re: Should the SEC stay at 8 conference games in order to preserve non-conference rivalries?

East
Georgia has Georgia Tech and Clemson
Florida has Florida State and Miami
South Carolina has Clemson and North Carolina
Kentucky has Louisville (Indiana & Cincinnati historically)
Tennessee has history of scheduling good P5's
Missouri had a history with Kansas (Illinois?)
Vanderbilt has scheduled mid level P5's

You go to 9 conference games and possibly all these games disappear as it becomes that much harder to finish 6-6 or better. If the West had similar histories, I bet this would not even be a discussion. I applaud Auburn for the Penn State series, wish Alabama would start it up again. Historically LSU had Tulane and they were good, but at least a decade ago they were scheduling good non conference. Auburn also plays Clemson a lot so respect there.

Arkansas has both TX schools in the future so 9 makes sense to them

tLandmass has history at the bottom so they have not scheduled long term OOC rivals.

TAMU needs to beat an App State before talking about 9 conference games

UTx could schedule kansas
OU could make OK Lite a rival game (and UNL as a back 2nd)