Remember when landing a home-and-home with a big BCS opponent was huge news?

Nowadays, the trend is for SEC schools to schedule their big out-of-conference games at neutral sites. It seems like the sensible solution to the league’s mandate that each school include at least one Power 5 conference school on its out-of-conference schedule each season.

There some conference games played at neutral sites, like Florida vs. Georgia and Arkansas vs. Texas A&M, but for the purpose of this article let’s take a look at games against non-SEC opponents.

In the last five seasons, there have been some historic regular-season meetings between schools thanks to neutral site agreements.

Here are five of the best, based on the quality of the out-of-conference program, not necessarily the outcome of the game.

2014: LSU vs. Wisconsin (Houston, Texas)

The Tigers have shown they are not shy about stepping outside of the league for an early-season challenge. In a matchup of preseason Top 15 teams, LSU scored 15 unanswered points in the fourth quarter on the way to a 28-24 win over the Badgers in the Advocare Texas Kickoff.

2012: Alabama vs. Michigan (Arlington, Texas)

Two of the nation’s premier college football programs met up in Texas a couple of years ago. While the game was anticipated due to both the Crimson Tide (No. 2) and Michigan (No. 8) being ranked in the Top 10, the reality of the game did not live up to the hype. Alabama rolled to a 41-14 victory, launching a national championship season.

2012: Auburn vs. Clemson (Atlanta, Ga.)

The 2012 season was one to forget for Auburn fans, but the season-opener against Clemson was a matchup that everyone could get used to seeing more often. Clemson took this game 26-19 after getting 231 yards from RB Andre Ellington.

2011: LSU vs. Oregon (Arlington, Texas)

This game is a reason we should support these types of matchups. Watching coaches Chip Kelly and Les Miles square off to open the college football season with two Top 5 teams at their disposal was a treat. The Tigers got the best of Oregon with a 40-27 win, and the game induced an admission from Kelly that LSU may have had superior athletes.

2011: Georgia vs. Boise State (Atlanta, Ga.)

While the Georgia Dome is much closer to Athens than it is to Boise, Idaho, this game still counted as a neutral-site game for the Bulldogs. Ranked in the Top 5, the Broncos had little trouble with the effects of the cross-country trip, winning 35-21 in front of what was considered a mostly pro-Georgia crowd.

Other notable non-conference games over that time period:

  • 2014: Ole Miss vs. Boise State, Alabama vs. West Virginia
  • 2013: Alabama vs. Virginia Tech, LSU vs. TCU, Mississippi State vs. Oklahoma State
  • 2012: Tennessee vs. North Carolina State
  • 2010: LSU vs. North Carolina

And those games appear to be just the beginning of a great run of out-of-conference match ups.

The Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Classic in Atlanta, Cowboys Classic in Arlington and Advocare Texas Kickoff in Houston are expected to continue to offer SEC teams the opportunity to shine on the national stage in the opening week of the season.

For example, Alabama is expected to start its next three seasons with neutral-site games against Wisconsin (2015), USC (2016) and Florida State (2017).