(07-22-2021 11:17 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(07-22-2021 11:13 AM)johnintx Wrote:  

(07-22-2021 10:52 AM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Very interesting! This would mean the SEC is planning to flaunt the division/round robin rule for CCGs. It also means no protected crossovers between pods. This in turn would mean that, for example, Alabama/LSU, Auburn/Georgia, and Kentucky/Tennessee are played half as often as now (every other year or every 2 years out of 4 instead of annually). UT/TAMU would be played at the same frequency, which is an infinity percent increase from the current rate.

Additionally, it means that instead of taking 12 years for 2 full conference play-throughs, it's just 4 years, which is a vast improvement.

I wonder if the pods would actually become formal divisions or would just be lumped into a divisionless 16-team slate. In either case though, the SEC could move to a 2-round conference championship playoff.

Two observations if this is the plan:

1) A&M and Texas do not play every year. This may be by design, especially to pacify A&M. A&M didn't join the SEC only to be forced back into an alignment with Texas and OU 10 years later.

2) Auburn-Georgia is the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry. I can't see them signing off on a plan that does not allow them to play every year. It wouldn't be the first rivalry to be a casualty of conference realignment.

It will be very tough to guarantee annually in a pod system
Florida-Tennessee
Florida-Georgia
Georgia-Auburn
Tennessee-Alabama
Alabama-Auburn

5 schools for a 4 team pod. 1 gets left out

Divisions work the best for the SEC

The idea behind pods is two pods make a division, and they rotate every year, so they every three years each pod has been in a division with the other three.
If you stick to 9 games, you play the three teams in your pod every year, the four teams your pod is in a division with each that year, and the same “protected” team in each pod each year. Each team more or less has its own mini-conference of seven teams (that team, plus the three in its pod, and one team each in the other three divisions). who it plays every year, , and plays the nine teams once every three years. But technically there are “divisions.”