re: How did the 12 SEC teams agree on these East & West permanent rivals for over a decade?

quote:

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You don’t know your history. At the time, Auburn had played UF more than any SEC team other than UGA (maybe MSU). Auburn’s main recruiting areas have always been the states of Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Auburn fought to have UF as an annual rival (and would never have fought to avoid having that game annually).

Of course the DSOR speaks for itself.

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That's why I was hoping Auburn would be an advocate for ignoring strength of permanent opponents in a 3/6 arrangement. Maybe they have been behind the scenes, but it seems to me that the optimum 3/6 permanent opponents for Auburn would be Bama, UGA, and UF, strength be damned.

I can see where it made a big difference in a divisional schedule setting, where you don't see teams in the other division often, but with the 3/6, any marginal strength differential in your permanent opponents ought to be offset, or nearly so, by the fact that your rotating opponents will be weaker.

Hopefully, sanity will prevail, we forget about trying to balance the "permanent" opponents (which would probably require constant revision), and Auburn gets that UF rivalry restored. Then you can tease Bama about having State as one of their 3.