re: As SEC moves to 16 teams & 3 permanent rivals, who plays who?

The "new" SEC with 16 teams kind of paves the wave for super conferences and conference divisional and championship games to be part of a larger NCAA D1 FBS playoff system. IMO

I wish it were A&M, Ole Miss and Florida.

Florida has been on the LSU schedule for 52 straight years and 62 of the last 65 years. It's actually more traditional than Bama!

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Just call them SEC Mid or SEC Central instead.

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SEC "Central" is fine with me. But there really should be that much of a fight over all of this. It's a pretty simple geographic break down. Don't waste time trying to satisfy the individual gripes of 16 schools. There isn't going to be a perfect solution.

I want A&M to play LSU, Texas, and Arkansas every year.

And face the rest of the teams in the conference at least once every few years. No more of this 8 years between games for non-rival cross-division opponants nonsense we have now.

A&M has very little history with Oklahoma. There is no rivalry there. We just happened to share a conference for 15 years. There's no reason to force a new "rivalry" between us.

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This thread reinforces the concept that most LSU fans think college football started in 2000.

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It's not their fault. Louisianans rely on folk tales and fables for all their history, and they have an appallingly short life expectancy. There's just not too many folks over there who can remember anything before 2000.

They do have a statewide initiative going on right now to teach some of their elder 40-somethings to read and write. If that goes well, they might be able to start lifting themselves out of their ignorance in the coming generations. Big "if" though.

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I don't think there should be "pods". I think there should be enough permanent opponents to keep traditional rivalries alive. But not really clustered.

Like Alabama would have LSU and Tennessee in their permanent set, but LSU wouldn't have Tennessee.

I don't know how many permanent opponents you would need to make it work and still play every team in a reasonable amount of time, but I feel like this would give the most chance of making everyone happy.

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Pod system: 3 permanent opponents.

Rivalry system: 3 permanent opponents.

The assumption is the remaining 12 schools that aren’t permanent will be rotated. Play the same 6 in even years, and play the remaining 6 in odd years. The scheduling framework should be the same, regardless which format is chosen.

The rivalry system allows more flexibility to keep everyone happy and balance out the schedules. I don’t see the benefit of the pod system over the rivalry format. The winners of each pod aren’t going into a four team playoff to battle it out for the SEC Championship, unless……that’s the plan and the first step in an expanded CFB playoff. A four team SEC playoff would generate tons of interest and revenue.

We’re probably heading towards three or four super conferences, and an expanded CFB playoff. The winner of each pod qualifies for the “playoffs”. The playoff format is anyone’s guess. The first couple of rounds might be SEC only only to determine the SEC champion.

I could also envision a format where every conference has pods. 64 teams divided into 16 pods. Each pod winner get a national seed, and the 16 pod winners qualify for the playoffs.

Until that day comes, or the SEC wants a four team conference playoff starting in 2025, then the 3 permanent rivalry scheduling format makes the most sense.

Of course, that leaves some questions about the SEC Championship game. The Big 12 chooses their two highest ranked teams. Rumors are the ACC is doing away with divisions very soon. You can still have a championship games without having divisions or pods.

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They’re going to do pods. We will play 8&4 and the Mississippi schools annually

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You hope!
NOW let's hear all the coonasses hollering "We want Bama!"
....chickenshits!