re: Rabalais Column, yes the SEC is an Alabama arm

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A game against Florida brings in more revenue than a game against Vanderbilt. It isn't about winning games, it's about winning money.

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Never thought about this but it makes sense. Also explains why Vandy is the runts' permanent rival -- the SEC knows no one is going to watch either of those teams no matter who they play, so might as well pair them up together.

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It's like playing tennis with someone who thinks you don't know he's giving himself all the line calls, beat him anyway, just let him know you know.

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"It's like playing tennis against someone..."
This actually happened to me in a tournament - the pro watching the match told me to get my points back (giving myself the calls) before addressing the issue

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I'll say I hate it because it was done solely to accommodate BAMA (and to a lesser extent TENN, UGA and AU) so frick them. The idea that what BAMA wants BAMA gets is tired

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AMEN

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Some how Nebraska and Oklahoma managed to work out the rivalry issues when they realigned the Big 12

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AMEN X 2

Seems like Bama needs to figure out which of their rivalries they want to keep, either Auburn or Tennessee. They can survive without both.

Forgive my ignorance 'cause I've wondered for a long time.
Is there a rule against playing against a conference team as an non-conference game? That would enable AL/AU/TN etc to maintain those rivalries IF they were so important to them. I mean, why not, other than it would just be another tough game. Right?

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Is there a rule against playing against a conference team as an non-conference game?

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I think the answer must be no. I have two examples but neither of them is necessarily determinative.

First, Cal & Colorado played each other in a "non-conference" game this year. Of course, it was scheduled before CU moved to the PAC-12, so maybe they got a one time waiver?

Second, in baseball PAC-12 teams do it all the time. Stanford & Cal always play home & home series, for instance, except one series will count in the conference standings and one won't. This makes no sense at all to me, because you can go 3-3 against a team on the year yet, as far as the conference seeding is concerned, you're 0-3. But this is how they do it. Again, though, this might be baseball only rule.