Interesting Article on 16 Team SEC

reads like he stole some ideas from this board but then made them worse

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Back in August OKTC was the first place to tell you that the SEC wasn't going to add additional teams from states where it already had teams. Remember when everyone was clamoring about Clemson and Florida State to the SEC -- in fact, remember when ESPN even reported this? -- and OKTC told you that was dead wrong? We were right.

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Paragraphs like the above are why I hate Clay Travis. He gives you obvious information in his articles and then toots his own horn like his Vandy degree was in predicting the future. He tries to play this "I tell you what the media won't" card and he comes out looking like a douche.

Sure, Clay Travis is a doucher, but I wouldn't be shocked if the SEC ends up at 16 teams with four pods/divisions at some point in the future.
I'll admit the four team playoff for a conference championship would be incredibly fun, but it would hurt the SEC for BCS games and championships to have to run that gauntlet before every hitting the bowl season.

And Duke to the SEC? I know some of you think Mizzou doesn't fit the SEC too well, but Duke isn't aware that is has a football program.

ETA: Also, if two more teams join, VT & FSU sound the most appealing.

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outkickthecoverage.com

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Did not read after mousing over and seeing this

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but Duke isn't aware that is has a football program.

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Based on recent data, they're starting to forget they have a basketball team as well. The Cameron Crazies have been dwindling rapidly the past few years.

UNC would be better. They have a much better basketball history and their football team is passable most years.

Oh yea, make it EVEN EASIER for the pups........Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Vandy

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UNC would be better.

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better addition than N.C. State... & the football program was looking really good until they got caught cheating. I think Fedora will turn it around some though.

His logic (tho stolen IMO) is fine in part. North Carolina and Virginia add around 17 million people with television sets to the SEC's geographic footprint. That is why West Virginia was never going to happen (only around 2 million people in the state so they just don't bring in the revenue to make sense)

So that probably means Virginia Tech or Virginia from one state and Wake Forest or North Carolina State from the other state (NC and Duke are not joining the SEC considering their traditions and emphasis on ACC basketball IMO)

His Four Divisions would introduce competitive imbalance as more a problem with his divisions and out of division opponents IMO. I would still propose something more like:

SEC SW:
LSU (Florida)
Arkansas (Virginia Tech)
Texas A&M (Missouri)
Ole Miss (Miss State)

SEC NW:
Alabama (Tennessee)
Auburn (Georgia)
Missouri (Texas A&M)
Miss State (Ole Miss)

SEC NE:
Tennessee (Alabama)
Virginia Tech (Arkansas)
NC State (South Carolina)
Vanderbilt (Kentucky)

SEC SE:
Florida (LSU)
Georgia (Auburn)
South Carolina (NC State)
Kentucky (Vanderbilt)

Reasons my proposal is better:

1) Divisions are pretty even in terms of program strength. You want your big six programs divided among the four different divisions and you want your weakest four programs (KY, Vandy, MSU, Ole Miss) in different divisions

2) Out of division opponents should be fairly even. The Auburn/UGA, Bama/Tenn matchups are preserved and programs of approximately equal strength are matched up. This is crucial because you don't want a regular competitive imbalance between schools of similar strength within the same division

3) Geography and recruiting. Obviously Florida and Texas are the most fertile recruiting grounds in the country but the NW has Alabama and Mississippi and the NE has North Carolina and Virginia. This should not be a Big 12 situation where one division has Texas and the other division has Kansas/Missouri/Iowa.

4) Playoffs - this should be intuitive but it obviously needs to be said. The four teams who won their division should be re-seeded as follows: The top seed hosts the third or fourth seed (BCS standings and the default opponent is the fourth seed unless they already played them earlier in the year). The second seed hosts the other team and the championship game is played in Atlanta or Dallas depending on whether it is an odd or even year.

5) Rotating out of division opponents - with three fixed within division opponents and one fixed out of division opponent you still have four rotating games from other opponents. This means you will cycle through all of your out of division opponents within six years. His proposal seems to have five fixed opponents for each team and with only three rotating games you will take up to eight years to rotate through all of your SEC opponents. His fixed opponents also introduced a lot more schedule inequality with some fairly strong schools drawing weaker opponents than similar schools within the same division.