re: Your team's biggest blowout of Alabama

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South Carolina
10/02/2004 20-3

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If not for Bama's late game hail mary's we would have won easily by 21


Oh well.

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shite, imagine if you took away all of their rushing yards in that game. Game changer.

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That's why LSU plays Florida every year.

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eh, LSU and Florida began playing each other every year in 1971. So that's 21 years before expansion and cross divisional permanent opponents. And prior to a 4 year gap, they played every year from 1953-1967. It wasn't just a "let's put the big 6 as the permanent opponents" thing. Also, teams had 2 permanent opponents until the 2003 season. LSU's other permanent opponent was Kentucky

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who did you lose to in 1993?

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Curley Hallman

Actually, it was a "let's put the Big 6 teams as the permanent opponents" type thing.

I read at least one newspaper every day, and I remember reading in one of the Birmingham newspapers back in 1990-92, that the so-called "Big 6" had something to do with the divisional split as well as the permanent opponents.

The reason, according to the article, of putting Vanderbilt in the East instead of Auburn was that Auburn needed to be on the same side as Alabama and LSU. Instead of looking at it as a geographical split of the 12 teams, look at it as the geographical split of the 6 historically best programs. That's why the split occurred the way it did.

It was also decided that those 6 schools should always play at least 1 of the 3 schools from the Big 6 on the other side as a permanent crossover opponent. Alabama already had the Tennessee rivalry. Auburn had Georgia, and LSU had been playing Florida regularly for years. Those were the opponents, even though both Alabama and LSU had both been playing other East opponents longer.

I can't provide a link. It was either the News or the Post-Herald.

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RicketyYour team's biggest blowout of Alabama by Rickety
Actually, it was a "let's put the Big 6 teams as the permanent opponents" type thing.
Auburn had Georgia, and LSU had been playing Florida regularly for years. Those were the opponents, even though both Alabama and LSU had both been playing other East opponents longer. I can't provide a link. It was either the News or the Post-Herald.

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That's what is rather puzzling. LSU had been playing Kentucky every year just as long as Bama had been playing Tennessee, and far longer than we had Florida....

It seems that historical success, as in the Big 6, held more sway than historical rivalries. It was a coincidence that Auburn and Georgia had been playing the longest. The Alabama-Tennessee game and the LSU-Florida game were going to be played because they wanted competitive balance within the conference as well as within the 6 most successful programs.

Alabama had played Vanderbilt longer than they had Tennessee just as LSU had been playing Kentucky longer than they had Florida. Those were the rivals that they kept in the 5-2-1 format. When it flipped to 5-1-2 after 2002, imagine the uproar if LSU had insisted on keeping Kentucky instead of Florida or if Alabama had insisted on keeping Vanderbilt instead of Tennessee. But administrators at all the Big 6 schools know that historical success means you have to play the big boys. It's a good thing that administrators are more level-headed than the average rantard.

I've been around a long time. The first college football game I attended in person was in 1968. I wish Alabama still played Vanderbilt every year. Not because it's a guaranteed win, but because Alabama started playing Ole Miss regularly in 1992. The competitive difference between Ole Miss and Vanderbilt are negligible. But the fan experience is like night and day. Vanderbilt fans aren't pretentious and generally aren't preppy.