re: Rabalais Nails it on SEC Scheduling

Just do away with the divisions altogether. Play 10 conference games and 3 non conference games. No conference championship, as the team with the best record wins conference.

Each team gets to play 10 of the remaining 13 teams, and total games still equals 13. Rotate teams each year, and no long wait for certain opponents

then make it 9 and 3 or 10 and 2 .. whatever

Trading Ala and Auburn for Vandy and Missouri [and without permanent cross division games] is the dumbest idea ever. The East would become a mini NFL and the West as a whole would be looking up at his big brothers in the eastern division.

Four things are as certain as the sky is blue. Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and Auburn will never, ever, ever, ever agree to eliminate their permanent rivalries if they stay in their current divisions. Aleva is smoking some wicked weed if he thinks he can convince those 4 teams to give up those games.

The most equitable thing to do is go to a 9 game SEC schedule with 1 permananent and 2 rotating cross division games. This will enable Alabama to still play Tenn and Ga to still play Auburn. Those are the SEC's most tradition rich cross division rivalries.

It's all about money [as if we didn't know that]. There's a thread on here somewhere that shows the most lucrative FB programs in the country. We're #4 -- about to be #3 when Penn State implodes. FB creates something like a $96M windall every year.

Home football games go a long way toward that. Each one must generate something on the order of about $5M in concessions alone -- maybe a lot more. Throw in parking passes and on campus merchandise sales, and I bet the number is more like $12-20M.

If you go to a 9 game SEC slate, the first problem is that half the SEC teams would have 5 home conference games and the other half would have 4. Yes it would flip the next year, but that still sounds inequitable.

The disparity gets even more magnified when you consider that the teams that get 5 home conference games could ultimately get 9 home games total. LSU only had 6 home games this year. Next year it's 8. With a possibility of 9, that's a boatload of cash that LSU doesn't have to share with anyone.

Now the prospect of 9 home conference games should mean that those teams do a better job of scheduling home and away's with other major BCS conference teams, and thus quality of scheduling should increase substantially league wide.

But some teams like scheduling those 4 patsies each year. They're [supposed to be] guaranteed wins. Reduce that to 3 [with a 9 game conf slate]? Reduce that maybe to 2 and go schedule Oklahoma, Texas, or Ohio State to a home and away?

The analysis is simple. If the conference sticks to its guns and says that it will never go beyond an 8 game slate, there's no way you can avoid having LSU not play S. Car except every 8 years [not 10 like Rabalais says]. Same is true for LSU-Vandy, LSU-Ga, etc.

Permanent rivalries are here to stay. The SEC will not unplug Ala-UT or Ga-Aub in order for LSU to be able to play S. Car sooner than every 8 years.

If the league goes to 9 games, then you're able to play those schools sooner.

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I'm tired of listening to LSU fans bitch and complain about this. When the permanent "cross-division" opponent was established, Florida was historically the seventh (7th) best program in the SEC and was just beginning to become a national power. Who knew they would dominate the SEC throughout the 90's and for parts of the 2000's. Today it might seem "unfair" for LSU to play Florida every year because of what has become of the Tenn. and UGA programs (in comparison to Fla.), but Alabama's permanent opponent (UT) is the 2nd winningest program in SEC history. Auburn's permanent (UGA) is 4th.

The ebb and flow of program success is cyclical. UGA and UT will eventually be great again. UF will have some down years (might be starting right now). Personally, I like the LSU/UF game. As a long-time fan and season ticket holder, I would much rather see that matchup every year, rather than something like LSU/UK

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Who gives a shite? The permanent opponent is an inequitable joke that should be banished.

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If the conference sticks to its guns and says that it will never go beyond an 8 game slate, there's no way you can avoid having LSU not play S. Car except every 8 years [not 10 like Rabalais says].

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no, Rabalais has it right if the home and home matchups continue to occur in consecutive years. Example...if things were to continue as they are scheduled in 2012, we'd play SC in 12-13 and not see them again until 2024. Even if you split up the home/home, (ie play them in BR in 2012, Columbia in 2018) you'd still have the 11 season (12 calendar years) gap between home games with them (and all the others as well).

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teams that get 5 home conference games could ultimately get 9 home games total

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with 9 conference games and 5 at home, you'd only have 3 OOC games, so you could only have 8 home games max.

That's still too long to go without playing teams that are in the same conference. Its a damn shame LSU never got to play P Manning once, let alone home and home. Its stupid BS meant to appease one school. OU-Nebraska was a much bigger rivalry than Bama-UT.

Yep he's basing it off of 5 division games, not 6.

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LSU never got to play P Manning once, let alone home and home.

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not to mention Bo and Herschel

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With as much hell as "we" give the Pac-12, they do it and were doing it when they were a 10 team league.

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true and I think the Big 10 is going to it as well in a few years.

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Also, I do think that could potentially cut back on the marquee out of conference match-ups what we have been seeing recently. Due to the desire to get as many home games as possible to make more money.

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I agree...that is the biggest downside I see to it.