re: SEC likely to adopt 9 game conference schedule...

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Which insures taxpayers will subsidize players who slip from amateur status to professional status.

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How are taxpayers subsidizing these players?

Not everyone knows the history of the permanent opponents. When the SEC first went to 12 teams, they had a 5-2-1 schedule. The top 6 teams were Alabama Auburn LSU in the west and Florida Georgia Tennessee in the East. Every team had a top 6 and a bottom 6 opponent. By default LSU was stuck with Florida. When the SEC switched to 5-1-2, the original top 6 matchups remained and the original bottom 6 teams remained.

Since then, I would say that the SEC is adding 3 teams (Oklahoma, Texas, aTm) that would belong in the top group and 1 (Mizzou) that belongs in the bottom group. Which team would you move from the top group to the bottom group? Without doing any analysis, I would say Tennessee gets pushed down from the top half to the bottom half.

It's commonly accepted that Alabama will play Auburn & Tennessee every year. If Tennessee is a bottom half group team, then that leaves Alabama's 2nd top group slot open to be LSU.

The reality is that with a 3+6 schedule, the permanent opponents won’t matter nearly as much as they have in years past. We’ll play the entire conference every two years regardless.

I suspect we will see a lot more SECCG rematches. You’re going from a ~29%* chance that the SECCG teams play a regular season game to a ~60%* chance.

*Both percentages are lower in reality because of two factors:

1. Under the current system, the permanent cross-divisional rival plays a huge part. If Alabama plays Tennessee every year and Tennessee is never in contention for the SECe, then Bama really has a 1/6 (17%) chance to play the best SECe team in the regular season. So the 29% number is basically assuming parity in the league.

This still plays a part in a 3+6 schedule due to the 3 permanent opponents, but the impact is MUCH smaller since you are playing 9 teams that you could face in the SECCG instead of 2. So if Alabama plays Tennessee plus two top-tier programs every year and Tenneseee just doesn’t compete in the league, now there’s an 8/14 (57%) chance that they play an SECCG team instead of 60% with complete parity. If they play two lower-tier programs every year there’s still a 7/13 (54%) chance to play an SECCG team.

2. There’s always the chance that the two best teams play in the regular season and the winner knocks the other team out of contention. So that will decrease the probability of rematches as well. But teams are slightly more likely to stay in contention after a loss under a 9-game schedule than under an 8-game schedule.

The overall point is that playing the entire conference every two years and eliminating divisions will make a much larger difference than the selection of the three permanent opponents. I’m pretty excited about it. The downsides are really the imbalance of home/away games and the risk of obscure tiebreakers.

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So many of you have LSU married to Florida. I don't get it.

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We've been annual opponents since the 1953 with the exception of a 3 year break in the 60s. They make more sense than Auburn who we rarely played until the division format in 92. They SEC is not going to give us to Bama when they already have Tennessee and Auburn.

We need a permanent big 6 team on the schedule and if Bama is out (Auburn/Tenn), Auburn is out (Bama/UGA) then Florida makes the most sense for our permanent Big 6 team.

Could not agree more; the cupcakes bore me to tears.

Effing gay gumps.

The taxpayer was a non sequitur.

I also hope it kills the stupid Kickoff Games.


Let’s host a Season Opener in Tiger Stadium. The place we only get to watch a game in 7 times a year. I’m fired up for football season and don’t want to take a road trip to anywhere besides an SEC or Power 5 opponents home field, the SEC Championship, or the CFP.

I agree with this, but really wish LSU could play UF, Aubie and Gumpland going forward. Would gladly drop 8&4.