re: The real candidates for Expansion

Put Bama and Auburn in the East and formalize the divisional split from a schedule standpoint, but enter into an agreement to share bowl revenue and negotiate media contracts as a block.

Then play a seven game schedule with three P5 game requirements. One of those three must come from the sister conference but all three can't. Wins/Losses against the sister conference don't count towards winning your conference unless there's a tie and the cross conference opponents are within two positions of each other in that conference's ranking.

Or bring in some of these other schools and make it 8&2.

Alabama, Georgia, and Florida are ballasted by LSU, Texas, & Oklahoma.

Auburn and Tennessee by A&M and whichever of the Arkanssippi schools decide they want to actually be good that year. There's usually at least one.