The hot topic these days: Who’s going where? In all honesty, I couldn’t care less about anything outside of the SEC in terms of conferences. I don’t care if Texas-Oklahoma-A&M never play again. I don’t care if VT-Miami-Florida State never play again. I just. Don’t. Care. Shoot, I don’t even care if Florida-Florida State goes away.
However, I do care about the SEC, and I do have some preferences as to what I want to see happen. Obviously, Texas A&M is coming in. My only gripe about the Aggies is that it’s a 16-hour drive to College Station from Knoxville. That’s a long freaking way. But, since it’s a done deal, the SEC theoretically needs 3 more teams. Sure, one could argue the need to stop at 14, but I just don’t like it, so I’ll continue with my own scenario. I urge you to follow along.
The other obvious expansion team should be West Virginia. The atmosphere they had the other night against LSU was electric. Very SEC-like; unfortunately, WVU still played like a Big Least team.
The other two teams vary. The SEC, from what I can tell, seems hell bent on expanding its media footprint. This opens the door for teams like Missouri (St. Louis), West Virginia (PA), Maryland (DC), Virginia Tech (VA/DC), and a North Carolina team (NC State or UNC – Doubt UNC goes without Duke, but maybe?), even if the geographic extremities don’t make much sense.
I’m going to pick what I consider the most realistic for the final three to use in my scenario below: West Virginia, Missouri, and NC State.
Before you get upset, hear me out. I said realistic, not most obvious or awesome. It’s all about the money, and if the SEC can invade St. Louis and Kansas City, it will. Also, if the SEC can invade Pennsylvania and North Carolina, it will. So, those are my 3. I’d rather see Louisville over TAMU, but it won’t happen. I’d rather see Tulane or USF over Missouri, but that isn’t happening either. I’d also rather have UNC or Virginia Tech over WVU and NC State. Again, ain’t happening. Screw Florida State. All girls school, in my opinion.
ANYWAY…
Here’s how it plays out (in my world of the best things ever):
| SEC North | SEC South | |
| Kentucky | Auburn | |
| WVU | LSU | |
| Missouri | Alabama | |
| Vanderbilt | Florida | |
| SEC East | SEC West | |
| Tennessee | Arkansas | |
| South Carolina | Ole Miss | |
| Georgia | Texas A&M | |
| NC State | Mississippi State |
It’s like a mini-NFL, which is a perfect analogy for the SEC. You will obviously have 3 divisional games each year, and you would most likely see a move from 8 conference games to 9. If you rotate one game with the other the three divisions, you will essentially play each team from the other divisions once every 4 years. Keeping three rivalry games leaves each team with a 9-game schedule, which still leaves room for two out-of-conference scrimmage/cupcake games.
For example, Tennessee would play:
- South Carolina (Division)
- Georgia (Division)
- NCState (Division)
- Alabama (Rival)
- Vanderbilt (Rival)
- Florida (Rival)
- UK/WVU/Mizzou (North Rotation)
- AU/LSU (South Rotation)
- Ole Miss/TAMU/Arkansas/MSU (West Rotation)
- MTSU (Cupcake)
- Buffalo (Cupcake)
Plus you still get an open date. I think that’s pretty dang reasonable. With the SEC championship tournament (see below), the SEC winner still plays 13 games, just like it is now.
After 9 games, the division winners get seeded 1-4, and you have two conference semi-final games (1v4 and 2v3). The higher seed hosts the game, and the SEC Championship Final still goes to Atlanta. Can you imagine a 4-team playoff to decide the SEC? Cah-ray-zee. I mean, if you win the SEC, who shives a git about a national title? You just ran a gauntlet and came out on top. Nothing else would matter.
My only complaint about my own scenario is the SEC East and South is stacked, and the North and West is W-E-A-K. I split the divisions up geographically, and obviously the balance of powers will shift over the course of time, but Florida, Alabama, LSU, and Auburn in the same division? Ouch. Perhaps we need wild cards?
Yikes. Let’s just get to a 4-team playoff first, and then we can reassess the situation.
Oh yeah, and Luck Kane Fiffin.
I love the Mini-NFL concept!
ReplyDeleteThat South division looks mean!
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea. But I think it might be hard for all teams to schedule three rivalry opponents. Would you mind doing a post with maybe a year 1 schedule for all 16 teams. I'm curious as to what it would look like.
ReplyDeleteIt might take a shake-up in the divisions, but it might work best with 3 divisional games, a cross-divisional permanent and then rotate a game from each division.
Also, let's say UT doesn't finish on top of the division: How do you feel about UT only playing 11 games? (and probably having one-less home game than now).
Not trying to be rude or anything, I really like this idea actually. Thanks.
@Benito - Thanks for the feedback! I'm working on addressing your comments, and I'll post an update soon.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your assessment of the South looking rough--that's the last 4 MNCs in the same division. And that North is stupid-easy. Something that's a little better, but not much would be:
ReplyDeleteWest: Arkansas, LSU, Missouri, Texas A&M
Central: Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi, Mississippi State
North: Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, West Virginia
East: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina State, South Carolina.
Makes sense geographically and spreads out the talent somewhat. Also, I don't know if we could get NC State to come over. Perhaps ECU or Virginia Tech. But overall, great work. Something similar to this will happen eventually.
Highly disagree with your format. The major problem is how you'd determine the division/pod winners.
ReplyDeleteWith this set up, you can have a scenario in which a team could have a losing record vs the people in their division, but still win their division due to the better overall conference record.
Example
SEC EAST
Georgia . . 10 - 2 . . 1 - 2 . . 7 - 2
Tennessee . . 10 - 2 . . 3 - 0 . . 6 - 3
S. Carolina . . 8 - 4 . . 2 - 1 . . 5 - 4
NC State . . 4 - 8 . . 0 - 3 . . 1 - 8
The first record is the overall record
The second record is the in division record
The third record is the conference record
Under the 4 pod scenario, Georgia would win the SEC East with a 7 - 2 conference record, despite the fact that Tennessee had a 3 - 0 record within the division.
And because Georgia's schedule would differ so much from Tennessee's ( with possibly 4 or 5 conference games being different ), it's kind of silly to even have a division winner, when you're only playing 3 division games.
With 9 regular season games . . a conference semifinal game . .and a conference championship game . . you're talking about an 11 game SEC game trek that the conference champion will have to play.
Just make it easy, and go to a 2 division format in which you play 10 conference games with a 13 game regular season schedule.
- 7 in division
- 1 yearly designated cross division rival
- 2 games in rotation each year from the other division
This still achieves the playing every team at least once every 3 - 4 years, while preserving all of the current SEC rivalries.
Designate W. Virginia vs Texas A&M . . . and Missouri vs NC State as cross division rivals.
Combine your north and east divisions to re-form the SEC East . . and combine your west and central divisions to re-form the SEC West.
Don't make this complicated.
But as it is now, your conference record determines the Division representative in the SECCG, not your division record. UGA went 4-1 in the Division and went to Atlanta. Doesn't bother me, because I knew the deal going into the season. You have to win conference games to make it to the title game.
ReplyDeleteThe only objection to the 4 pods system would be the fact that you would need a semi-final which is an extra game.