Article on SEC Scheduling

[Duke Humphrey]

Bill Connelly with ESPN, and Andy Staples with The Athletic earlier this week, both had articles saying its time to blow up the SEC schedule by doing away with divisions and going to a pod system. I dont see the downside from our perspective.

https://www.espn.com/college-footba...visions-more-week-6-college-football-thoughts

 

[TXDawg.sixpack]

I like it. I'm sure there'd be lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth over who the three "pod" opponents are for each time, but that's really no different than what they do now with the permanent cross-division opponent.

 

[patdog]

I like this. A lot. I think it works better from a home-and-away rotational standpoint if you go with 4 permanent and 4 rotating opponents. It also eliminates one of his minuses.

Minus: Some games that are awfully important to certain fan bases -- Arkansas-LSU, Tennessee-Georgia, etc. -- are still played frequently but no longer annually.

But it really doesn't matter much if it's a 2 permanent, 3 permanent, or 4 permanent. The real issue is there's absolutely no reason to have divisions and a schedule where we play UMass more often than we play 6 of our own conference rivals.

 

[TrapGame.sixpack]

It's time for something like this.

 

[TheStateUofMS]

It's a no brainer. Not sure why it's set up like it currently is anyway.

 

[Duke Humphrey]

Its set up like it is now to protect the blue bloods of the conference. Bama didnt want to have to play Auburn in the SEC CG after playing them the week before in the Iron Bowl, so they created divisons. And the current 6-1-1 model is to protect Bama-Tennessee and Auburn-UGA.

 

[patdog]

It's set up like it is because until a few years ago, you had to have 2 divisions to have a conference championship game. The Big 12 got that rule changed when it went down to 10 teams and wanted to play a championship game without divisions. There's no reason to have divisions now, and there's a risk it could cost us a spot in the playoffs (possibly if Florida had beat Bama either 2015 or 2016).

 

[WrapItDog]

2017 who would have played in the SEC championship? Bama, AU, & GA 7-1. Auburn would be in because they beat both. Who plays AU for the SEC Championship? Does it reduce the chance of having 2 teams in the playoff that season?

 

[vhdawg]

I like it. I'm sure there'd be lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth over who the three "pod" opponents are for each time, but that's really no different than what they do now with the permanent cross-division opponent.

The counter to that argument is 1) the schedule strength will balance out over a four year period. Maybe you have Alabama as your permanent, but you also rotate Vandy and Kentucky on at the same time. And 2) who's to say we don't shuffle up the non-essential rivalries every four or eight years to shake things up?

 

[Go Budaw]

Not play Bama or LSU every year? Yes please.

 

[00Dawg]

I'd much prefer this over a 9-game conference schedule.

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[Willow Grove Dawg]

The answer is to blow up the permanent cross division opponents. Bama/Tenn & Auburn/UGA can either quit playing every year so damned bad - then they can vote to move Missour & Vandy to the West and Bama & Auburn to the East. BOOM - problem solved except Bama, Auburn, Georgia, & Florida all in the East. None of the other cross division match-ups give a damn about the rivalry (MSU/UK, Florida/LSU, Ole Miss/Vandy, Missouri/UPIG, or A &M/USCE). Each school would play every school in the opposite division twice every 6 years without permanent opponents.

 

[Todd4State]

Very interesting that in his projection we went from 6-6 to 9-3 in 2013.

This makes WAY more sense and it keeps the main rivalries intact. I liked the fact that when I was a student at MSU we played everyone except for Florida at least once.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

The main knock on the pods they have here are that they tend to concentrate some rivalries into clusters where "my rival's rival is also my rival" and some that are not. For example, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina all play each other, but none of MSU's rivals play each other, or even play rivals or our rivals.

Here's a graph of the pods according to that article.
View attachment 14220