All parties involved are working right now to get Texas & Oklahoma to the SEC in 2024, one year early. What will then be the SEC schedule format going forward is the big question. Right now UF is scheduled to play @ Auburn in 24. Early exit for Texas, Oklahoma to SEC could be aided by future nonconference games at Big 12 stadiums
Seems likely now. The question is what the SEC will do with alignments. Last I read, the SEC was thinking about listing the 16 teams and not breaking into pods which seems ridiculous to me.....
Seems like the easiest would be to just put them in the west and shift Auburn and Alabama to the East, which then becomes the old SEC minus LSU and the Miss schools.
If so, screw the pods, and just add Auburn to the east division and let the new teams go to the west division.
That would leave the E with 9 teams and the W with 7. Send Mizzou packing to the W where they belong and voila...almost perfect. Or if Bama whines about losing rivals in the W like LSU and the Mississippi's then they can choose to stay in the West but they have to give up Tennessee and Auburn as annual rivals. No more catering to the Bams on scheduling. 9 game conference schedule, all 7 in your division and 2 rotating every year from the other division. Then you can have a true conference championship game that is meaningful rather than a meaningless show game concept they have bandied about, and play every SEC team in the regular season in the span of 4 years. The only negative impact to the teams that play an annual neutral site game and an out of conference rival would be they would only have 6 home games every year unless they decided to give up those games and go to a home and home basis....again, those teams can choose which format is best for them. At this time the only impacted teams that I'm aware of is Florida and Georgia. USCe and Ky also have an OOC rivals, but don't play a neutral site game annually.
I couldn't choose. This was something I agree with, like, found funny and optimistic. Will never happen though. Texas will find out soon enough they've sold their souls to be part of the payout in the Gump/LegHumper conference a/k/a The SEC. LOL!
There will be an SEC East, South, North and West, just like AFC/NFC. Then another conference will consume the rest. The top 7 from each will be selected for a 12 team playoff with one wildcard. The winner of each conference will play each other in the megabowl.
mizzou west and au bama east. go 9 sec games. 8 teams east and 8 teams west. still like pods that had all sec teams playing each other more often. holding to multiple annual opponents will be difficult.
It figures We have a great schedule next year and now those two teams are going top screw us up. Same as 2020. We had a great schedule before covid.
No divisions or pods is the absolute worst idea possible with a conference this size. If teams can't play everyone, then it all comes down to scheduling and we know how unfair that can be in this league already.
It’s not ridiculous. They want the best teams to represent the conference in the playoffs. PAC-12 did away with it this past year and other conferences are going to do the same.
But if the "best" teams in the conference get the cupcakes schedule and miss playing each other, ie Georgia never seemingly never getting hard West teams on schedule, how can it be said the best team will be on top? Even if we went to an all SEC schedule, teams would still miss playing numerous SEC teams. With 4 pods of 4, they could rotate every two years which two pods each play. With two divisions of 8, they could play the cross division teams but not count towards who wins the division, so as to eliminate scheduling bias. That way at least the best team within the division, as per play against each other, gets to represent the division. Not like the years where we beat Georgia, but they went to Championship because we lost to LSU and Alabama, but they beat Ole Miss and Arkansas. (Making those up for illustration but that scenario has happened before)
I do like the Pod system, but it’s not about that. The divisions and.m conference championship game was always about increasing revenue. Remember the SEC expanded to 12 and split into 2 divisions and added a championship game? For awhile there they championed that rule of since every team can’t play every other team, we need a conference championship game. Of course at the time, only the SEC was in that position. Fast forward to today and the playoff expansion. With so much money at stake, the PTB don't want to risk an 8-4 division winner somehow winning the conference and sneaking in and getting a bye in the playoffs. It was and always will be about the money.
In a 12-team playoff, the best teams will get in anyway. I want to see balanced schedules with all 16 teams playing each other more often. You won't ever get that with SEC scheduling with one 16 team grouping. I sure as hell don't want to see bama getting favoritism from Birmingham or Texas and Mini Me getting preference for being the new big boys on the block. Say that can't happen? I disagree. UF, UGA to a lesser degree, was crapped on by SEC scheduling for most of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. What went around can come around again. I don't want it.
Read my next response. The conferences don’t want a lesser team sneaking in by winning the conference championship.
How do you know it's a lesser team if said team is capable of winning the SEC? It could be the better team had injuries to start the season or somewhere in the middle. It's the 12 best teams nationally, not a beauty contest. The beauty contest best team will get in anyway.