- Joined
- Sep 12, 2020
- Posts
- 9,348
- Reaction score
- 6,830
- Bookie:
- $ 2,000.00
What are your thoughts on how the SEC will be setup? To me, this is the best scenario and actually fixes a lot of issues with current SEC Alignment:
SEC East: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
SEC West: Arkansas, LSU, Miss State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Texas, and Texas A&M
9 Conference Games (7 Division Games; 2 Inter-Division Games). No locked interdivisional rivalries. Change opponent in both games each year. Under this scenario, an athlete that stays four years at a school will get to play every school in the SEC (but not necessarily at every venue).
Downsides:
Alabama vs. LSU is gone as annual game. However, this in the scheme of things may not be the biggest loss. Alabama vs. LSU is more of a RECENT rivalry than a long-standing one. LSU has always had difficulty identifying who is its top rival. Arkansas has been thrown around. Texas A&M is its current Rivalry Week opponent and is the best one right now (LSU had played A&M more than half of its SEC opponents historically, even before A&M joined the SEC). LSU vs. Texas and LSU vs. Oklahoma are both going to be great games for LSU and I think LSU, in the long run, won't miss Alabama as much once they have Oklahoma coming to town every year.
SEC teams won't play as often. This was a myth brought up in the past that SEC teams didn't play as often. In reality, this is historic. Even when the SEC was a 10 team league, there was many years in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were most SEC schools only played 5 conference games and teams sometimes went 10-11 years without playing each other. Tennessee went an entire decade without playing Florida, Georgia, or LSU at times. Look it up. OOC rival games were more frequent than some SEC games in the past. This wasn't just limited to the SEC as well.
Texas may push around SEC. I doubt it. For several reasons. #1, Texas won't necessarily have the dominate power that it had in the Big12. If it wants to push things around, then the SEC will say good bye. #2 A lot of things that are in Texas' best interest are also in the SEC's best interest as well.
One great example was people talking about Texas maybe pushing for the SEC CG to be in Dallas. I think this is inevitable and I don't think Texas even needs to push for it. The SEC stands to gain a lot of $$$$ for it and several other SEC Schools will also like the change (Arkansas, LSU, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Missouri, even the Mississippi Schools maybe closer to Dallas vs. Atlanta). In fact the game could rotate between Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and New Orleans.
Restoring the Texas vs. Texas A&M Rivalry (and growing it) is probably an agenda item that both the SEC and Texas support. The SEC also definitely wants to keep the RRSO just "as it is" because that is another nice rivalry game to fit in with the other ones such as Florida-Georgia that are already present.
I don't think Texas has necessarily the power to push around the league but I also don't think there is really anything that Texas would want that would conflict with the SEC right now. LHN is gone and I imagine that is something Texas is alright with now that they are getting the SEC Network money.
SEC East: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
SEC West: Arkansas, LSU, Miss State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Texas, and Texas A&M
9 Conference Games (7 Division Games; 2 Inter-Division Games). No locked interdivisional rivalries. Change opponent in both games each year. Under this scenario, an athlete that stays four years at a school will get to play every school in the SEC (but not necessarily at every venue).
Downsides:
Alabama vs. LSU is gone as annual game. However, this in the scheme of things may not be the biggest loss. Alabama vs. LSU is more of a RECENT rivalry than a long-standing one. LSU has always had difficulty identifying who is its top rival. Arkansas has been thrown around. Texas A&M is its current Rivalry Week opponent and is the best one right now (LSU had played A&M more than half of its SEC opponents historically, even before A&M joined the SEC). LSU vs. Texas and LSU vs. Oklahoma are both going to be great games for LSU and I think LSU, in the long run, won't miss Alabama as much once they have Oklahoma coming to town every year.
SEC teams won't play as often. This was a myth brought up in the past that SEC teams didn't play as often. In reality, this is historic. Even when the SEC was a 10 team league, there was many years in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were most SEC schools only played 5 conference games and teams sometimes went 10-11 years without playing each other. Tennessee went an entire decade without playing Florida, Georgia, or LSU at times. Look it up. OOC rival games were more frequent than some SEC games in the past. This wasn't just limited to the SEC as well.
Texas may push around SEC. I doubt it. For several reasons. #1, Texas won't necessarily have the dominate power that it had in the Big12. If it wants to push things around, then the SEC will say good bye. #2 A lot of things that are in Texas' best interest are also in the SEC's best interest as well.
One great example was people talking about Texas maybe pushing for the SEC CG to be in Dallas. I think this is inevitable and I don't think Texas even needs to push for it. The SEC stands to gain a lot of $$$$ for it and several other SEC Schools will also like the change (Arkansas, LSU, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Missouri, even the Mississippi Schools maybe closer to Dallas vs. Atlanta). In fact the game could rotate between Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and New Orleans.
Restoring the Texas vs. Texas A&M Rivalry (and growing it) is probably an agenda item that both the SEC and Texas support. The SEC also definitely wants to keep the RRSO just "as it is" because that is another nice rivalry game to fit in with the other ones such as Florida-Georgia that are already present.
I don't think Texas has necessarily the power to push around the league but I also don't think there is really anything that Texas would want that would conflict with the SEC right now. LHN is gone and I imagine that is something Texas is alright with now that they are getting the SEC Network money.
