Last year, the SEC voted to maintain its current structure of having permanent cross-divisional rivalries until at least 2025. That means that some of the SEC’s oldest rivalries — Alabama-Tennessee, Georgia-Auburn and others — will continue on uninterrupted on an annual basis for the time being.

While that was cause for celebration for those that like The Deep South’s Oldest Rivlary and The Third Saturday in October, the decision upset others, like LSU athletic director Joe Alleva. After all, a team’s annual schedule becomes tougher when they have to go across the conference to play the likes of Georgia or Florida every year as opposed to, say, Kentucky or Vanderbilt.

Those concerns got us wondering: are there teams that really do get a free pass every year, while others have a dog fight to secure an East vs. West win every fall?

All-time records

  1. Auburn vs. Georgia — Series tied, 55-55-8
  2. Kentucky vs. Mississippi State — Series tied, 21-21
  3. Florida vs. LSU — Florida leads, 31-27-3 (.508 winning percentage)
  4. Alabama vs. Tennessee — Alabama leads, 51-38-7 (.531 winning percentage)
  5. Ole Miss vs. Vanderbilt — Ole Miss leads, 49-38-2 (.550 winning percentage)
  6. Arkansas vs. Missouri — Missouri leads, 4-2 (.667 winning percentage)
  7. South Carolina vs. Texas A&M — Texas A&M leads, 1-0 (1.000 winning percentage)

Last 10 years

  1. Florida vs. LSU — LSU leads, 6-4 (.600 winning percentage)
  2. Ole Miss vs. Vanderbilt — Vanderbilt leads, 6-4 (.600 winning percentage)
  3. Arkansas vs. Missouri — Missouri leads, 2-1 (.667 winning percentage)
  4. Auburn vs. Georgia — Georgia leads, 7-3 (.700 winning percentage)
  5. Kentucky vs. Mississippi State — Mississippi State leads, 7-3 (.700 winning percentage)
  6. Alabama vs. Tennessee — Alabama leads, 9-1 (.900 winning percentage)
  7. South Carolina vs. Texas A&M — Texas A&M leads, 1-0 (1.000 winning percentage)

Note: All-time records courtesy of winsipedia.com

As you can see, Alleva does have somewhat of a legitimate gripe; his Tigers have played one of the tightest rivalries with Florida over the last 10 years and all time, truly giving LSU one of the stiffest annual cross-divisional games in the conference. Auburn-Georgia and Kentucky-Mississippi State are both tied in series history, the only closer rivalries than LSU-Florida.

However, both of those tied series have been a bit lopsided the last decade, with both Mississippi State and Georgia leading their series, 7-3. Alabama has been swatting Tennessee during a down period for the Volunteers, winning nine of the last 10 matchups over the last decade, including eight straight since Nick Saban took over.

After LSU-Florida and Ole Miss-Vanderbilt, every other series over the last 10 years has seen one side win at least two-thirds of the games (disclaimer: Arkansas-Missouri and South Carolina-Texas A&M are both new rivalries). That runs in stark contrast to the all-time series, where the only series with one team winning more than 55 percent of their rivalry games are those two new rivalries.