Expansion - Scheduling Only Thread

#MakeArkansasTheLastGameOfTheSeasonAgain

#MakeAuburnAnOctoberAtTheLatestGameAgain

If Bama, Auburn and Florida aren’t in our pod as it’s being discussed then we wouldn’t see them in TS but once every four years. Would that be good for fans?

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Not exactly. For instance in basketball, our 3 opponents are A&M Alabama Arkansas, while Bama’s are Auburn, Miss St LSU.

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Ah I see.

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Certainly you’d have to pick your poison. No way you get all three of those as permanent opponents.. But I would rather see those teams twice every four years and get to play the other teams more often, then going 12 years between going to the other schools’ venues. It is flat out ridiculous that we haven’t been to UK in 14 years.

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That issue could be easily fixed without adding Oklahoma and Texas

Bama's permanent: Tenn, Vandy, Auburn

LSU's: Florida, Ga, aTm

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Bama’s are Auburn, Miss St LSU.

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Bama’s would be Auburn, Tenn, and LSU. Don’t forget Alabama and Tennessee HAVE to play the third Saturday in October or the universe would explode.

Do the Alabama and Mississippi schools care very much about playing each other every year?

If not then keeping East-West divisions, swapping Missouri, Alabama, and Auburn and eliminating permanent cross division games, and adding a game, solves or improves so many of the existing scheduling issues without making any extreme changes that I'd be pretty surprised if the relatively conservative SEC office went with any kind of pods or other more complicated formats over that.

I am a proponent of pods, but Oklahoma and Texas are bad schools to try it with.

You would have 6 teams that are logical fits with each other (Texas, Oklahoma, A&M, Arkansas, LSU, Missouri) that are very difficult to divide into pods of 4 and still get all the games those teams will want in the schedule every year.

Its a pretty significant improvement over something that has already been deemed acceptable. Right now it takes 12 years.

I'd prefer some sort of pod system where everybody can play everybody in meaningful games every 3 years, but with Oklahoma and Texas and those two teams already having scheduling links with not only each other, but with other teams already in the SEC it makes it difficult.

Missouri probably wants to play Arkansas, Texas, and A&M (maybe even OU)
Arkansas probably wants to play Texas, LSU, A&M, and Missouri
Texas will want to play Oklahoma and A&M
A&M will want to play LSU

It all starts to get very difficult to divide those teams into pods that make those matchups happen.

This is my best crack at a workable pod system that preserves the maximum number of rivalry games, maximizes schedule balance, keeps a clean yearly division format for simple championship game qualifications.

Pod #1
A-Texas
B-Arkansas
C-Oklahoma
D-Miss State

Pod #2
A-Texas A&M
B-Missouri
C-LSU
D-Ole Miss

Pod #3
A-Tennessee
B-Alabama
C-Vanderbilt
D-Florida

Pod #4
A-Kentucky
B-Auburn
C-South Carolina
D-Georgia

Each team with the same letter (A-D) is a permanent schedule partner of every other team with that letter.

Every season two pods will be put together to make a "division." A team's schedule will be 7 division games, and two non-division games that are the teams with the same letter that aren't in their division.

Year 1 - Divisions
SEC West - Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, LSU, Miss State, Ole Miss
SEC East - Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Auburn, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia

Year 2 - Divisions
#1 Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, Florida, Miss State
#2 A&M, Kentucky, Missouri, Auburn, LSU, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Georgia

Year 3 - Divisions
#1 Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Auburn, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Miss State, Georgia
#2 A&M, Tennessee, Missouri, Alabama, LSU, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Florida

Permanent yearly matchups
Alabama (Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Missouri)
Arkansas (Texas, Oklahoma, Miss State, Missouri, Alabama, Auburn)
Auburn (Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas)
Florida (Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Alabama, Miss State, Ole Miss, Georgia)
Georgia (Kentucky, Auburn, South Carolina, Florida, Ole Miss, Miss State)
Kentucky (Auburn, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, A&M, Texas)
LSU (A&M, Missouri, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, South Carolina)
Ole Miss (A&M, Missouri, LSU, Miss State, Florida, Georgia)
Miss State (Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Florida, Georgia)
Missouri (A&M, LSU, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn)
Oklahoma (Texas, Arkansas, Miss State, LSU, Vanderbilt, South Carolina)
South Carolina (Kentucky, Auburn, Georgia, Vanderbilt, LSU, Oklahoma)
Tennessee (Alabama, Vanderbilt, Florida, Texas, A&M, Kentucky)
Texas (Arkansas, Oklahoma, Miss State, A&M, Tennessee, Kentucky)
A&M (Missouri, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky)
Vanderbilt (Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, LSU, South Carolina)


The obvious problem with this, is that by far the simplest and best, and arguably most balanced schedule is to sacrifice playing every team as often as possible and just go with the Year 1 divisions as a permanent east and west and rotate the non division games like we do now (but with two rotating games, not just 1)