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Why did we never play Auburn before divisons?

Posted on 9/22/16 at 10:57 am
Posted by jlovel7
Louisiana
Member since Aug 2014
21530 posts
Posted on 9/22/16 at 10:57 am
From about the early 1940's until we split into divisions (so about 50 years), we only played Auburn 8 times! I feel like that's pretty crazy for any conference foe to only play about 8 times in 50 years. Does anybody know why SEC scheduling was so weird until divisional alignment?
Posted by clamdip
Rocky Mountain High
Member since Sep 2004
18030 posts
Posted on 9/22/16 at 10:59 am to
Auburn had long standing rivalries with Bama, UGA, Tenn, and Florida. Just not enough room. Meanwhile, LSU played MSU and Ole Miss and, for some reason, Kentucky a lot.

I have no idea how the 'rotation' worked before SEC expansion, but I blame Bama.
Posted by alumni95
Member since Jun 2004
7591 posts
Posted on 9/22/16 at 11:02 am to
No I don't know why, but have seen it explained here before.

What I do know is that the CURRENT division alignment is also terrible and we are not far off that pace for meeting the East teams as often as we played Auburn 40's-80's.
Posted by Duckie
Tippy Toe, Louisiana
Member since Apr 2010
24314 posts
Posted on 9/22/16 at 11:10 am to
steve shaw is responsible.
Posted by el gato
Baton Rouge
Member since May 2005
2418 posts
Posted on 9/22/16 at 11:35 am to
LSU didn't play Georgia, Tennessee, Vanderbilt or Auburn very much during the time frame you reference. There were no conference requirements for the number of games played or how often you rotated member schools as opponents, if at all. It wasn't until 1982 that the SEC officially adopted a six-game conference schedule. As an example, LSU won the SEC in 1970 with a 5-0-0 record. Tennessee also played five SEC games but the rest of the league played six or seven regular season SEC games that year.
Posted by Topwater Trout
Red Stick
Member since Oct 2010
67602 posts
Posted on 9/22/16 at 11:36 am to
We rarely played Georgia
Posted by Macavity92
Member since Dec 2004
5999 posts
Posted on 9/22/16 at 1:33 pm to
quote:

Why did we never play Auburn before divisons?


Have you been to Auburn? Not exactly a Travel Channel destination. We should have considered ourselves lucky. In fact, it may have been our choice.
Posted by Nuts4LSU
Washington, DC
Member since Oct 2003
25468 posts
Posted on 9/22/16 at 2:19 pm to
SEC scheduling wasn't formalized back then. LSU had annual games with Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Florida, Kentucky and, starting in the early '60s, Alabama. In addition, we had annual series outside of SEC play with Texas A&M, Rice and Tulane (which was an SEC game until the mid-'60s). That's eight games out of what was only a 10-game schedule until the early '70s. With only two other slots available, there wasn't much room for games against Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee, Vanderbilt or Georgia Tech, which was also in the SEC until the mid-'60s. We went 25 years from 1953 to 1978 without playing Georgia at all, but that was partly because of a riot that broke out after a game in Athens in the early '50s. Sometimes we didn't have any other SEC teams on the schedule besides our annual five (six until Tulane left the SEC). We did have sporadic games with Tennessee and Auburn from time to time in the '60s and into 1970, but it was never an annual thing.

Beginning in '72, shortly after college football moved to the 11-game schedule and the SEC was down to 10 teams, the SEC went to a six-game schedule with five permanent opponents and one rotating slot for the other four teams. Under that arrangement, LSU met Auburn in '72 and '73, Tennessee in '74 and '75, Vandy in '76 and '77 and Georgia in '78 and '79. The pattern repeated from 1980-87 with the same four teams in 2-year increments in the same order: Auburn in '80 and '81, Tennessee in '82 and '83, Vandy in '84 and '85, and Georgia in '86 and '87.

Starting in 1988, the SEC went to a 7-game conference schedule with 5 permanent and 2 rotating opponents, so you would play each team at least twice every four years. We played Auburn and Tennessee in '88 and '89, Georgia and Vandy in '90 and '91. Unfortunately, that arrangement only lasted through one rotation of four years because expansion occurred in '92 and changed everything.
This post was edited on 9/22/16 at 2:22 pm
Posted by tiger chaser
Birmingham Ala
Member since Feb 2008
7635 posts
Posted on 9/22/16 at 2:57 pm to
We did... you're just too young to know about it.
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