re: Pods are Dumb

How it works is each year you play your pod mates (3 games). You play your designated rival in the other pods (3 games). & then you pair up pods yearly (other 3 games).
This gives you a 9 game schedule where you know 6 of your opponents. The other 3 games are the members of your "paired pod" who isn't your rival.

This lets you play every school in 3 years & a full H/A rotation in 6. There's no way to visit every school H/A in 4 years WITHOUT losing rivalries/important games (or changing those games to being played every other year).


Now, to get the SECCG opponents, the "winner" of the paired pods is the contestants.
example
Year 1 - Pods A/B winner vrs. Pods C/D winner
Year 2 - Pods A/C winner vrs. Pods B/D winner
Year 3 - Pods A/D winner vrs. Pods B/C winner
This is an easy solution because each paired pod team has 7 common opponents on their schedule.


Let me know if I need to explain more.