I’d probably prefer Ole Miss, because the Bulldogs played the Rebels every year from 1966 to 2002, but that was never really a traditional rivalry.

Honestly, playing Auburn and Florida is all that matters in conference play. They can rotate every one of the rest of them, for all I care.

Give me a system that lets us play our four traditional rivals every year—-Auburn, Clemson, Florida, and Georgia Tech—-and I couldn’t care less who makes up the rest of the schedule.

. . . if we swapped Auburn and Tennessee, Auburn could be Alabama’s cross-divisional rival, and the rest of the cross-divisional rivalries wouldn’t matter in the slightest. Tennessee could have either Kentucky or Vanderbilt, and no one would care except Vanderbilt or Kentucky, and the rest of it could be done at random.

Congrats

… after Georgia/Auburn, right? ’Cause Georgia and Auburn first played in 1892, and the game has been contested 115 times.

. . . but no one on either side considered that an historic rivalry until both teams were good simultaneously for an extended period, which didn’t happen until the 2000s.

As for Ole Miss-Vanderbilt, no one cares. Even they don’t care. Just because a meaningless game has been played a bunch of times doesn’t mean it’s not a meaningless game. 90 per cent (or more) of the trophy games in the Big Ten prove that.