Zulu
Well-Known Member
It must be a boring Sunday afternoon ... my daughter is a freshman at Ole Miss, and I was looking at their football schedule for the next couple of years to try and pick out some "must see" games, and it jumped out at me: if she spends 4 years at Oxford, she will NEVER see Ole Miss play either Tennessee or Missouri (unless they meet in the SEC championship). Also, except for Vanderbilt (their "traditional cross-division rival"), the ONLY SEC East times she'll see come to Vaught-Hemingway are Georgia and South Carolina.
That just seems wrong to me; teams in your conference that you only play every six years? Stadiums in your conference that you only visit every TWELVE years? Hardly worth calling yourselves part of the same conference. So, what's the answer? The way I see it, the "traditional cross-division rivalry" games cause the problem; one team eats up half of your cross-division games every year. Also, in my opinion, the only two cross-division "rivalry" games that are true historical rivalries are Alabama-Tennessee (3d Saturday in Oct) and Auburn-Georgia (The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry). All of the rest just seem to be made up.
So here's my solution to the problem: move Alabama and Auburn to the SEC East in exchange for Missouri and one other team (most likely Vandy), do away with the cross-division rivalry games, and every team plays two cross-division games per year on a round-robin basis. This would keep all of the big rivalries intact and have every SEC team play every other SEC at least once every three years. It would also help balance out the perceived over-strength of the West vs the East. Missouri makes perfect sense to move to the west; they're the 3rd western-most team in SEC and haven't been in the conference long enough to develop any real in-division rivalries. Vandy would be a little tougher sell -- they're actually further west than Auburn, and are an easy drive to both Oxford and Starkville. They would lose their "rivalry" with Tennessee, but let's be honest: Vandy will have its years, but it will never be good enough long enough to have a meaningful rivalry with anyone else in the SEC.
I know it will never happen, but it gave me something to think about. So punch this plan full of holes. What did I miss? C'mon, the Super Bowl is next week and March Madness doesn't start for a month, what else are we going to argue about until then? :stir:
That just seems wrong to me; teams in your conference that you only play every six years? Stadiums in your conference that you only visit every TWELVE years? Hardly worth calling yourselves part of the same conference. So, what's the answer? The way I see it, the "traditional cross-division rivalry" games cause the problem; one team eats up half of your cross-division games every year. Also, in my opinion, the only two cross-division "rivalry" games that are true historical rivalries are Alabama-Tennessee (3d Saturday in Oct) and Auburn-Georgia (The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry). All of the rest just seem to be made up.
So here's my solution to the problem: move Alabama and Auburn to the SEC East in exchange for Missouri and one other team (most likely Vandy), do away with the cross-division rivalry games, and every team plays two cross-division games per year on a round-robin basis. This would keep all of the big rivalries intact and have every SEC team play every other SEC at least once every three years. It would also help balance out the perceived over-strength of the West vs the East. Missouri makes perfect sense to move to the west; they're the 3rd western-most team in SEC and haven't been in the conference long enough to develop any real in-division rivalries. Vandy would be a little tougher sell -- they're actually further west than Auburn, and are an easy drive to both Oxford and Starkville. They would lose their "rivalry" with Tennessee, but let's be honest: Vandy will have its years, but it will never be good enough long enough to have a meaningful rivalry with anyone else in the SEC.
I know it will never happen, but it gave me something to think about. So punch this plan full of holes. What did I miss? C'mon, the Super Bowl is next week and March Madness doesn't start for a month, what else are we going to argue about until then? :stir:
!
