re: Roommate Switch Proposal - SEC Schedule Fix it Thread

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Been around for a while and is hands down the best possible scheduling arrangement for 14 teams. No other proposal is even close to how good this system is. It is the Ferrari of scheduling while what we are currently riding around in (along with the 6-??? proposals) is a '78 Fiat Strada.

Also scales to 16 very easily, so if we were to again expanded, it would not have to be scrapped.

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16 teams would be a very mixed blessing because of how it would stretch out the rotation. I think the roommate switch proposal would still be a better option than two eight team divisions playing either a 7-1 or 7-1-1 or 7-2 rotation - options which would take an inordinately long time (14 years, 12 years, about eight years) to rotate through every single SEC opponent just once for a home and away.

If you had four team pods I suspect what would work best would be something like a 3-1-4 rotation but it would be complicated by the fixed opponents required because of historical rivalries and balancing the schedule (lining up not only relatively equal strength between pods but also making sure as best you can that the permanent out of pod matchups are also teams of relatively equal strength). The four rotating teams would obviously have to include all of another pod but it would be a little messy because some years the paired pods aligned into a division would include the "out of pod" permanent rivalry games for some opponents.

The teams making up the pods would also be an interesting problem to figure out. Assuming teams from North Carolina and Virginia are going to be the additions you'll end up with something like:

Years 1/2:
Division 1 = Pod 1 + Pod 2
Division 2 = Pod 3 + Pod 4
Years 3/4
Division 1 = Pod 1 + Pod 3
Division 2 = Pod 2 + Pod 4
Years 5/6
Division 1 = Pod 1 + Pod 4
Division 2 = Pod 2 + Pod 3

Pod 1:
LSU (Fla)
A&M (Va team)
Arky (MU)
Ole Miss (MSU)

Pod 2:
Alabama (Tenn)
Auburn (UGA)
MU (Arky)
MSU (Ole Miss)

Pod 3:
Tenn (Bama)
NC team (USC)
Va team (A&M)
Vandy (KY)

Pod 4:
Fla (LSU)
UGA (Auburn)
USC (NC team)
KY (KY)

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Or you could get rid of all OOC and play a 13 game schedule...

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I hear proposals like that and think the person saying it must be joking.

There's no advantage to that even if the NCAA were to increase the number of regular season games allowed from 12 to 13. You'd lose every single interesting out of conference game - games like Florida/FSU, USC/Clemson, UGA/Ga Tech that are part of college footballs rivalries.

You'd also lose more money since you'd lose home gate revenues and you'd end up with fewer bowl eligible teams - losing the extra practices between regular season and bowl season. IMO a 13 game round robin offers no real advantage when it comes to declaring a conference champ anyway since there would inevitably be more two, three, or even four or more way ties for the championship.