I'm not sure what they do at Mizzou and I have a hard time getting why this move made sense versus other options such as Clemson, Virgina Tech, Florida State or even West Virgina (which is now in the Big 12... some 800+ miles from its closest new rival!). I know TV households and all that matter, but isn't the SEC making pretty good money already? Well, if it must be Missouri, then let's at least not screw up the true SEC rivalries. No, Missouri cannot be placed in the East Division... that will truly be a joke. And I'm not convinced that just Auburn will move to the East because of what that would do to the football schedule. As SEC fans know, each SEC school has one permanent rival that it plays every year from the other division. If you move Auburn to the East, then Bama would be their annual West rival. So what's the problem? Well, Tennessee and Alabama have played their annual slugfest since 1901, and unlike Auburn-Alabama, they've never stopped (well, except in 1943 due to World War II). So, we must keep this game going and that creates a problem. Perhaps the SEC will play two more conference games a year, which would be great for the fans and probably be better for TV. However, that's not going to be popular with the Coaches since they like to have 2 or 3 games against Sister of Mercy-type teams. The new format will probably be a total of eight SEC games for each team with six games in your division, a rotation through the opposite division (they'll do a two year home and home series with one team) and one permanent interdivisional opponent. With that in mind, I started looking at the map and the teams and while not ideal, I think there's something to shifting both Alabama and Auburn to the East and Vandy moves West. This would allow the key rivalry games to stay intact. Here's how it'd shake out (the teams are listed so that their permanent interdivisional opponent is opposite them... example, Alabama vs. Texas A&M is the permanent rivalry game):
| EAST Alabama Auburn Tennessee South Carolina Georgia Florida Kentucky | WEST Texas A&M LSU Missouri Arkansas Mississippi State Ole Miss Vanderbilt |
With this division setup, Alabama and Auburn remain divisional rivals and Bama can keep its Third Saturday in October date each year with the Vols. Georgia-Auburn keeps going, as does Auburn-LSU. The basic geography makes sense and the annual opposite division games would set up nicely. Of course, some annual games we've come to enjoy are going to go to an every seven year rotation, but there's no way to avoid that change no matter how the divisions are set up. So let's move two team eastward in the new SEC and keep producing great games and special rivalries. Now if we can just work on a reduction in the amount of teams using Tigers as their mascot!
