(07-25-2021 05:02 AM)schmolik Wrote:  I did 3 permanent rivals with SEC + Texas + Oklahoma a while back and this is what I came up with:

Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Tennessee
Arkansas: Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State
Florida: Georgia, LSU, South Carolina
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee
LSU: Alabama, Florida, Texas A&M
Mississippi: Mississippi State, Missouri, Vanderbilt
Mississippi State: Auburn, Missouri, Vanderbilt
Missouri: Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi
Oklahoma: Arkansas, Texas, Texas A&M
South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky
Tennessee: Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt
Texas: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
Texas A&M: LSU, Oklahoma, Texas
Vanderbilt: Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee

Having gone to Tennessee for a while to get my graduate degrees, I have been puzzled about the tendency to include Kentucky and Tennessee as rivals. But when I went looking and saw the rivalry intensity graph in Qintanar, Deck, Reyes and Sarangi (2015), I see that I was just living in the wrong place to learn about it ... I would have known about it if I had been studying in Lexington.



Bilateral rivalries (that is, appear to be within +/- 1 level in intensity) in the (2015) SEC were (more intense first if I can tell from the figure):
Georgia++|Florida++
Bama++|Auburn++
Tennessee++/Bama+
Ole Miss+/LSU
Mississippi State+/Ole Miss
LSU+/Florida
Florida|Bama

But there are a lot of asymetric rivalries:
Kentucky++>>Tennessee
Kentucky+>>Florida
South Carolina+>>Florida
South Carolina+>>Tennessee
South Carolina+>>Georgia
Arkansas++>>LSU
Arkansas+>>Ole Miss
LSU+>>Auburn

(07-30-2021 12:57 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(07-30-2021 12:36 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(07-25-2021 05:02 AM)schmolik Wrote:  I did 3 permanent rivals with SEC + Texas + Oklahoma a while back and this is what I came up with:

Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Tennessee
Arkansas: Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State
Florida: Georgia, LSU, South Carolina
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee
LSU: Alabama, Florida, Texas A&M
Mississippi: Mississippi State, Missouri, Vanderbilt
Mississippi State: Auburn, Missouri, Vanderbilt
Missouri: Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi
Oklahoma: Arkansas, Texas, Texas A&M
South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky
Tennessee: Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt
Texas: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
Texas A&M: LSU, Oklahoma, Texas
Vanderbilt: Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee

Yeah, not really. Ole Miss for example would be LSU, MSU, and Alabama based on history, rivalry, and tradition.

You really think Alabama would give up either Tennessee or LSU for Ole Miss? Maybe if 'Bama was looking for easier wins (and Tennessee last beat Alabama in 2006 so there's no reason Alabama would rather play Mississippi than Tennessee).

Didn’t Ole Miss beat them three years in a row recently? They have a lot of history together.

(07-30-2021 02:10 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(07-30-2021 12:57 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(07-30-2021 12:36 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(07-25-2021 05:02 AM)schmolik Wrote:  I did 3 permanent rivals with SEC + Texas + Oklahoma a while back and this is what I came up with:

Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Tennessee
Arkansas: Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State
Florida: Georgia, LSU, South Carolina
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee
LSU: Alabama, Florida, Texas A&M
Mississippi: Mississippi State, Missouri, Vanderbilt
Mississippi State: Auburn, Missouri, Vanderbilt
Missouri: Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi
Oklahoma: Arkansas, Texas, Texas A&M
South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky
Tennessee: Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt
Texas: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
Texas A&M: LSU, Oklahoma, Texas
Vanderbilt: Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee

Yeah, not really. Ole Miss for example would be LSU, MSU, and Alabama based on history, rivalry, and tradition.

You really think Alabama would give up either Tennessee or LSU for Ole Miss? Maybe if 'Bama was looking for easier wins (and Tennessee last beat Alabama in 2006 so there's no reason Alabama would rather play Mississippi than Tennessee).

Didn’t Ole Miss beat them three years in a row recently? They have a lot of history together.

It was "only" two. But I'd be embarrassed to lose two in a row to Ole Miss, especially if one of them was at home.

Proposed this in another thread and this might be a stretch, but if the SEC is determined to remain at 8 conference games, why not have 1 protected rival? No divisions.

OU-Texas
A&M-LSU
Ark-Missou
Ole Miss-MSU
Bama-Aub
Vandy-TN
KY-SC
GA-FL

You play your 1 protected rival and 1 team from the other 7 protected matchups for 8 conference games and you play the entire conference home & home in a 4 year cycle. You also travel to Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi every other year, you could alternate Oklahoma and LSU along with Georgia and Florida. This should provide a balanced, yet exciting schedule for all teams and should allow for 2-4 rivalry conference games per season depending on your team. Only question is are teams willing to accept playing some rivals less often?

To put an ease on it as a separate option, you could have the top 2 teams play in the SEC Championship Game and then have your other 14 teams play a rivalry game as apart of Champions Week. They would play a rival they didn't played during the regular season that finished close to your team on standings. That way you wouldn't have to follow strictly 3 vs. 4, 5 vs. 6, etc., and it might give teams an idea who they might play ahead of time (more than a week).

(07-30-2021 03:23 PM)GoBuckeyes1047 Wrote:  Proposed this in another thread and this might be a stretch, but if the SEC is determined to remain at 8 conference games, why not have 1 protected rival? No divisions.

Because Tennessee's one protected rival is Bama and Auburn's one protected rival is Bama and that doesn't work.

Perhaps the fairest is you let every school bid their first and second pick, allocate first picks if possible, use something to break the tie like a history & closeness index ... number of games played divided by the difference in wins ... then allocate the second picks that are possible. So Tennessee gets Bama, but in that system it is stuck with Vandy and Kentucky and doesn't get Florida, because it's dance card is filled before second choices are handed out. But at least you can put Florida and Georgia in alternate cycles.

The way that likely gives everyone their second pick (unless too many second picks are Bama) and most schools their third pick is nine games, six rivals and playing three the remaining nine schools in a three year cycle ... you see everyone in a three year period, but only host everyone once every six years.

(07-30-2021 03:23 PM)GoBuckeyes1047 Wrote:  Proposed this in another thread and this might be a stretch, but if the SEC is determined to remain at 8 conference games, why not have 1 protected rival? No divisions.

OU-Texas
A&M-LSU
Ark-Missou
Ole Miss-MSU
Bama-Aub
Vandy-TN
KY-SC
GA-FL

You play your 1 protected rival and 1 team from the other 7 protected matchups for 8 conference games and you play the entire conference home & home in a 4 year cycle. You also travel to Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi every other year, you could alternate Oklahoma and LSU along with Georgia and Florida. This should provide a balanced, yet exciting schedule for all teams and should allow for 2-4 rivalry conference games per season depending on your team. Only question is are teams willing to accept playing some rivals less often?

To put an ease on it as a separate option, you could have the top 2 teams play in the SEC Championship Game and then have your other 14 teams play a rivalry game as apart of Champions Week. They would play a rival they didn't played during the regular season that finished close to your team on standings. That way you wouldn't have to follow strictly 3 vs. 4, 5 vs. 6, etc., and it might give teams an idea who they might play ahead of time (more than a week).

There are teams that have multiple rivals (examples: Alabama-Auburn/Tennessee, Auburn-Alabama/Georgia to name a couple). With Tennessee's decline, the rest of us don't think of Bama-TN as a big rivalry, but it's still important to them. Alabama's not going to agree to a setup where they have to miss playing both Auburn and Tennessee. And that's just one.

A schedule with three, four, or five permanent rivals, though, is doable. It would still allow for a quicker cycle of teams through the entire conference.

(07-30-2021 03:46 PM)johnintx Wrote:  ... With Tennessee's decline, the rest of us don't think of Bama-TN as a big rivalry, but it's still important to them. Alabama's not going to agree to a setup where they have to miss playing both Auburn and Tennessee. And that's just one. ...

One important part of this "respect for history" is commercial: the demographics for college football trend older than the demographics for NFL football ... and us old f***s (I put in the stars to leave it your choice between the obvious expletives and possibly some inventive non-expletives) are more set in our ways.

(07-30-2021 03:46 PM)johnintx Wrote:  

(07-30-2021 03:23 PM)GoBuckeyes1047 Wrote:  Proposed this in another thread and this might be a stretch, but if the SEC is determined to remain at 8 conference games, why not have 1 protected rival? No divisions.

OU-Texas
A&M-LSU
Ark-Missou
Ole Miss-MSU
Bama-Aub
Vandy-TN
KY-SC
GA-FL

You play your 1 protected rival and 1 team from the other 7 protected matchups for 8 conference games and you play the entire conference home & home in a 4 year cycle. You also travel to Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi every other year, you could alternate Oklahoma and LSU along with Georgia and Florida. This should provide a balanced, yet exciting schedule for all teams and should allow for 2-4 rivalry conference games per season depending on your team. Only question is are teams willing to accept playing some rivals less often?

To put an ease on it as a separate option, you could have the top 2 teams play in the SEC Championship Game and then have your other 14 teams play a rivalry game as apart of Champions Week. They would play a rival they didn't played during the regular season that finished close to your team on standings. That way you wouldn't have to follow strictly 3 vs. 4, 5 vs. 6, etc., and it might give teams an idea who they might play ahead of time (more than a week).

There are teams that have multiple rivals (examples: Alabama-Auburn/Tennessee, Auburn-Alabama/Georgia to name a couple). With Tennessee's decline, the rest of us don't think of Bama-TN as a big rivalry, but it's still important to them. Alabama's not going to agree to a setup where they have to miss playing both Auburn and Tennessee. And that's just one.

A schedule with three, four, or five permanent rivals, though, is doable. It would still allow for a quicker cycle of teams through the entire conference.

I figured as much since some teams have 5+ rivals and the SEC probably wanting to remain at 8 conference games if possible, this would be an option that could be considered.

8 conference games = 1 permanent rival + every other team twice in four years
9 conference games = 3 permanent rivals + every other team twice in four years

If you want 3 permanent rivals, you'll have to go to 9 conference games a year to play every team in the conference twice in four years. If you want 8 conference games AND more than 1 permanent rival, then teams won't be able to play every other team twice in four years. On the other hand, they'll probably play more often than non divisional non permanent rivals play each other now so that would still be an improvement.

(07-30-2021 03:58 PM)schmolik Wrote:  8 conference games = 1 permanent rival + every other team twice in four years
9 conference games = 3 permanent rivals + every other team twice in four years

If you want 3 permanent rivals, you'll have to go to 9 conference games a year to play every team in the conference twice in four years. If you want 8 conference games AND more than 1 permanent rival, then teams won't be able to play every other team twice in four years. On the other hand, they'll probably play more often than non divisional non permanent rivals play each other now so that would still be an improvement.

Nick Saban, among others, advocated for an eight game schedule. The 10 game SEC-only schedule last year proved to be successful, though. I expect the SEC to move to 9 conference games. ESPN/ABC will demand it with the increase in payment. More inventory, more games within the conference.

(07-30-2021 04:49 PM)johnintx Wrote:  

(07-30-2021 03:58 PM)schmolik Wrote:  8 conference games = 1 permanent rival + every other team twice in four years
9 conference games = 3 permanent rivals + every other team twice in four years

If you want 3 permanent rivals, you'll have to go to 9 conference games a year to play every team in the conference twice in four years. If you want 8 conference games AND more than 1 permanent rival, then teams won't be able to play every other team twice in four years. On the other hand, they'll probably play more often than non divisional non permanent rivals play each other now so that would still be an improvement.

Nick Saban, among others, advocated for an eight game schedule. The 10 game SEC-only schedule last year proved to be successful, though. I expect the SEC to move to 9 conference games. ESPN/ABC will demand it with the increase in payment. More inventory, more games within the conference.

No, Nick Saban wants nine conference games, not eight. And one time the SEC coaches voted (not sure if it was a vote that decided anything or was just an opinion poll) and Saban was the only SEC coach to vote in favor of nine games.

https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/2013/n...ine-games/

And this is from 2018: https://247sports.com/college/alabama/Ar...120054538/

Cash and Money ....

Get Juvenile to make a new conference theme song with the Hot Boys.....

(07-29-2021 09:00 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  3 protected rivals is sweet. Just have a spread sheet spit the rest of the schedule out. No reason to be limited to pods. Top two in the CCG. Good shot at being two 11-1 teams that didn’t play each other in the regular season.

It doesn't even need full deregulation, it just needs the top two rule to be relaxed to playing a majority of the conference schools. That would put a brake using it to build conferences bigger than 16.

Of course, some here do argue that TPTB do not want such a brake to be put into place.

(07-30-2021 03:58 PM)schmolik Wrote:  8 conference games = 1 permanent rival + every other team twice in four years
9 conference games = 3 permanent rivals + every other team twice in four years

If you want 3 permanent rivals, you'll have to go to 9 conference games a year to play every team in the conference twice in four years. If you want 8 conference games AND more than 1 permanent rival, then teams won't be able to play every other team twice in four years. On the other hand, they'll probably play more often than non divisional non permanent rivals play each other now so that would still be an improvement.

Yes, 8 conference games, 3 permanent rivals is 5 rotating games to play 12 opponents. It can be a wheel of 12 opponents and you take the next five in the wheel in turn, or 6 schools in three pairs that you play two on, two off and 6 schools in two triplets you play one on, two off. Home/away balance works in the triplets because it's T1H, T2A, T3H, T1A, T2H, T3A. In the triplets, you play once every three years, host once every six years.