EvilVodka
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Posts: 3,585
Joined: Jan 2014
I Root For: FSU LSU
Location: Houston, TX
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RE: What I wished had happened, what should happen, and what could happen in realignment.
(10-06-2015 01:42 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: (10-05-2015 04:45 PM)JRsec Wrote: (10-05-2015 12:58 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: (10-04-2015 10:06 PM)JRsec Wrote: (10-04-2015 09:55 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: I think WVU is a good add.
If we're moving to 16 though then we need pods:
Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Missouri, Arkansas
LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Alabama
Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, West Virginia
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Auburn
A sample schedule for Bama might look like this...
LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State as annual pod rivals
Oklahoma, Tennessee, Auburn as annual cross-division rivals
Then you play the other 3 games against the remaining 3 opponents from one of the other pods. You've got 9 games and an easy way to determine participants in a championship game. You could even expand the conference championship event to a 4 team playoff if necessary.
Interestingly enough the prevailing thought for 16 school conferences now is to stick with 2 divisions organized to keep rivals together. So try playing around with two 8 school divisions if you want to get a feel for what the commissioners might be wrestling with. Don't get me wrong, I like the 4 half divisional set up, but conferences aren't willing to move to semis yet (supposedly) so we may be stuck with the present format for at least awhile.
Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia
Arkansas, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt
or
Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Arkansas, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M
or create whichever seems more likely to you.
I certainly hope they change their mind. I just don't want a situation where we're playing teams from the other division once every 7 or 8 years. Even if we go to 9 games that will end up being the case if we're not more creative.
The pods are such a simply solution and keep the schedule fresh while preserving a lot of rivalries. I would also think that the networks would prefer more frequent matchups between powers from other divisions. Rotating the pods would allow a simple setup for a championship game without going to semis.
I don't think the SEC should be afraid of doing something out of the box. The league has often been first to try new ideas. If it doesn't work then we could always change to a more traditional format.
I think they will do what they do reserving certain goals and concessions to milk the contract negotiations 1 item at the time. We move to two divisions and sell a 9th game to allow the rotation to play through the entire conference every 4 years.
You play 7 from your own division and rotate two from the other every year. Home games swap with away games when you've rotated through.
Then you move for conference semi's and more money.
Then you opt for 1 more out of conference game and now play 11 P5 games.
Then you go to P5 only with a preseason game against a relatively local FCS program. This gives the networks no body bag games and games to televise earlier at the end of August which while they are considered preseason nevertheless add to inventory.
At that point having 6 home and 6 away P5 won't matter because all P5 schools will have a 7th home ticket to sell counting the preseason game. At the end of August everyone is so hungry for football they won't care if State U is playing NE Directional School for the Visually impaired. They'll still buy the ticket or at least watch. TV gets an extra great week of ad money, the home town merchants don't lose that 7th game and neither does the athletic department, and the rest of the year it's mostly conference with 3 OOC games only now you have semis and are in pods (1/2 division) to augment the rotation.
In the end All Tide Up you get everything you want but they sell it one precious change at a time to milk that money.
Hopefully that will work out.
If we're going to create 2 divisions of 8 then I would prefer 2 Western additions. That way, both Bama and Auburn can move to the East and we don't have to sacrifice any rivals except LSU on an annual basis.
Mizzou should definitely be in the West
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