Sounds like change is a-coming.
Of course, that opens up more questions than it answers. Does he wait until the conference goes to 16? Pods? No divisions? Divisions with Auburn and Alabama moving East and Mizzou moving West? Who knows?
Sounds like change is a-coming.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey asked about future of SEC football schedules on @1010XL: "We need to rotate teams through our campuses with greater frequencies."
— Brandon Marcello (@bmarcello) August 25, 2021
Of course, that opens up more questions than it answers. Does he wait until the conference goes to 16? Pods? No divisions? Divisions with Auburn and Alabama moving East and Mizzou moving West? Who knows?
Filed under SEC Football
“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
There is a clip on YouTube where Donnan says he’s heard they are leaning toward 4 pods of 4 teams.
You play the 3 in your pod, + another pod (4 games), +1 full-time rival from another pod (e.g. Auburn), + a team from the the last pod.
So a 9-game conference schedule.
I would be down with that.
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If I had to bet I’m going with this. As it is some schools will complain about their “pod” – looking at you Florida and LSU – but this has the most competitive balance to it.
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My problem with 4 pods is at present only two teams would be chosen for the SEC championship. How would those two be selected fairly?
Fairly to me means zero input from ESPN or anywhere on the list some sort of eyeball test.
If they do go to pods soon I believe it would be done with the veiled threat of a future 4 team SEC playoff if there is not a 12 team National playoff approved. Leverage is more money for the win.
The SEC has many options to counter any alliance. One being raising scholarships from 25 to 30 or 35 per team per year. Take away more top talent from the rest of CFB err I meant to say to allow more student athletes to better themselves. Yeah that’s it.
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It will be the 2 best conference records in that case.
I admit that I like the division format. It’s simple and easy to understand. Slive and Sankey screwed it up when they went and brought in Missouri.
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It’s the ties that concern me given how fair thingsvin the SEC have been for Georgia.
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We’ve found a way to break ties in the divisions for a long time. This got me curious of what would have been different over last 10 years if SEC champ game was top 2 conference records.
‘20 – Texas A&M v Bama
‘17 – 3 way tie: UGA/Bama/Auburn
‘13 – 3 way tie: Mizzou/Auburn/Bama
2020 seems pretty fair – A&M beat Florida on the field. Not sure how you shake out the other seasons.
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It’s so much easier to just assign each program three permanent games and rotate the rest.
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Have we played Texas since the ‘what time is it’ game?
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Oh, scuse me, a senior moment. The ‘Texas is back’ game.
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I tried to forget it as well after being there, HS
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Not in one that counted. 🙂
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Pod… It sounds so… Alien. I hope that moniker doesn’t stick. How about sector or district or quarter??
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Could be worse.
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Simply permanent opponents like we do today. Pods sounds like something out of a nursery book.
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The “pod” word sounds so “Invasion or the Body Snatchers”. Surely, we can come up with something better.
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Open the pod door, Greg!
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I’m sorry WC Dawg I can’t do that.
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Tennessee is forever Bamas whipping post.
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Nine games —three permanent opponents peculiar to each team, mixed and matched in a way that respects history and competitive balance, then the other 12 home and away over a four year period. This would be awesome.
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Instead of Pods or divisions each team would have 3 teams they could “Choose” as permanent opponents then the other 6, or 7, could be randomized as to cover the remaining teams so each team is covered in a reasonable time frame both home and away.
The two to play for the SEC championship are the two with the best conference record with head to head breaking any ties and after that the highest ranked of the tied teams.
This keeps one Pod or division from being super strong and one very weak.
I like that idea.
UGA could make uf, auburn and ut permenant
uf could make UGA, ut and LSU
texas could do ou, a&m and mizzou
and so on to cover everyone
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With every one of these changes we get further away from fairness. The SEC has gone the wrong way on this. We should have kicked out the most recent 4 teams and gone to a 9 game round robin schedule so each team plays every other team every year. That’s the only way to get a true conference champion. If the playoff goes to 12 teams it makes sense financially too because the SEC will always have multiple teams in the playoff and this way there will be fewer teams to split the playoff money. Under this theory I also would be in favor of keeping ATM and booting Vandy because ATM is likely to make the playoff whereas Vandy is just a leech.
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I hope they keep the divisions and move Mizzou to the West while moving Bama and Auburn to the East.
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Oh, goody, it sounds like we’re about to get to go to Auburn a few more times in a row!
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uga ala
fla aub
usc(e) vandy
ken tenn
First pod – group plays every year and plays 1 team from each group from second pod every year
lsu tx
mizz okl
ole ark
msst txam
Second pod – group plays every year and plays 1 team from each group from first pod every year.
9 game conference schedule – best record from the two groups plays in the seccg.
Thoughts?
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I really love the 3 permanent opponents for each team model, with 2 being tough and one not. Everyone is happy with that – schedules are balanced, you play everyone every 3-4 years, key rivalries are maintained, etc. Screw divisions and pods.
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