(07-22-2021 12:02 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-21-2021 11:43 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(07-21-2021 11:00 PM)clpp01 Wrote:  I don't think or haven't seen anything to suggest that Oklahoma was wanting to get rid of the Bedlam rivalry. OU's problem was trying to find a new home (if they left the B12) where at least one of Texas or Oklahoma St were with them so they weren't put into a position where they had to choose to keep the Texas game over Bedlam.

The SEC is definitely open to non-conference rivalry games. It's the B12 who has been throwing stank at them. OK State will not be happy with this and many will want to cancel much like KU did with the border war and Mizzou. The B12 has 10 schools and plays 9 games, the SEC will almost certainly move to 9 games in order to have enough crossover games ('bama needs to play Ole' Miss, Florida needs to play LSU and so on, but also get around to the others). So it'll be hard to schedule given the need for 7 home games at most schools to balance the budget (meaning a couple G5/FCS every year, only one P5 slot). Iowa State is unusual in playing Iowa every year. It could be even harder if the SEC tilts to 10 games like they did in the covid year, telling the ACC they didn't care about the in-State rivalry games.

Thus I conclude this is something that may well need legislative action to force to happen.

Stu the SEC is moving to 11 P games in 2026 9 is likely for conference play.

If you look at the probable makeup of two divisions, there's not all that much history between the western and eastern division teams outside of Alabama and Auburn (and more Bama than Auburn) and the Mississippi schools. A nine game conference schedule is more than adequate to accommodate crossover interests. I suspect the two divisions would almost behave like two conferences from a football scheduling standpoint.

With that many teams in each division, it would make sense to determine CCG participants based only on their record in division play to avoid situations where one contender had to play Alabama and the other drew Vandy, or an eastern contender drew Oklahoma while another got Arkansas.

For practical purposes, that would make all crossovers like OOC games, so if the SEC chose to stay at 8 games they could just encourage and facilitate more crossovers for the schools that want them while letting the ones who don't want them can look for other OOC opponents as long as they play a sufficient number of P5 games. I think they have enough leverage with ESPN that they wouldn't need to increase official conference games in order to get a pay raise. Adding OU and UT already guarantees that.