South Carolina’s president says his peers are going to bitch and moan some more with each other about conference scheduling.
Also back on the table for discussion is changing the scheduling format as it relates to cross-divisional opponents. Currently, each SEC team plays the six others in their division, and there’s one rotating opponent and another permanent opponent from the opposite division.
Some schools want to go to change to a format that calls for two rotating opponents from the opposite division, eliminating the permanent opponent. Others have traditional rivals across the division that they want to continue to schedule. It’s a discussion that’s been had many times.
“We voted to continue to study football scheduling,” Pastides said. “It’s a potentially very divisive issue – we’re talking about the inter-divisional competition that has Texas A&M be our so-called permanent Western rival. Several of us, we’d rather see more rotation, and really that’s for student-athlete well-being.
“We all loved going to Ole Miss last year and seeing that great university and watching our students have an opportunity in their four years at the university to see more of the SEC peers. There, of course, are other SEC programs that have an intra-divisional rival – Georgia and Auburn, for example – and they don’t really want to give that particular one up. Tennessee and Alabama goes back deep in history and so that will be a continued item for negotiation. I don’t know where it will end up, but we’re studying it yet again.”
Notice the one thing he didn’t mention there? (Hint: it’s a four-letter word that begins with “n” and rhymes with “fine”.)
Enjoy your next trip to College Station, sir. You made this particular bed, so have a nice time lying in it.
Get The Picture 
He is retiring the end of July of this year so he does not care about this.
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I’d just as soon kick Carolina out of the conference and bring Clemson in. Clemson wouldn’t piss and moan about playing A&M.
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Substitute Clemson for also kicking out aTm, Arky, and Mizzou. We can then drop back to 7 conference games. GT makes 8. That allows 3 P5 games and one cupcake. That would allow us to play two “National” P5s and a regular “Regional” P5 (e.g. rotate home and home series with SCar and Clemson or play some of the NC schools).
As for Conference games, you can have 5 permanent rivals. That would leave 4 teams with which you have alternating Home and Homes every other year. This would allow us to bring back old rivalries like Auburn vs Florida.
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Georgia-Auburn as an annual affair is on life support now given the complaining of all these administrators. South Carolina, Arkansas, Texas A&M, and Missouri are interlopers in my book. If the presidents want to change this, they have the votes … it would be at least 10-4 in favor of dropping the permanent opponent. I even think it may be 11-3 if Pruitt wanted to drop Alabama as an annual affair.
What would Pastides do if it changed to a pod system, and we told the office that we didn’t want the Lamecocks in our pod?
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I’m pretty sure UT, Florida, Auburn and Scar would be our pod. Which would be fine imo.
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South Carolina is adorable. It’s like they think anyone in B’ham cares what they think. A&M is your rival now and you’re going to like it.
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If Pastides really means it, fight for nine conference games, or STFU. There is no reason for anyone to oppose this, and fans should demand it after being served uninteresting cupcakes for so many years. If he is afraid of A&M, he should withdraw to the ACC, no one will miss them. Buck up man, you don’t sound like much of a leader.
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If the presidents/ADs are determined not to go to a 9-game conference schedule, why not just let cross-division rivalries like Georgia-Auburn and Bama-UT continue, with those schools having one rotating opponent, and those without a historic rivalry get two rotating opponents? It can be done—in the Pac-12, southern division teams UCLA and USC always play their in-state rivals Stanford and Cal from the north; for everyone else, all their cross-divisional opponents rotate. It doesn’t take a Good Will Hunting mathematical prodigy to figure this out.
I continue to be amazed that people with that little creativity can rise to the positions they’ve achieved. But maybe that lack of creativity is no longer a bug but rather a feature in higher-ed leadership.
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Because then Florida and LSU would happily drop each other, leaving Auburn and Georgia both at a particular disadvantage.
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The only logical solution is to move Bama and Auburn to the East, and Missouri and Kentucky to the West. The logical perfection of this change insures that it will never happen.
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Tennessee, South Carolina and Auburn all have pretty good reasons not to go to nine.
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Kirby and Jimbo will pretty much make sure that South Carolina won’t make it to Atlanta anytime soon. Hard to get the fans up for a season when they know it. Plus the fact that their instate rival has a bye into the college football playoff every year because of their lame schedule and also insures that Carolina basically starts the season with three losses. Tough times in Columbia for football fans.
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