Want to fix the SEC divisional divide? No need to scrap them. There's one simple (and logical) move
I enjoyed Matt Hinton’s column on why the imbalance between SEC West and East meant that the divisional approach should be scrapped altogether. I do agree that there is something wrong that might need fixing, but I’d like to make a couple of points before moving on to my proposed (and much simpler) solution to fix the West/East issues.
First, the imbalance isn’t the West versus the East, it’s Alabama versus everybody. Georgia beat Auburn, Florida upset LSU in Baton Rouge, Missouri took down Arkansas, Kentucky held off Mississippi State. On any given Saturday, any team in the East could conceivably have beaten any team in the West … well, except Alabama. And that lack of competitive balance isn’t the fault of the East, it’s the fault of all of college football — and sooner or later, it will be fixed, either by Saban’s retirement or some unforeseen fall in Alabama’s program.
Which brings me to my second point. Destroying division play because the West is beating the East about 75 percent of the time head-to-head is incredibly short-sighted. In the late 1990s, the tables were turned. Florida and Tennessee were consistent national championship contenders. The SEC West threw up division champions like Arkansas in 1995 (8-5 team that lost SEC title 34-3) or Mississippi State in 1998 (8-5 team that lost to Kentucky, and of course, also lost the SEC title game). Things change.
Basically, the big dogs in the East slumped. And “contenders” like Mizzou and South Carolina were left to carry the banner. But destroying division play because Tennessee, Georgia, and to some extent Florida, have fallen on hard times is overreacting.
The more obvious problem is geography. Here’s a map of the SEC.
Huh? Missouri is farther West than all but two teams in the West division. So naturally, there are in the … East?
Auburn is a good bit east of Vanderbilt, and is basically in a straight north-south line with East members Kentucky and Tennessee, and the Tigers are in the … West?
Let’s fix some things.
The team that was the worst in the East in 2016 — and frankly, based on recruiting base, coaching situation, and general football culture, looks like a safe bet to be one of the weaker football programs in the SEC for years to come gets moved to the West. Where it actually is. Missouri to the West.
On the other hand, one of the better teams from the overstacked West, a relative historical power, gets moved to the East, out of the division with its more powerful in-state rival, and into a position where it can reasonably compete for a division title year in and year out. Auburn, welcome to the East. Look back at the map and redraw those lines in your head.
Much better, no?
Now, the brass tacks of the move. To balance Auburn getting a slightly easier path, it will keep Alabama as its permanent cross-division opponent. Can’t give up the Iron Bowl. This does mean the death of Tennessee and Bama as an every season game. Is that a bad thing? Well, Tennessee should love it, and Alabama … well, you can’t play everybody. There’s not been much to that rivalry lately, and the two teams would still play each other every six years.
Auburn had Georgia as their old cross-division opponent, so the Bulldogs need a new matchup. Georgia can play Missouri, as the 2016 edition of the game was probably one of both team’s most interesting matchups of the year. The two schools had only played once before 2012, but the game has generally been competitive (2014 aside).
Tennessee then gets Arkansas for its cross-division opponent. Both Georgia and Tennessee have just made their schedules easier, which should also help the East regenerate into something resembling a more competitive division.
If you make this move, you’ve made one small change that makes geographic sense, and shifted the balance of power between the divisions to much closer to even. The only real loss is Alabama v. Tennessee every year, and how much of a loss is that? Don’t throw the baby of divisional play out with the bathwater of a season when nobody could compete with Bama. Instead of my suggestion, which does impact one traditional SEC rivalry, a round-robin schedule will kill literally a dozen or so a year. Let’s get reasonable, and let’s take a look at the map and fix this sucker.
I like it but I think the Bama and UT fans might not and of course, Bama has veto over what the SEC does in cases like this.
Veto power? This isn’t the United Nations Security Council. This makes so much sense that it is baffling to anyone with the ability to reason as to why it has taken this long and still hasn’t occurred. Auburn has even publicly stated its willingness to move to the East. By doing so Auburn’s schedule isn’t made easier, but once important yearly rival games with Florida and Tennessee can then resume. The fact of the matter is that nobody in college football places the bama/UT game on the same level in terms of rival games as the Iron Bowl or the UGA/AU game.
AL-TN is the most “Storied” rivalry in the conference, the UM/OSU game of the south. The Iron Bowl may be a bigger deal now but nobodys putting AU/UGA over UA/UT in a SEC rivalry ranking list ever
The game may be important to Bama and UT fans, but virtually no one else cares. It is nowhere close to Michigan Ohio State. Try to keep it real.
dude, it’s NOT EVEN CLOSE to UM/tOSU. The viewership of UM/tOSU this year alone blows out every SEC game played. In fact, Bama/UT wasn’t even one of the most watched games of the year. Bama/LSU gets more national attention.
Bama has a large winning streak over UT right now, just like UT had a large win streak over Bama in the decade previous to Saban. The tide (pun intended) will change again and Tennessee will have its day in the series. Guarantee everybody that says the rivalry isn’t important has only been watching CFB for 10-15 years. Fans that remember life in the SEC without Saban, knows just how big this rivalry is, considering its the two most successful programs in the history of the SEC.
Several large publications list AU vs UGA over UA vs UT; a simple Google search will tell you that. Give research a shot. The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry has 21 years on the UA vs UT game; I wouldn’t say being older is more storied, but there’s a lot of subjectivity.
21 games, not years.
No one at UT would like to get rid of Bama. It will never happen without keeping the 3rd Saturday in October and the Iron Bowl. Maybe Bama to the east instead of Auburn?
The problem here is that the East would then have 3 of the most storied programs in the country in UT, uf, and bama…
just curious, what’s your criteria for “storied program”?
1) Program
2) Storied
If you don’t know, you ain’t one.
So you don’t know either. Got it.
Florida who never won anything until the mid 90s? That’s storied alright!
Considering UF wasn’t all that good until the 90s and it took them until 96 (if I’m correct on that) to win their first natty, I wouldn’t call them storied just yet. A power program? Sure. But probably not storied.
UF a storied program? Not if your story started in the 90’s with Spurrier. You gotta have a little more history than that. UF seems to always forget they were irrelevant until the 90’s.
So, if they truly wanted to make the SEC the best, as it already is, what four teams would you pick up to pick up either Texas, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Clemson, Florida State etc.?
sorry, drop to pick up any of the others.
Go to 9 conference games and keep both Alabama-Tennessee and Alabama-Auburn.
Boom.
problem solved
Agree, makes more sense.
If you’re going to do this much, go one step further and swap Bama and Vanderbilt. Then Bama can keep the annual games with both Auburn and Tennessee. If the SEC expands again, it probably will move further West and pick up more Big 12 teams, then Vandy can move back to the East.
Not a bad idea. If we did go to 16 teams, we would end up in an NFL style 4 four team pods.
The more I hear this idea, the more I like it. How does the SECCG work out then? Semi final SECCG? Putting another game in the mix is going to be much harder.
I would assume it would add a 4 team playoff with the winners of each pod. This would be a tall order under the current CFB playoff system. Would almost require 4 super conferences, each with 16 members, who would each send their champion to the CFB playoff.
Four 4-team divisions. Play the 3 teams in your division, the 3 teams from other divisions ranked the same at the end of last year, and 1 permanent rival. When the permanent rival is the same rank, use a tie-breaker formula to determine up/down movement for switching out that game.
That leaves 7 regular season conference games. Then, the last SEC game of the year is each team playing their current equal ranked opponent in a seeded system, allowing each #1 to play in a defacto semi-final SECCG but still allowing each SEC team to finish the year with 8 conference games.
There’s kinks, of course. I’m half lit and coming up with it off the top of my head. But I think there’s some potential to the idea!
True, but who would you add to get to 16?
This was my thought as well. UT can have Vandy as its new crossover game, Auburn can take Missouri, and Alabama can have Ole Miss. then the only game lost is Auburn–Ole Miss, which frankly isn’t a big deal at all.
BT, are you serious? It would do nothing to ease to problem that the conference has now. Of course it would make the path for LSU much easier.
That would put Bama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee (Five of the Big Six) in the same division. That would probably make the SEC way more lopsided than it already is. And naturally an LSU would think this is a good idea.
Bama and Auburn should be in the east after the Aggies and Mizzou came on board. Too simple. Vany moves west and the deal is done.
bayou tiger’s comment is probably the right answer if we really want to bring balance to the force. Mizzou & Vandy to the West. Alabama & Auburn to the East. You can preserve almost all of the long-time rivalries this way, and rekindle some rivalries that went away in 1992, such as Tennessee-Auburn, and Auburn-Florida. I know Tennessee’s played Auburn more than they’ve played Florida or Georgia. That rivalry was so intense they had to cancel the game for about 20 years.
lol, who would keNBAky actually have a chance to win two in a row against??
Putting Alabama in the East would be interesting.
But I would like to see the 2 best teams in the SEC championship game. To do this you have to end divisions. SEC needs to petition the NCAA to end divisional play in order to have a championship game.
If this was the case, the SEC West wouldn’t have many teams in the SECCG between 1992-2003.
Nobody really wants to see 8-4 teams in the CCG anyway. It doesn’t matter which division they come from.
Bingo
Why not drop keNBAky and Vanderbilt, let them find a conference they can compete in?
And this reply isn’t to LSUSMC or any other of his screen names.
I believe that bridge has been crossed in the Big XII. They have 10 teams, no divisions, and yet they will have a “Championship Game” next year, if I recall correctly.
Missouri fans are getting more than a little tired of being the assumed laughing-stock of the conference for “Years to come”. Incredible recency bias. Missouri has averaged 7.4 wins/year in the SEC, won two division titles, and, yes, had a couple rebuilding years.
Here is my challenge to SDS: Give Missouri fans more good, original content, and less “They will suck for years to come.” or we will gradually stop visiting your site and participating in the comment section.
Think you can do that?
College football attention with the media is a fickle thing. You would think the way the SEC East is reported on SDS that they’ve been horrible the last 10-15 years.
I agree with your comments. Missouri came to Athens a few years ago and laid it on us. But the Tigers should be in the west along with Vandy while bringing Bama and Auburn to the east.
You have to understand that SDS is not really a serious football media writers site. I like being able to shoot shotgun sized holes in their toilet paper targets. 1. It’s not a conference championship unless you play division champs in the final, based strictly on division results. So counting the cross-division results has to stop. 2. Let members schedule as many cross division “rivals” as they want. Fans that can’t see how destructive it is to their programs to play hate matches, in the middle of a conference race, are not smart enough to have in a serious conversations. 3. More cross-division games are needed because… are you really in the same conference if you go 5 years without playing every cross member? So the cross-div. rivalry game has to become the optional 3rd cross division match up, and the world won’t end if that game only gets played every other year. Doing this would get almost all 14 members playing each other in a two year cycle, 1-2 games going into the 3rd year. Finally, to all Missouri haters, we love it that your afraid of a conference member. Only one SEC member has won 5 division championships in 9 years (and nobody else in two different conferences)
You asked: “are you really in the same conference if you go 5 years without playing every cross member?”
Georgia and LSU went didn’t play after the 1953 game until 1978. And you wonder about only 5 years? The SEC’s a funny place.
good comment thanks for adding.
Look Mizzouri is a valued member of the SEC, there are a lot of people who are happy to have you guys myself included. Mizzou/SC has been a great game since we started playing it. However, if your looking for someone to hold your hand you have the wrong idea man. Sports is all about kick em while theyre down in the media. South Carolina showed significant improvement this year and all year long all the media said was we were still awful all the way up until we beat UT. Not even bringing up the comments on this site from last season…
Funny. I said that LAST year when this thing came up, Auburn is almost closer to Athens than it is to Tuscaloosa
This was already suggested when we added Missou and A&M but TN killed the idea quickly. The Alabama game is too lucrative to them. I don’t believe the Bama faithful cared as long as they still had the Iron Bowl. I lived in Birmingham around this time and the Auburn people strongly wanted to go East. I definitely think we should keep the division’s through. Very short-sighted to think the East will always stay down.
Can Tennessee really kill anything? They aren’t that powerful. Change is always hard. The powers to be in the conference are just hoping someone from the East steps up so this can correct itself.
TN has a lot of clout in Birmingham, more anyway than the that of people wanting Auburn in the East. The East will step up, probably UGA. TN and FL are talented but under coached. The East has not picked great coaches. Vandy lost their coach to Penn St and FL lost Urban to OSU. The Ol’ Ball Coach retired and Georgia fired a 10+ win coach. Tough times in the East.
Correction – Florida lost Urban Meyer to Nick Saban then OSU plucked him out of his less than one year hiatus.
Nobody in Auburn wants to go to the East? wtf you smoking. That would be boring as hell
Why not, easier path to the SECCG, easier recruiting in FL and GA and closer road games.
You get bored losing to UGA every year? We never get bored beating you all every year.
I miss the annual battle we used to have with All-Barn ;-)
Boring? Auburn would get to play Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama every year. Yeah, UT and FL have been down, but those are still preeminent programs … certainly more than Ole Miss, Miss State, and Arkansas–no offense to those teams.
It wouldn’t necessarily be an easier path to the SECCG because these things are cyclical. Eventually, Tennessee will fire Davis and get a good coach, and Florida will return. Also, Georgia is always a strong competitor when they aren’t under a new coach for the first time in 15 years.
Despite what outsiders think, TN does not want to lose the annual Bama game. It’s traditionally our biggest rivalry, and just b/c we haven’t been competitive isn’t a good reason to scrap it. As noted in the article, these trends are cyclical, and once Saban is gone the balance will be restored. A more logical solution is to play 9 conference games so you get an extra team from the opposite division and get to play teams more than once every 6 years.
I agree fully. 9 conference games would be significantly better than the 8 we have now. Would be harder to go bowling though.
That was my thought. During the 90s (and most of the 2000s), Florida was killing us every year, and I don’t think a single Georgia fan wanted to end the rivalry. Just because a team has a winning streak in a rivalry game doesn’t mean that the losing team wants to give it up.
Unless you’re Kansas.
Haha savage
Are they still pouting?
1st D tackle Sheldon Richardson-Missouri calls out Texas, story published in every Texas newspaper, “Texas is over-rated I’ve played against a lot of their over-rated recruits”. 2nd Texas comes to Missouri and almost gets shut-out. 3rd Missouri, Nebraska, aTm, and Colorado blow-up Texas’s little scheme to steal 700 million dollars from the conference. 4th Deloss Dodds tries to say we didn’t want you guys anyway with this quote “Take a team like Missouri, our bad years are better than Missouri’s good years”. 5th Missouri completes the 5 division championships in two conferences before Texas can even be competitive one time in their division, and Missouri beats Oklahoma State in the Cottonbowl the night after Alabama loses to Oklahoma, 6th The team that cheated Missouri out of National Championship by suiting up an aTm star player, then Kansas sets a new record for bad performance in a conference, 2012-2016. 7th Kansas beats Texas. In a perfect world…… what could be more perfect?
I’ve been saying we should do this for a while now, and while we’re at it it’s time to fix the cross divisional pairings too, don’t get me wrong I like what you have right now, but to me one of the things that makes the least sense is having USC and A&M play every year. These schools have nothing to do with each other geographically, historically, or match-up-wise so I suggest we do the following were Auburn to move to the east and Mizzou to move to the west
Cross divisional rivalries staying the same
-Florida – LSU
-Kentucky – Miss State
Cross divisional rivalries that need to happen and why
– Auburn – Alabama: Like you said, we can’t have a world without the Iron Bowl every year.
– South Carolina – Mizzou: The media already deemed this a ‘rivalry’ and gave it the name of “The Battle of Columbia.” It’s all pretty fabricated but it makes more sense than UScar – A&M
-Tennessee – Texas A&M: These two schools are both powerhouses in their divisions, being constant contenders for the championship. This compounded with the role that the real Tennessee volunteers had in the Texan war for independence gives this matchup a bit of culture and history. Plus it gives A&M an orange and white UT to play every year.
Cross-divisonal matchups I’m unsure about:
-Georgia – Ole Miss: Switch one deep south team for another? In any case this should be an interesting game every year
-Vanderbilt – Arkansas: Tennessee would be the only team in the east that shares a border with Arkansas, and Vandy is not very far from the border.
I’m not in love with those two since Vandy – Ole Miss is already a pretty legitimate rivalry, it’s just that it would make more sense for me than pairing Georgia with Arkansas.
This is probably too much, and the suggestion posed in the article is probably the one that makes most sense, but hey, a guy can dream can’t he?
Georgia/Auburn is arguably just as big of a rivalry as Bama/Auburn. It may not be in-state, but it’s the oldest rivalry in the conference.
nevermind, i see you meant just CROSS-DIVISIONAL. GA/AU would remain anyway….carry on…
Yeah, haha
Auburn being in the East would really be pretty good.
Not only will the UGA-AU rivalry be forever protected but the UF-AU rivalry series would finally resume
Absolutely one of the oldest Games played in the SEC with 4 places it was played during all those years….
“Both Georgia and Tennessee have just made their schedules easier”
Yeah, instead of playing Mizzou (an east team) and Auburn (cross-divisional opponent), Georgia would play Auburn (an east team) and Mizzou (cross-divisional opponent). That schedule seems much easier…seriously?
Heck yes Auburn want’s out of the west. But the florida writer of this somehow thinks Tennessee isn’t the true historic rival of Alabama. Sure LSU and AUBURN are fun games and all, but Tennessee is the true rival of Alabama and always should be. Forget geography put all the dogs and cats in the same division with everyone else in the other. The Results: aTm, LSU, Miss. St., Mo. Auburn, Georgia, Ky in one division. Tenn, SC, Florida, Ole Miss Vandy Bama in the other. You want balance, that will get you balance.
Damn dale, you really believe the garbage that u type? Tenn(who bama’s beaten 10 straight) is bama’s biggest rival?Can’t fix stupid…
….and Tennessee won 10 out of 11 and 9 in a row before Bama’s current streak, so I don’t get your point. The Bama-UT rivalry has always gone in streaks, and, yes, Tennessee is Alabamas biggest rival all-time. If for no other reason, than UT has beaten Alabama more than any other team, 38 times. (Auburn has 35 wins over Bama).
I’d be willing to bet that most of the people claiming Auburn as Alabama’s biggest rival is too young to remember college football before the year 2000. Believe it or not the SEC was good before Saban.
I consider UT a bigger rival myself. Always have.
Seems like I remember Sabah saying the same as bear earlier this year. Our 2 best coaches and most fans over 30 say Tennessee is our biggest rival but I guess it’s not if those outside the program that hate us say it’s not. Lol…just be we are their biggest rival means they must be ours.
Auburn is Bama’s true rival. It’s not even a close comparison.
Bear Bryant said himself Tennessee was their biggest rival… they’re the SEC’S two most successful programs and Tennessee has more so over Alabama than ANYONE… Tennessee dominated this rivalry for a decade and not it’s Alabama turn… it’ll come back around…
dtanne02 1 min ago
Seems like I remember Sabab saying the same as bear earlier this year. Our 2 best coaches and most fans over 30 say Tennessee is our biggest rival but I guess it’s not if those outside the program that hate us say it’s not. Lol…just be we are their biggest rival means they must be ours.
You’d have to move Alabama and Auburn, because your blithe suggestion of nuking the UA-UT rivalry is a non-starter. Tennessee may’ve been down for a few years, but history suggests they will come back.
Alabama and Tennessee are THE top two programs in SEC history and they have played each other as the conference’s top two programs many, many, many times. This is one of the top rivalries in the nation.
If UT stays down another 10 years, then maybe you can start thinking of them having permanently been demoted from the top echelon. But for now, you can’t realign in a way that destroys that rivalry.
What history suggests they will come back? When does history suggest this will happen?
The fact they are top 10 all time in almost every major category… you honestly expect Tennessee to just not be back? Lol
Nothing is for certain. Notre Dame is supposedly a college football powerhouse, but they’ve only had one year of being relevant on the national level in 30 years.
Tennessee is going on almost a decade of doing nothing. Sure, Tennessee will probably come back, but when is anyone’s guess. The sports media has been saying “This year!” for about 6 years now for Tennessee.
Simple solution…..move Alabama to AFC South and Jacksonville Jaquars to SEC…….
I like it!
LOL Good one!
It’s a knee jerk reaction at best to realign divisions.
Auburn to the east an Mizzou to the west. Problem solved.
Each team play 3 opponents annually and the 10 remaining schools on a rotating basis. This way every team plays all conference members every other year even with only 8 conference games. Imagine Bama vs UGA, Bama vs UF, every other year to go along with annual opponents LSU/Tn/Auburn. Add another conference game and make it all the better. Also, you would have the two best teams in the SEC Championship Game and potentially have awesome matchups. Add another conference game and make it all the better. Even a two loss SEC Champion would probably make the playoffs with a beefed up schedule.
I like this
there was an article here on SDS laying that all out a couple weeks ago. that might even be a copy and paste from that article… the proposed lineup made sense to me…
Exactly how long do you expect the season to be in order to play 13 conference games? Or are you suggesting that there’s no need for the SEC to play non conference games at all anymore?
That’s a horrible idea.
Dang it. Nevermind, I missed the rotating basis part. This is what I get for SDS’ing before my coffee. lol
“Mizzou will be one of the weaker teams for years to come…” As an MU fan this comment makes me….. oh .. uhhh.. damn.. Having a hard time with my argument.. I’ll be back.
Haha! That was pretty good. Made me literally LOL, and choke on my coffee.
Safe to assume the writers statement was thrown around in 2012 too.
Add an additional conference game and keep Bama vs Tenn
or move Mizzou and Vandy to the West and AU and Bama to the east. Move around cross division rivals to get AU-LSU, Bama-Ole Miss, Vandy-UK/UT, and then I feel most of the others aren’t really much of rivals anyway after that so just whatever they want.
I’ve been saying this for 2 yrs now. Gotta move them both to preserve the Iron Bowl and UT vs Tide games. With the emergence of Ole Miss, A&M and Arky the conf would be pretty balanced.
Ole miss didn’t make a bowl…. that’s emergence?
Beating the Tide for 2 outta 3 yrs is strong and they just won the Sugar Bowl and how many SEC tms (East or West) can say that? Plus they’re recruiting at a level that’s ahead of every East tm but UGA. Yea, EMERGENCE!!!
Don’t ya hater it when your other screen names argue with you? And trying to keep up with which one said what?
Give Missouri back and steal FSU. Let’s just make a trade with the ACC.
Go away.
Mizzou is going no where now, they are as much an SEC member as Bama or any other team here.
No they aren’t. They are still the new kids on the block. I still don’t think they should have been invited.
Not many people in the SEC thinks that Mizzou should have ever been invited. But they are here and we might as well treat them as respectfully as we would anyone else. I do agree that they are new with no real rivals and should therefore be moved without any consideration to what they want.
They have a lot of potential for rivalries though, if they were in the West.
Arkansas-Mizzou is already a pretty legitimate rivalry.
Texas A&M-Mizzou could be interesting as two former Big12 teams
LSU-Mizzou might take a bit to develop, but as two teams connected by the Mississippi there could be something there…
I agree… FSU is too scared to play with us over here in a real conference lol but either way I think Missouri should be scrapped… they don’t belong here never did… I think Clemson or West Virginia would be a good pick up… just trade WVU and Missouri boom problem solved
Seems odd to trade in Mizzou after they made an instant ripple (two in fact) within their first 3 years. We’ve only been here five now, so I’m fairly confident we will do we will be more competitive than the last two years before too long. How long are we gonna have to wait for the Mighty Tennessee to wake up and meet their expectations again Kid?
Yall came into the East at a good time. Mizzou’s best years in the conference have come and gone. Mizzou’s recruiting is on par with teams like Vandy and you expect to compete again soon in the East? That’s funny. UT, UF, and UGA will hold the top three spots in the division for the foreseeable future.
“Best years have come and gone”… famous last words? You don’t do much internal reflection. How was Tennessee’s last decade? You don’t really have a leg to stand on at this point. Become relevant again and then run you mouth, not vice-versa. You don’t see MU fans screaming how great the team is in their current situation; obviously we’re struggling at the moment. Takes a lot of moxy to go around thumbing your ballbag at everybody while at the same time struggling to even remotely live up to your glory days from last century.
Also, you do realize Vandy beat you right? Might not want to talk trash on their recruiting a mere three weeks after they waxed your a$$ and took the state championship.
My comments were in regards to Mizzou. Mizzou facilities, recruiting, and fanbase are on a mid-major level. Yall can’t even fill that high school stadium in Columbia. Its funny that you say Tennessee is down with 8 and 9 win seasons. For perspective Tennessee has literally never had a record as bad as Mizzou’s this year (4-8), in school history. Hope you enjoyed those first two years, cause 4th or maybe 3rd is the best yall can hope for, going forward.
Can’t argue with the fact we had a disappointing year at 4-8,but I’d rather be 0-12 than be the laughing stock that comes from the stigma of claiming an out of conference week 2 Championship Trophy or have a head coach label my team Life Champions because they failed at delivering on expectations. As for your comments being in regards to Mizzou, don’t make ignorant statements and I won’t point out the fallacy in them, rather don’t let the only reason you close your pie-hole be to change the foot you’ve placed into your mouth.
I bet you would like to see Missouri scrapped as a SEC member, RockyTop. In our time here, we have directly denied UT bowl eligibility twice, exposed a “surging” UT team as a fraud in Knoxville in ’14, and even in a loss this year, showed an entire CBS viewership that you “SEC title contender” defense is trash.
You are 2-3 against us bottom dwellers. Consider that before you start throwing stones.
We are here to stay. You shouldn’t have added us if that was not what you wanted. And yes we’re “Yankees “, yes our mascot is named after a Union regiment. All things that make me proud of the school I graduated from.
If that is a problem for any of you, we’re not sorry.
We put up 63 on you and could have easily been 70. SIXTY FREAKIN THREE. That’s embarrassing.
Everyone scored on our dedense this year. That is no secret.
And yet we still somehow shut down that all world Vandy offense. I mean that Kyle Shurmur, no one* can stop that guy, you can only hope to slow him down.
*except pretty much every other power-5 defense that he has ever gone up against.
This still isn’t the best formula. Alabama-Tennessee, despite not being the most competitive over the past decade, is one of the SEC’s biggest rivalries with a lot of history behind it that should not be scrapped. The best method to make SEC Football better is to blow up the Divisions and instead give each team 4 Permanent Opponents, and rotate 3 each year, playing 7 conference games. This also opens up an OOC Slot, which will allow games like Georgia-Clemson, Auburn-Georgia Tech, Texas A&M-Texas, Arkansas-Texas, and Florida-Miami to occur with regularity. The permanent opponents can be set up like this:
*Alabama — Auburn, Tennessee, LSU, Mississippi State
*Arkansas — LSU, Ole Miss, Missouri, Texas A&M
*Auburn — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Ole Miss
*Florida — Georgia, Auburn, South Carolina, Tennessee
*Georgia — Florida, Auburn, Kentucky, South Carolina
*Kentucky — Tennessee, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Georgia
*LSU — Arkansas, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Alabama
*Mississippi State — Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Missouri
*Missouri — Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Arkansas
*Ole Miss — Mississippi State, LSU, Arkansas, Auburn
*South Carolina — Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt, Georgia
*Tennessee — Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Alabama, Florida
*Texas A&M — Missouri, Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State
*Vanderbilt — Tennessee, Missouri, South Carolina, Kentucky
I like this idea, but I think Auburn should get state rather than Ole Miss. The only reason being that the only team Auburn has played more than state is UGA. Idk if I would call it a rivalry, but man do I hate state.
As a State fan with nothing but hate for Auburn, I fully support this idea.
Flip Arkansas and Florida and call the divisions North and South.
That accomplishes nothing.
This won’t ever happen because UA/UT is too big of a money maker and it would also force the Iron Bowl to move to another weekend. SEC does not allow cross division play on the last week of the season to prevent a rematch the next week in the SEC championship game. If you are going to split in state “rivals”, it makes far more sense to move Auburn and Alabama to the east and move Mizzou and Vandy to the west. Nashville is negligibly east of Tuscaloosa and UT would much rather move the Vandy game to another week than lose UA/UT. Here is how I would break it down (with lock in games on the same row):
East West
AU MissSt
UA LSU
UF TAMU
UGA OleMiss
UK Mizzou
USC Arkansas
UT Vandy
Great. Now the West sucks.
And Florida loses the game against LSU. why would aTm be our ruval here. We have played them one time historically.
Right? But if they left either Bama or Auburn in the West it would make sense.
Mizxou has played a West team every year in the finale.
We weren’t TOO many crazy Johnny Manziel moments away from Texas A&M vs. Mizzou two weekends in a row in ’13.
They should remove divisions entirely. Each team should have three permanent opponents. That would leave 10 other teams. Play a home/home with 5 of the 10 in years one and two of the new system. Then a home/home with the other five in years 3 and 4. This way every four year player for an SEC team will play every other team at least twice and will play in every stadium in the conference. The top two teams at the end of the year go to the championship (even though I think they should scrap that game and have the reg season champion have an auto bid to a 8 team playoff).
This makes sense. Auburn should have never been in the West to begin with, and Missouri should definitely be in the West. Get rid of Mississippi State and Vanderbilt.
Um, no. State is one of the original members of the SEC. They aren’t going anywhere.
Actually LSU is considered as 2nd best program historically in the SEC. Tennessee is considered as the 3rd most historic program in the SEC, with Georgia being the 4th. Now this one I really don’t agree with as Florida is ranked as the 5th best all time program, with Auburn being 6th. Me personally I say it’s the other way around with Auburn being 5th and Florida being at 6th. Now these rankings are according to the college football data warehouse, which bases their rankings off of what each program has actually accomplished on the field. Not off of option based bias polls. Remember now that Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia & LSU are all ranked in the top 12 in the history of FBS football in all-times e wins. But LSU has more major wire service national championships than what Tennessee & Georgia has. LSU had also played in more major bowl games than what Tennessee & Georgia have as well ( sugar, Rose, Orange & Cotton ). LSU was also the first southern football playing school to ever be awarded the national championship in college football as well, 1908 by the national championship foundation. They have also been awarded the national championship for FBS college football in 8 different seasons by at least one awarding service, 1908,35,36,58,62,2003,07 & 2011. The college football data warehouse ranks LSU as the 9th best football program in the history of FBS football, Tennessee is ranked as the 10th best, Georgia is ranked at #11, Florida at #12 and Auburn is ranked as the 13th all time best FBS football program. Now the college football data warehouse only takes major wire service national championships into consideration when figuring national championships into their formula as to where each teams ranks all time. This is the reason why I put Auburn ahead of Florida. Auburn will be the next FBS football program to break 750 all time wins, Florida is around the 700 all time win mark. Auburn also was the 2nd southern football playing school to be awarded the national championship in FBS football, 1913 if not mistaken. Auburn like LSU & Georgia also has several national championships in FBS football that they could claim as well, while Florida only has 2 others that they could claim outside of the 3 major wire service national championships that they do claim. Remember Alabama & Tennessee both claim some of those same type of national championships in football that those other schools could also claim, most are even by the same services as the ones that Alabama & Tennessee claim. But that’s the actual historical all-time rankings of the big 6 SEC football programs.
Umm no lol anywhere you look Tennessee is ranked 2nd in the SEC… your just a homer… Tennessee has more wins, bowl games and wins, conference AND national championships… LSU is 3rd bud… but nice try
1. Alabama
2. Tennessee
3. LSU
4. Georgia
5. Auburn
6. Florida
7. Texas A&M
8. Arkansas
9. Ole Miss
10. Missouri
11. South Carolina
12. Kentucky
13. Vanderbilt
14. Mississippi State
You’re dumb…..
On what basis are you claiming that LSU is the 2nd best SEC team historically, because Tennessee is second in literally every major pertinent statistic?
It’s pretty simple… trade Missouri of the Big 12 for West Virginia… boom… problem solved for both conferences… WVU is traditionally a pretty good program who could do better than Missouri could in the SEC
That could be fun. WVU has a great history, great atmosphere, and one of the most loyal fan bases in the country. That would make for some fun late-season action, traveling up to Morgantown in late November. It would certainly help WVU with recruiting, coaching, and of course the moola$$$. And Morgantown is south of the Mason-Dixon Line…. I’m a fan
No. One. In. The. Conference. Is. Moving. To. Another. Conference.
Got it? You invited us, not WVU. We accepted. We are in the SEC now and likely until the conference no longer exists. Deal with it.
Wanna move us to the West? gine. We’re the new kids, we’ll deal with it. I, personally, would have no issue with that. But you are stuck with us. We will not consent to any “trade” especially to the conference we were just in a hurry to leave. Stop suggesting that.
*fine
So if bama and au are in different divisions, there is pretty significant chance they could be meeting in iron bowl in last week of November, but then have a rematch the very next week. Should iron bowl and au/uga switch weeks to avoid that?
Yea, let’s make Alabama and Auburn play each other two weekends in a row. That makes sense.
that’s not a big deal actually
The easiest way to fix this is to go by Playoff rankings. You can keep the divisions as they are but make the championship game based off of the 2 highest ranked teams in the playoff poll. If you do that you won’t wind up with teams in their conference championships that took advantage of a weak division. It also eliminates CFP gripes like the kind Penn State had. If you use this method you would have had a rematch between UM and OSU and Alabama and Auburn. It would have made for more interesting football and given each conference a legitimate champion. It would also eliminate the gripe people had when teams that did not win their conference make the playoff even though it was clear they were the best team in that conference see OSU. I think all the power 5 conferences would go a long way to make the playoff committee’s job easier if they adopt this method. You don’t need to change up the divisions to do this and also it basically covers a conference when teams go into slumps. It can survive the cycles of good and bad years for divisions if you send your 2 best teams from your conference to the conference championship game regardless of what division you play in. Just because Bama is riding high right now doesn’t mean anything. If we use this they could have potentially had to play aTm, LSU or Auburn again. That makes for great football too. This easily solves the playoff situation and conference championship issue.
Just move Missouri to the West, and split the teams in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee into East / West
Those 3 states are in the middle of the map , they can go both ways. Rotate cross division games to every 3 years, home one year, away 3 years later
No!! Dont change anything.
Not everyone gets a trophy!
Just bcuz one guy ia stronger than another, should we hold the stronger guy down to help the weaker?? Hell no!! Make the weaker work harder like the stronger did to get stronger. No more socialism talk!!!!
Im a huge east fan.. we dont need help, we need to quit being lazy, get off our asses, and work for those championships again. Missouri and Tamu addition hasnt made any difference to pis-poor east play. New coaches across the east has definitely hurt us, but quit your crying, work hard, play hard, and go get it!!
I get why Bama and UT fans think their game is their biggest rivalry, but the game doesn’t actually have any meaning outside of “hey, Bear Bryant thought this game meant something, so it does!” At no point in the last …. oh, I don’t know, 25 years has the UT-UAB game had any impact on the SEC race. Sure, maybe there’s one year in there, but honestly? The LSU and Auburn games have had more of an impact.
Rivalries come and go. You guys can move on, you know.
Anyway, move Auburn to the east, Mizzou to the West, go to a 9-game conference schedule with 2 permanent cross-division games and one rotating game. This would allow the Bama to keep the Iron Bowl and the game with UT. It would allow Auburn to keep playing Bama and LSU.
Two things….. UAB is not in the SEC and Auburn/LSU are in the Same division which if course will effect division standings a little more………… Since you came up so short In your original thought process I didn’t even read the rest.
In a column I wrote for Sports Central two weeks ago, I advanced a plan under which all five “big” conferences would add enough teams to increase their number to 15, so they could then split up into three five-team divisions, with the three division champions plus one wild card qualifying for a new conference semifinals in which the top two division winners get home-field advantage. And with the wild card, if one division is tougher than the other two, the runner-up from that division is almost certain to get the wild card.