DataHog

I'm warming up to the pods a bit but haven't quite made up my mind yet. But really, if regular meetings between all SEC teams is the primary desire, there's not that many options available: 1. Pods with a 9 game conference schedule. 4 teams in a pod means there are 12 other teams, 6 of which you would play each year. That would be 3 "pod" games and 6 rotating games for 9 conference games a year. This would allow you to play every team every two years. 2. Another "pod" solution would be rotation divisions, where each pod is paired with a different one of the other 3 each year to create a group of 8 teams that would all play each other. This method creates a more natural SEC championship game. You would need one or two crossover games to make an 8 or 9 game conference schedule, but you would play every team in the conference in a three year period. 3. 1 rival, no divisions. Every team would have a "rival" that they would play every year, then you would play 7 of the remaining 14 teams in an 8 game conference season. This would also allow every team to play each other every two years. 4. You could have 3 rivals that don't necessarily play each other like they would in a pod, but I'd think that would be a bit hellish trying to create schedules around. Hopefully the pods and even the rivalries would be reevaluated every, say, 6 years or so. That way things can be freshened up and rebalanced as programs go through ups and downs. Alabama and Auburn aren't likely to give up the Iron Bowl, but "rivalries" like Arkansas-Missouri which virtually no one from either side cares about and primarily exist to fill out a schedule really do need periodic reconsideration.

Hmm...not sure. The physics of doing this to a 40lb kid is a bit different than with a 200lb man. I would need more details before outright condemning it.

These articles all parrot one another and it doesn't seem that any have actually read the lawsuit. The Razorback Foundation is claiming that Bielema signed a contract with the Patriots that barred him from taking any other job, with a salary that would mitigate $0 of the buyout money for up to two of the remaining three years of his buyout. As I understand it, since the 'Release and Waiver Agreement' that Bielema signed with the Razorback Foundation included a duty to mitigate, the Foundation took the signing of that Patriot contract as a violation of the agreement and so, stopped payments. From the lawsuit: "the Patriots Employment Agreement provides: “The Employee [Bielema] shall not render services to another or others, either connected or not connected with football, during the Term of this Agreement, except with the express written permission of the Club[.]” The Term of the Agreement was from July 2018 through January 2019 (or January 2020 if the Patriots elected, in its sole discretion, to exercise the one-year option)." You can search Google for the document "AB-Bielema-Razorback-Foundation-Lawsuit-09042020.pdf" and read it for yourself at the bottom of page 31.