re: Pods are Dumb

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Oilfieldbiology
Pods are Dumb

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Pods offer no benefit over giving every team 3 permanent opponents.



What about playing the entire conference every 2 years and having an extremely balanced schedule?

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HOW are you playing the entire conference in 2 years?

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You gave this example. Let's choose Alabama since they're in slot #1.
Game 1 - Tennessee (Pod 1 member)
Game 2 - Auburn (Pod 1 member)
Game 3 - Vanderbilt (Pod 1 member)
Game 4 - Oklahoma (Pod 2 rival)
Game 5 - LSU (Pod 3 rival)
Game 6 - Georgia (Pod 4 rival)

If you have a 9 game conference schedule, you've filled out 2/3 of the Tide's opponents each year.

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Interesting idea. Genuinely curious. How does this work with scheduling? Do they play the pod 2/3/4 “rival” every year? I’m not sure how that works for the all 16 teams play all 16 teams in a home and away format in a 4 year period. I definitely might not understand what your saying.

In the pod 1 example vs pod 2 example here is how I saw it working out.

Year 1 Pod 1 vs Pod 2 schedule
Bama vs OU, Bama vs Mizz

Year 2 Pod 1 vs Pod 2 schedule
Bama vs TX, Bama vs Ark.

Year 3 repeat year 1 schedule

I’m on my phone so I don’t want to extrapolate that schedule for Bama vs the other 2 pods but you get the idea. Bama vs other pods would be 3 traditional powers every year and 3 non traditional power teams every year

But the catch with your format is if you're not in the same pod as somebody else, you have 1 chance to keep that rivalry game.


So, let's give you an example:

Pod is Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Vandy
Alabama's +1 is LSU.

You've just now kissed the great MSU/Ala. rivaly to every other year.

What if Auburn's +1 was Florida. DSOR is no longer annually.

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You do this with 3 permanent + 6 rotating. I understand the benefit of pods over divisions. No one has articulated how pods are superior to 3 + 6.

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Because it lends itself to being a significantly more fair/even schedule.

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Florida - Georgia, South Carolina, LSU

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Can we have UK over SC?

Prefer Tenn or AUB but UK is more a rival than SC.
35 year streak and all.

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Have you looked at the record vs those 2?
Do you even watch football?

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He's thinking long-term.
This crap will end eventually.

That is similar with all POD formats.

Alignment of UT and AU keeps the most important rivalries and the +1 is likely MSU for Bama to keep its oldest alive. Similar alignment would be needed for other teams. For example, UF, UGA USCe, UK with UGa keeping AU as permanent rival.

Math and scheduling is cleaner for the rotation with 2 x perm opponents. That is 5 of the same opponents every year (3 x Pod + 2x perm) and the remaining 10 teams are played H and A over 4vyr period. However, 2 x perm opponents already proved unpopular/unbalanced.

In any case, 10 SEC game schedule would be great for fans.

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.

&, while it might not mean anything to you, that game DOES to Georgia & Auburn.