re: 14 Team SEC Schedule/ Permanent Opponents

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Missouri won't go to the East. not only would it be a burden on Missouri to travel further, but on the other SEC east schools that have to travel to Missouri. SC and Arkansas have been paired as permanent rivals since the last expansion and its been nothing special because it's such a long trip. i expect that Auburn will move to the east and a 6-2-1 schedule as you propose will allow Alabama to play both Auburn & Tennessee every year.

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You haven't looked at a map. The SEC East is a bit of a misnomer--it's as much the SEC North as it is the SEC East. If Missouri ends up with Arkansas as its cross divisional rival (and that seems likely), football travel will actually be less for them as a member of the East than the West. The travel burden for the other East and West schools is close enough as to not be a factor.

The SEC isn't going to go to 2 permanent rivals--they would eliminate them altogether but for the loss of Alabama-UT and Auburn-UGA. They will play 6-1-1 until the TV folks make it worth their money to play 9 games, then go 6-1-2, allowing each school to completely cycle through the other division home-and-home within a six year period (as opposed to merely cycling through either home or away in that same six year period with an 8 game schedule).

"As far as football is concerned, Missouri will have, at the most, 3 road games each year to teams in the east for their fans to travel to. I don't think that is too much of a burden on Missouri or its fans."

We're the new guys on the block and just elated to be here if it does happen. We will most likely just go wherever were told and be happy. I'm sure Mr. Slive has already discussed all of this before Mizzou made it's decision

Having Arkansas as a permanent rival is logical and would seem a great fit since they are a border state. My thoughts are that MU might have put a request in to have Texas A&M as a permanent rival though. Not that they don't want Arkansas but due to the recruiting factor. Just look at Missouri's rivals site and you see 16 players committed for 2012 and 8 of them are from Texas.

Texas A&M would probably not be as interested in MU as a cross division rival because it really isn't a heated rivalry now and we've been in the same conference for years. But then again I think most SEC universities would like TA&M as their permanent rival to open up the Texas recruiting grounds.

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Why would Missouri go east? It makes much more sense to move Auburn.

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Makes more sense to tell Mizzou to frick off and bring in WVU to the east. All problems are solved.

Screw it. lets go all out to 16. bring in WVU and Lousiville to the East then TAMU and Mizzou to the West. 9 conference games with one permanent crossover rival. no rivalries lost. The team with the best BCS ranking plays in and hosts the SEC Title game.

We need to get rid of permanent opponents so we can actually play the rest of the conference. The whole Bama-UT and AU-UGA thing is just stupid. It holds back the conference.

Also Mizzou to the east is ridiculous. They are the third most western team.

* the only reason we are even having a discussion about permanent cross division games and Mizzou to the east is because of two games out of 33 total conference games. That is ridiculous.

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We need to get rid of permanent opponents so we can actually play the rest of the conference. The whole Bama-UT and AU-UGA thing is just stupid. It holds back the conference.

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Unfortunately for everyone we're holding back, those games mean more to those schools than adding more Big 12 teams, so I don't see that changing.

I understand your attempt at balance but if permanent rivalries are gonna stay (and in your post suggesting to go to 2 perm rivalries) then I'd think consideration should be made to bring back the LSU-Kentucky Annual Rivalry over LSU/Vandy. I can understand the Kentucky -Miss State rivalry in basketball, but the rival thing can be different for basketball and football.

Auburn wants the East for Georgia, Florida, and Tenn, in which case they would play all three every year while others play weaker teams so I'd think they'd rather Florida or Tenn over Vandy too in your scenario.

Edit: Not saying I'd support this idea, but rather how I'd approach it if it was the only alternative.

I think there will be 1 permanent opponent and rotate the others home and away. Not sure if that will be 2 or 1. My guess would be 2 and do away with a non conference game. If not, you lose LSU UF, UGA Auburn, Tenn Bama, etc. Not losing that.