I would love, as a fan, to have big home games. But it isnt worth it to schedule big OOC or West home games. Money be damned “patsies are good for the program” is the truth when it comes to rings.

only if you don’t put Tech among the patsies. And their record against us over the last 20 years makes quite an argument for their inclusion in such a group.

I suppose at that point you are in favor of 7 division opponents and 1 West perament? Are you just trying to get out of playing Bama for the foreseeable future, save for in the SEC Championsip Game? That’s not a serious question, BTW.

At, 15 teams we could have three 5-team divisions, 4 division opponents, and then a permanent and a rotating from each other division for 8 games. But, do we really want to have to establish the tiebreakers and scenarios for a Wild Card team to qualify for the SECCG? And then you’d technically end up with 9 conference games before the SECCG.

I still kinda like four 4-team divisions when we make it to 16 teams. 3 division opponents, 1 permanent from each division and one rotating. In effect you would get 6 permanent opponents just like now. All your doing is adding a 3rd rotating opponent. Win your division, qualify for the SEC Semi’s. Pretty straightforward. You would also see the other teams more often in this format. So teams that you have a history with, like Ole Miss you would still get to see. Or you might even shuffle things so that UGA ends up with Ole Miss as a permanent.

It is impossible to draw up with out teams 15 and 16 but I think this is the most appealing idea. What makes the SEC so great to me, is that it’s like a big family. We don’t always get to see each other every year, but man is it a joy when we get to meet up again.

and the Big XII not making a move to even get back to twelve and a play-off (when there were Texas/Western teams who would gladly have made the jump, from Houston, to Rice, to Colo. State, to Boise State just to name a few) suggests that the super-conference era may be over.

Ultimately I don’t see how we maintain a 14 team SEC without a 6-2-1 format and keep any semblance of tradition, rivalry, etc. And I say that with respect to what Georgia gave just to make the 1990 expansion work with Arkansas and South Carolina being amalgamated into the conference (e.g., your much-beloved annual game with Ole Miss).

Anything that further separates the two divisions is not healthy for the league – and that has nothing to do with the current “balance of power” – which may shift in the next 5-10 years. Who knows?

Currently, the Big 12 does. If the Longhorn Network succeeds as expected, the league won’t remain in Texas’s interests for long. The Big 12 survives as a useful way station, not as a stable conference; the best that may be said for it is that it’s less rickety than the Big East.

Beyond that, I’m still not convinced the ACC’s move to 14 was anything other than advance preparation for future poachings, and, if an expanded postseason is part of the 16-team package (and I agree that it is), new markets won’t matter much in expansion. Once the SEC Network is up and running (which, clearly, is the next step in the process; Missouri’s addition makes no sense unless the league plans to set up a Big Ten-style conference network), a 16-team league with an expanded postseason gives the conference greater inventory, at which point the addition of markets won’t matter as much as the addition of games. (At that point, and for that reason, a nine-team conference schedule also might make sense, as well.) At that point, yeah, I think it’s about snagging a couple of ACC teams, and I think the money will be on the table to entice a couple of them away, $20 million buyout notwithstanding.