team at an 8 game SEC schedule and ensures that they get to play every one in the conference home and away at least once every four years. I'd be interesting in what you think. BTW, he had Bama on our every year pod schedule along with Florida and Vandy. Since we would get to play them twice every four years anyway, I changed out the Tide for the Wildcats to make things a little more balanced.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/27759331/why-sec-needs-scrap-divisions-more-week-6-college-football-thoughts

Just ban divisions altogether.
I've written about this before, but it has picked up steam in the run-up to Auburn-Florida. Let's walk through the basics of what we'll call the conference pod structure.
1. Instead of divisions, each team has a set of three permanent rivals. We have taken to calling them pods. Having three for each team satisfies most rivalry needs, as you'll see below.
2. You play your three permanent rivals every year, and you rotate between the other 10. Home-and-homes against five of them for two years, then home-and-homes against the other five the next two years. Within a student's four years on campus, you have played everyone in the league at least twice. Now that's a conference.

Hypothetical SEC rivalry pods

Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Kentucky
Arkansas: Missouri, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State
Florida: Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Alabama, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
LSU: Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Mississippi State: Auburn, Missouri, Ole Miss
Missouri: Arkansas, Mississippi State, Texas A&M
Ole Miss: Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State
South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Vanderbilt
Tennessee: Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt
Texas A&M: Arkansas, LSU, Missouri
Vanderbilt: Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee
Click to expand...
The schedule heavily favors LSU and UT historically and UF with the current state of UT football. Can't have some schools having 2/3 games being against big 6 members and others only getting 1. Playing Auburn, UF, and USCe is much more difficult than Kentucky, UF, and Vandy.
 
#6
#6
This is more of a proposal than a revision.
The SEC is slow to revise anything.
 
#9
#9
The SEC should have never expanded in the first place. I truly believe that. Texas A&M and Mizzou haven't really brought in anything except maybe Texas recruiting.

Even then, they have only one division title to show for it.
 
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#11
#11
I don't hate this at all.

I also don't hate the way it is, and don't wish to change anything simply to make us more competitive. It's our job to make ourselves more competitive, no matter the scheduling.
 
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#12
#12
Our permanent rivals need to be Alabama, Kentucky & Vanderbilt. I know Alabama is really good right now, but it won't always be the case, those are our historic rivals. We only played Florida about 20 times in the 100 or so seasons prior to 1992.
 
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#13
#13
JMSqb11 said:
How is LSU and Texas A&M a rivalry bigger than LSU and Auburn?
Click to expand...
You'd have to ask the writer that question JMSqb11. I would agree that it probably isn't, but I think the aim here was to make sure that as a conference, each team plays all the others at least twice every four years. One of the casualties of doing this is losing a few rivalry games. Note that LSU would also lose Florida, but how fair would it be for LSU to play Auburn, Florida, and Alabama every year? He also had us still playing both Alabama and Florida every year which seemed a little much considering where we currently fall in the conference.
 
#15
#15
'Boro-vol said:
I don't hate this at all.

I also don't hate the way it is, and don't wish to change anything simply to make us more competitive. It's our job to make ourselves more competitive, no matter the scheduling.
Click to expand...

Point taken. I hate dropping Alabama as an every year game too, but we would still play them twice every four years.
 
#16
#16
VolRoger said:
Another article about SEC Scheduling has been written online, this time by Bill Connelly of ESPN. I reference the article's url address just below along with pasting the main highlights of the article in case some doesn't wish to or can't use the link. I think most on the board have seen these kinds of suggestions before, but I thought his points in the article and the solution given was actually pretty good as it keeps each team at an 8 game SEC schedule and ensures that they get to play every one in the conference home and away at least once every four years. I'd be interesting in what you think. BTW, he had Bama on our every year pod schedule along with Florida and Vandy. Since we would get to play them twice every four years anyway, I changed out the Tide for the Wildcats to make things a little more balanced.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/27759331/why-sec-needs-scrap-divisions-more-week-6-college-football-thoughts

Just ban divisions altogether.
I've written about this before, but it has picked up steam in the run-up to Auburn-Florida. Let's walk through the basics of what we'll call the conference pod structure.
1. Instead of divisions, each team has a set of three permanent rivals. We have taken to calling them pods. Having three for each team satisfies most rivalry needs, as you'll see below.
2. You play your three permanent rivals every year, and you rotate between the other 10. Home-and-homes against five of them for two years, then home-and-homes against the other five the next two years. Within a student's four years on campus, you have played everyone in the league at least twice. Now that's a conference.

Hypothetical SEC rivalry pods

Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Kentucky
Arkansas: Missouri, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State
Florida: Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Alabama, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
LSU: Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Mississippi State: Auburn, Missouri, Ole Miss
Missouri: Arkansas, Mississippi State, Texas A&M
Ole Miss: Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State
South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Vanderbilt
Tennessee: Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt
Texas A&M: Arkansas, LSU, Missouri
Vanderbilt: Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee
Click to expand...
There are 7 "untouchable" annual series in the SEC and Tennessee/Alabama is one of them.

1) Auburn/Georgia
2) Auburn/Alabama
3) Alabama/Tennessee
4) Georgia/Florida
5) LSU/Ole Miss
6) Ole Miss/ Miss State
7) Vanderbilt/Tennessee

Since this proposal thinks that Alabama and Tennessee can be dropped ... it's hard to take seriously.
 
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#17
#17
BowlBrother85 said:
There are 7 "untouchable" annual series in the SEC and Tennessee/Alabama is one of them.

1) Auburn/Georgia
2) Auburn/Alabama
3) Alabama/Tennessee
4) Georgia/Florida
5) LSU/Ole Miss
6) Ole Miss/ Miss State
7) Vanderbilt/Tennessee

Since your post ignores that... it's hard to take seriously.
Click to expand...

Not sure how you leave out Auburn/LSU and LSU/Florida
 
#19
#19
BowlBrother85 said:
There are 7 "untouchable" annual series in the SEC and Tennessee/Alabama is one of them.

1) Auburn/Georgia
2) Auburn/Alabama
3) Alabama/Tennessee
4) Georgia/Florida
5) LSU/Ole Miss
6) Ole Miss/ Miss State
7) Vanderbilt/Tennessee

Since this proposal thinks that Alabama and Tennessee can be dropped ... it's hard to take seriously.
Click to expand...

He didn't drop Tennessee and Alabama. In fact, he left in tact all the rivalries you mention above. I was the one who switched out Alabama for Kentucky. I'd gladly add them back if we were allowed to drop Florida, but if one does that then a lot of fans would be upset who think Florida is a bigger rivalry game now than Bama. We've had that argument multiple times on this board, so I really don't wish to discuss that. Basically, one should think of this as an attempt to make sure each SEC team plays all the others at least twice every four years. It's been quite a while now since we added Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC. A&M has yet to come to Knoxville to play us. How about Georgia? Under current scheduling they rarely have to play Alabama and only have to go to Tuscaloosa every 11 years I think? Plus, they get Florida has a neutral field matchup every year. That could be fixed without doing the above suggested by the article writer (probably), but it would still take a lot of changing up of the current SEC schedule format.
 
Last edited:
#21
#21
BowlBrother85 said:
Those aren't untouchable, just like Tennessee/Kentucky isn't.
Click to expand...

LSU would play Auburn and Florida twice every four years under this proposal. That probably doesn't qualify as rivalry, but it's still pretty close, especially if you split the two up on LSU's schedule (i.e. LSU plays home/away with Auburn in years 1 and 2 and with Florida in years 3 and 4).
 
#22
#22
I got bored and started playing with some of the proposed rivalry pods and came up with a few tweaks that I felt like made more sense. Obviously there's no way to make them prefect and I'm sure I overlooked a major game, but there are some things that I didn't agree with in that initial list:


Alabama: Auburn, Tennessee, LSU
Arkansas: Mississippi State, Texas A&M, Missouri
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, LSU
Florida: LSU, Tennessee, Georgia
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Mississippi State
LSU: Florida, Alabama, Auburn
Mississippi State: Ole Miss, Arkansas, Kentucky
Missouri: Texas A&M, South Carolina, Arkansas
Ole Miss: Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Texas A&M
South Carolina: Georgia, Missouri, Kentucky
Tennessee: Florida, Alabama, Vanderbilt
Texas A&M: Arkansas, Missouri, Ole Miss
Vanderbilt: Ole Miss, Tennessee, Kentucky


EDIT: realized I left off Auburn/LSU. Fixed it and I think it still works
 
Last edited:
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#23
#23
JMSqb11 said:
Not sure how you leave out Auburn/LSU and LSU/Florida
Click to expand...

Auburn and LSU have only played 53 times, 28 of those since 1992. So basically, they are like us and UGA who played for the 49th time Saturday and didn't play much before divisions. LSU-Auburn wasn't a big thing before divisions either. Florida and LSU is a little more weighty. They have essentially played every year since 1971 for a total of 65 games. However, that's way below the bar set for the 7 "untouchables" listed above who have all played each other anywhere from 90 something to 123 times in the case of UGA and Auburn.
 
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#25
#25
I'd love to see the SEC play another non division SEC game every year....I know this isn't feasible considering we already beat up on each other too much every year.....
 
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