re: Should Division Records Be All That Matters

Do any other sports/leagues do something similar? I can't think of any. Hell, the Raiders went 6-0 in the AFC West just a couple of years ago and weren't even a wildcard team.

with the increasing size of the SEC the different divisions are already becoming close to separate conferences... which is a point in favor of only considering within division games I suppose.

if the SEC were interested in sticking to 14 teams and being creative they'd go to the room-mate switch proposal to balance the schedules and rotate through every team in the SEC at least once (home and away) in only four years.

The short explanation is you have four groups of teams (two groups of four, two groups of three). Those four groups are paired in a rotation to make two divisions of seven. The trick is the groups of seven are not always the same to allow you to rotate through all of your opponents very rapidly.

Although it looks complicated it really isn't and would allow each team to also maintain one fixed out of division opponent to maintain certain rivalries