TUSK asks the 6pack: RE: Conference Expansion, alignment & scheduling...

[TUSK.sixpack]

as a follower of MSU,

1) what are your "must have opponents"

games that must be played: Bammers will say Iron Bowl and 3rd Sat in Oct... then there's the Cocktail Party and The South's Oldest Rivalry, etc....

2) what would you like to the conf sched format to be?

I wouldn't mind 3 perm., 4 rotational and 5 OOC.... no SECCG, maybe????

 

[redbird4state]

My 3 permanents would be Ole Miss, Auburn, and Kentucky. Any MSU fan who doesn't want Kentucky as a permanent "rival" is doing MSU a disservice..it's one of the few SEC programs we beat no matter how good or bad we are

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

I would exchange Auburn with Alabama.

Just a personal preference. I consider them a larger rival that Auburn personally.

If the conference expands with two more members we all might as well get ready for 9 SEC games.

 

[Hump4Hoops]

ole miss - obvious. Must be final game of year.
Kentucky - both teams need each other, same as ole miss/vandy.
Alabama - They win most of them, but not all. The times we do win, it's something talked about for years. And we're like 2 miles apart.

9 games is fine by me. Mix it up all you want, rotate it however you want, just leave me those 3 opponents, and IDGAF about the rest.

 

[nsvltndog]

Ole Miss and Kentucky - that's all plus 10 OOC games Go 2-0 in the SEC and claim a Vaught style SEC championship. We can also get our own Litkenhous National Championship to talk about for the next 50 years.

 

[DAWG61]

No SECCG would create too many problems for the BCSNC playoff imo. Plus you can't crown an SEC champ without it. Imagine going 12-0 and nobody calls you the SEC champ. I thought the Tennessee matchup was awesome this year. Sucks we won't see them for 6+ more years.

 

[tebmsu97]

I think we should have taken Mizzou, aTm, and Vandy in the west and Moved Bama and AU to the east. Go to nine games and no perm opp from the other div. Traditional games are kept in check and the conference makes more sense from a geo stand point

 

[Negative Waves]

As a follower of MSU,

1) what are your "must have opponents"

1. Ole Miss 2. Bama 3. Kentucky 4. Auburn. The Egg Bowl is a no-brainer, we've played Bama since the beginning, and they're only 90 mile away, Kentucky for an easy win, and Auburn because I think it will eventually turn into a decent series due to State finally putting some effort into football (thanks for not caring LT), plus the bad blood over Cam added a little hatred to it.

2) what would you like to the conf sched format to be?

Go on and add two more teams and go to 16. Split into 4 divisions, play the 3 in your division plus a permenant from each of the other divisions, and rotate the remaining teams in the other divisions. I think going back to 7 could also be done if you only had one permanent from another division instead of one from each division. The winners of the divisions play in semi-final games at the higher ranking team, and then in a SEC Championship game in Atlanta, New Orleans, or Dallas at Jerry World. The overall winner will more than likely make it to the BCS playoff. Major $$$ could be had. Plus, winning a division becomes somewhat easier for State. If no expansion, the system works fine as it is now, with maybe only playing the rotating opponent from the East for 1 year instead of 2 so teams will play each other more often.

"I wouldn't mind 3 perm., 4 rotational and 5 OOC.... no SECCG, maybe?"

No SEC Championship game is not a good idea. The SEC got it right with the format, unlike the ACC.

 

[Spanky.sixpack]

MSU fans have short memories.....

Any MSU fan who doesn't want Kentucky as a permanent "rival" is doing MSU a disservice..

This part is true, but this.....

it's one of the few SEC programs we beat no matter how good or bad we are

....is most definitely not. Croom Error anyone? Jackie routinely had a tough time with them too. Just amazing to me how fast we develop a sense of superiority.

But, at the end of the day, they give us the easiest shot to win an SEC game, and I like playing them. It has become a sort of traditional rivalry now, and I love going up there for road games.

 

[Spanky.sixpack]

Have to play Ole Miss, Kentucky, Alabama, Auburn and LSU.....

...who cares the rest.

 

[Coach34]

After 70 years or so of being jerked around on schedules by playing some teams away all the time, we deserve to play Kentucky and Vandy every year for the next 10 years. And we also of course get to play the doormat of the SEC in Mississippi. Rotate the rest- I dont particularly care about when we play the rest of the SEC

The SEC Championship Game isnt going anywhere.

 

[dickiedawg]

This part is true, but this.....

....is most definitely not. Croom Error anyone? Jackie routinely had a tough time with them too. Just amazing to me how fast we develop a sense of superiority.

But, at the end of the day, they give us the easiest shot to win an SEC game, and I like playing them. It has become a sort of traditional rivalry now, and I love going up there for road games.

We are 12-8 over Kentucky in the last 20 years, 6-4 over the last 10. It's far from domination one way or another, though we've won four straight and they won 4/5 before that.

Jackie was 8-5 against Kentucky (7-3 if you forget 2001-2003... I wish I could)

Regardless, keeping UK as a permanent opponent is by far the most beneficial situation for us, other than maybe swapping for Vandy. That's not going to happen. A road trip to Nashville every other year would be pretty sweet, though. Honestly, I don't know who UK would rather have as a permanent opponent, either. Just makes sense.

 

[johnson86-1]

This, or add two teams and go to four divisions of 4.

I think we should have taken Mizzou, aTm, and Vandy in the west and Moved Bama and AU to the east. Go to nine games and no perm opp from the other div. Traditional games are kept in check and the conference makes more sense from a geo stand point

Then play a 9 game schedule with 3 permanents and then play two of the three from the other pods, rotating each year, so that you play a home and home, skip a year, play a home and home, skip a year. Alternating 4 and 5 conference home games should make it easier to avoid the two and ones with crappy teams, because we'd only need two OOC home games some years. If we took this approach and tried to maintain traditional rivalries, we'd end up in an easy division b/c we'd have UM in there. Alternatively, they could put us in different divisions to try to make the divisions balanced, but have a permanent from each of the other 3 divisions to maintain rivalries, and then alternate the other two every two years. It's possible we could end up with easier SEC schedules than now.

It would still suck for bowl eligibility to go to 9 games, but I think it'd be manageable b/c we'd always get a few winnable conference games. Also, unless we add UT or FSU, I doubt we'd be adding a school that is particularly good at football, so while our schedule would no doubt get tougher, most years the conference game we are adding would be equivalent of a solid AQ team, not another Bama or LSU.

My only question is if we expand to 16, is the SEC willing to add teams that aren't the biggest draw in their market? For TV share, I'm assuming the best teams to add would be UNC and Va Tech or UVA. That'd give two more states, but I'm assuming no way UNC would come without Duke, which leaves NC St. Of course, even with the bump in revenue, I'm not sure an AD at a school like NCst is going to be eager to join the SEC after watching what's happening to Mizzou.

 

[VegasDawg13]

2) what would you like to the conf sched format to be?

Go on and add two more teams and go to 16. Split into 4 divisions, play the 3 in your division plus a permenant from each of the other divisions, and rotate the remaining teams in the other divisions. I think going back to 7 could also be done if you only had one permanent from another division instead of one from each division. The winners of the divisions play in semi-final games at the higher ranking team, and then in a SEC Championship game in Atlanta, New Orleans, or Dallas at Jerry World. The overall winner will more than likely make it to the BCS playoff. Major $$$ could be had. Plus, winning a division becomes somewhat easier for State. If no expansion, the system works fine as it is now, with maybe only playing the rotating opponent from the East for 1 year instead of 2 so teams will play each other more often.

A friend and I had a similar plan that we concocted back when all the expansion talks were going on. Except, instead of a four team SEC championship tournament, we rotated the four-team divisions each year to create two eight-team divisions, and the winner from each would play for the championship.

For example, the Mid South or Deep South division would be the MS and AL schools. For the first two years, we would create a “super division” with the Western Division of LSU, Arkansas, A&M, and Missouri. Then the next two years, we’d be with the Northern Division of NC State, Vandy, KY, and VT (in our example we added VT and NCST). Then the next two years, our division would be paired with the Eastern division of Florida, UGA, UT, and USCe. Then your schedule would be rounded out with your two permanent opponents from the other divisions. So in year one, our schedule would be Bama, Auburn, Mississippi (our three divisional rivals), LSU, Arkansas, A&M, Missouri (the four teams from the division we’re temporarily paired with), Kentucky, and USCe (our two permanent opponents from the North and East).


There are some problems, though. One, it would increase us to nine games, which most of us don’t want. Two, the Northern Division is BY FAR the easiest. The problem is though, the only way to even that out is to switch UGA and NC State, but then you’d have to either cancel the yearly meeting between UGA and UT or UGA and Florida. Other, lesser rivalries will no longer be played on a yearly basis, such as UT-KY, MSU-LSU, Bama-LSU, etc. I personally find that much more preferable to only playing teams in your own conference twice every sixteen years, or whatever it would be. Some might also consider the complexity of it a negative, but I think we’d all get used to it pretty fast.

One other idea I’ve had for a sixteen team conference is to have two eight-team divisions, play everyone in your division plus one permanent opponent from the other division. Then when the season is over, match up the division winners from each for the Championship, and match up everyone else against whoever their equivalent is in the other division. Have two games each at four different neutral sites over the course of the first Saturday in December. I think this would be awesome. It would be like having a second bowl game.

 

[Xenomorph]

17 all of you and to hell with having to play Kentucky every year....

I've already had one sidewalk Bama fan where I work complain that we've gotten our ranking, in part, by beating Kentucky every year. To him I said:

Do you want to drop your game with UT? Does LSU want to drop Florida? Does Auburn want to drop UGA?

Hell... I'd love for us to tell recruits "Come be a Bulldog. We play Florida every stinking year on CBS or primetime ESPN." Instead we say.. "Come be a Bulldog. You'll get to kick off at 11:21 against a half-full stadium in Lexington."

I like the sure win of UK... but it's just another case of 'po little MSU getting the leftovers in the SEC.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

Go to 16 teams and pod them out

Have four 4-team pods. Make them

South	North	West	East
MSU	Kentucky	A&M	New Team
UM	Vandy	LSU	Florida
Bama	Tennessee	Arkansas	SC
Auburn	Missouri	New Team	Georgia

<tbody>
</tbody>

Every year you play all the teams in your row and column. Also, the pods are paired up for two years and each team plays the other. Two years allows for a home and home. The winner of each pod pair plays for the SECCG. So, for example, next year South and West could pair up, as could North and East. Those pairings remain for two years then change to say, South-East and North-West for two years, then South-North and East-West for two years, and finally back to South-West and North-East. This guarantees you play every team in the conference at least twice in a six year stretch.

Yeah, the North looks very weak, but if we added a real powerhouse to the conference we could swap Missouri to the West. This is only an example.

This keeps some if not all of the rivalries intact (Mizzou vs. A&M does not count as a rivalry, even though they are 'permanent' opponents for this year). UM gets their major rivalry vs. LSU, we could play the Maroon jersey game every year, Spurrier vs. Saban every year, etc. You would also play 9 games as part of this.

 

[Negative Waves]

That is actually a pretty good idea. The teams would definitely play each other more often. I think in regards to the big picture, my plan would have four 16 team superconferences, and 4 16 team mid-level conferences. Split the FBS (Division I-A) into two divisions and give the mid level schools such as Southern and MTSU their own championship game. Honestly, how many times does a school from the CUSA or Sun Belt make a run for the National Title? Boise State is about the only school that can say they've had a chance. It's definitely not like basketball where one or two players can get a mid-level school into the Final Four.

Speaking of the basketball model, I remember Mike Leach saying that football ought to copy the NCAA basketball tournament. Can you imagine a Selection Sunday for football? It would be insane. What I would do is give the winners and losers of the 4 Conference Championship games a bye (assuming 4 16 team superconferences). 48 other teams play in the first round. The 8 are then added in to make 32 in the 2nd round and it moves on from there. The Conference champions get home field advantage until the quarter final games which could be hosted by the old bowls. Call me crazy, but it would bring in huge money and I think add a ton of excitement to what has become a lot of crappy bowl games. They might have to cut the regular season back down to 11 games to prevent too many games getting played though.

 

[dawgs.sixpack]

go to 16 teams. pod them into 4 pods of 4.

something like this:
west: lsu, ark, a&m, mizzou
south: msu, ole miss, bama, auburn
north: ky, tenn, usce, ??? (vt?)
east: uga, fla, vandy, ??? (clem?)

obviously depending on the 2 new programs to get to 16 could change the 'north' and 'east' pods a little. i'd think ky and vandy have to be separated for fairness purposes.

play each team in your pod (3 games)
each pod plays another pod, either rotate yearly and home games switch every time around, or rotate every 2 years, playing home and home in back to back years (4 games)
2 floating rotating games which can account for maintaining any inter-pods rivalries (bama-tenn, uga-aub, etc) and the rest can rotate (2 games) <- i'm sure a computer program could spit out a rotating schedule that works in a few nanoseconds

ideally we'd have 4 16 team conferences. 8 conf semi-finals -> 4 conf finals -> 4 national semis from the conf champs -> national champ game. tell me that doesn't sound awesome. and it's all decided on the field. not in computers. not on paper. not by voters. on the field. it would seriously flow so easily. and it'd increase the number of intriguing OOC matchups because losing a game to usc wouldn't ruin your title chances if you kick *** in your conference. it'd also cut the fat from the bottom half of the FBS.

as of now there's 12 spots available to the likely 4 conferences that would rule (4 in the pac 12, 4 in the big 10, 2 in the sec, 2 in the acc). figure the big 12 would take 8-10 of them, then ND 1, louisville 1, the last couple could be fought out between boise, byu, rutgers, cincy, and maybe teh iowa st's and kansas's from the big 12.


under the current format, i think there needs to be 9 conference games, 6 intra-divisional games and 3 inter-divisional games. i think they should rotate all 3 every 2 years except in the case of rivalries (bama-tenn, uga-aub are the obvious ones, but the rotation can be worked into that). it ensures that we get to actually see every conference team regularly, whereas under the current format we don't see east teams but every decade or so.

 

[Xenomorph]

jumbled mess didn't read

9

 

[Jacknut1]

1) gotta play Bammer, Mississippi, Kentucky at least
2) Keep it simple. Add one more conference game and go back to one permanent (KY) and two rotating opposite division teams.

 

[archdog]

A friend and I had a similar plan that we concocted back when all the expansion talks were going on. Except, instead of a four team SEC championship tournament, we rotated the four-team divisions each year to create two eight-team divisions, and the winner from each would play for the championship.

For example, the Mid South or Deep South division would be the MS and AL schools. For the first two years, we would create a “super division” with the Western Division of LSU, Arkansas, A&M, and Missouri. Then the next two years, we’d be with the Northern Division of NC State, Vandy, KY, and VT (in our example we added VT and NCST). Then the next two years, our division would be paired with the Eastern division of Florida, UGA, UT, and USCe. Then your schedule would be rounded out with your two permanent opponents from the other divisions. So in year one, our schedule would be Bama, Auburn, Mississippi (our three divisional rivals), LSU, Arkansas, A&M, Missouri (the four teams from the division we’re temporarily paired with), Kentucky, and USCe (our two permanent opponents from the North and East).


There are some problems, though. One, it would increase us to nine games, which most of us don’t want. Two, the Northern Division is BY FAR the easiest. The problem is though, the only way to even that out is to switch UGA and NC State, but then you’d have to either cancel the yearly meeting between UGA and UT or UGA and Florida. Other, lesser rivalries will no longer be played on a yearly basis, such as UT-KY, MSU-LSU, Bama-LSU, etc. I personally find that much more preferable to only playing teams in your own conference twice every sixteen years, or whatever it would be. Some might also consider the complexity of it a negative, but I think we’d all get used to it pretty fast.

One other idea I’ve had for a sixteen team conference is to have two eight-team divisions, play everyone in your division plus one permanent opponent from the other division. Then when the season is over, match up the division winners from each for the Championship, and match up everyone else against whoever their equivalent is in the other division. Have two games each at four different neutral sites over the course of the first Saturday in December. I think this would be awesome. It would be like having a second bowl game.

^^^^This is genius. Lets do that.

 

[Incognegro]

That's actually not a bad idea. It seems like everyone is throwing out their ideas for how they'd like to see pods work, so I guess I'll do the same. In mine, (like everyone else's) you have to play the other 3 teams in your pod annually. Along with the teams in a particular pod, each team will be given two permanents from one of the other 3 pods to help ensure that certain rivalries will persist if multiple teams are in mismatching pods.

That leaves 3 games (or 4 if we move to 9 conference games). 2 of those 3 games rotate between the remaining 5 teams while the last game will be used as a game that can act as a semifinal for teams competing for the SECCG or matchups for the rest of the league to determine their placement in the rest of the SEC. The way I see it, that particular game will be played between team A and a team B that is the closest ranked team within the conference to which team A hasn't played already. Home field could be determined one of three ways: 1) The one I think should be chosen is just the team that had homefield the last time these two teams played should be the visiting team. 2) The higher seeded team in the conference could have homefield. 3) The team that has had less home games for that season has the homefield advantage. In case of a draw, refer to either one or two (which ever is decided upon this hypothetical of course).

One of the main reasons I think the last game should be left undetermined is because I feel like it will have a higher probability of putting the 2 best teams in the SEC against each other in the SECCG regardless if they are in the same pod or not if that's how the cards fall. Obviously, one of the biggest problems with this idea is scheduling in the future if the conference decides to treat the undetermined game as part of the rotation. If they decide not to as it will be easier to make the schedules in the future, then there obviously won't be an even rotation between the entire conference.

Now that I've gotten that idea out of my system and left it open to be destroyed, the teams that I'd like to see us continue playing would be Ole Miss, UK, AU and aTm (simply because I see a lot of potential in this game).

 

[Rebels7]

go to 16 teams. pod them into 4 pods of 4.

something like this:
west: lsu, ark, a&m, mizzou
south: msu, ole miss, bama, auburn
north: ky, tenn, usce, (vt?)
east: uga, fla, vandy, (clem?)

obviously depending on the 2 new programs to get to 16 could change the 'north' and 'east' pods a little. i'd think ky and vandy have to be separated for fairness purposes.

play each team in your pod (3 games)
each pod plays another pod, either rotate yearly and home games switch every time around, or rotate every 2 years, playing home and home in back to back years (4 games)
2 floating rotating games which can account for maintaining any inter-pods rivalries (bama-tenn, uga-aub, etc) and the rest can rotate (2 games) <- i'm sure a computer program could spit out a rotating schedule that works in a few nanoseconds

ideally we'd have 4 16 team conferences. 8 conf semi-finals -> 4 conf finals -> 4 national semis from the conf champs -> national champ game. tell me that doesn't sound awesome. and it's all decided on the field. not in computers. not on paper. not by voters. on the field. it would seriously flow so easily. and it'd increase the number of intriguing OOC matchups because losing a game to usc wouldn't ruin your title chances if you kick *** in your conference. it'd also cut the fat from the bottom half of the FBS.

as of now there's 12 spots available to the likely 4 conferences that would rule (4 in the pac 12, 4 in the big 10, 2 in the sec, 2 in the acc). figure the big 12 would take 8-10 of them, then ND 1, louisville 1, the last couple could be fought out between boise, byu, rutgers, cincy, and maybe teh iowa st's and kansas's from the big 12.


under the current format, i think there needs to be 9 conference games, 6 intra-divisional games and 3 inter-divisional games. i think they should rotate all 3 every 2 years except in the case of rivalries (bama-tenn, uga-aub are the obvious ones, but the rotation can be worked into that). it ensures that we get to actually see every conference team regularly, whereas under the current format we don't see east teams but every decade or so.

The 16 team crap has been tried before, and didn't work. I don't know why this has become the thing to do. I still don't see what was wrong with 12, seemed to be working to me, and made things less complicated.

 

[dawgs.sixpack]

The 16 team crap has been tried before, and didn't work. I don't know why this has become the thing to do. I still don't see what was wrong with 12, seemed to be working to me, and made things less complicated.

i'd hardly use the wac (or whoever it was that did 16 awhile back) as a measuring stick. like comparing a kia to a mercedes.

 

[Rebels7]

i'd hardly use the wac (or whoever it was that did 16 awhile back) as a measuring stick. like comparing a kia to a mercedes.

I'm saying the model doesn't work. Wasn't comparing quality of schools/football.

 

[VegasDawg13]

This is the same as my idea below but explained much better due to the table. I love this idea.

Edited because I realize I don't love the table as much as I thought I did. It does make it easier to explain, but one of my problems with my plan was that it would have to eliminate either UT-FL or UT-GA as an annual game. Using this table eliminates both of those games.

 

[VegasDawg13]

I'm saying the model doesn't work. Wasn't comparing quality of schools/football.

But it's impossible to say whether the model didn't work or if it was because of the quality of schools/football.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

I'm saying the model doesn't work. Wasn't comparing quality of schools/football.

The WAC didn't work because they had lower revenues and greater distances to travel, not to mention the older members hated how they expanded by adding crap teams. We aren't going to expand by admitting Sun Belt or CUSA teams. Your single data point is a terrible comparison.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

This is the same as my idea below but explained much better due to the table. I love this idea.

Edited because I realize I don't love the table as much as I thought I did. It does make it easier to explain, but one of my problems with my plan was that it would have to eliminate either UT-FL or UT-GA as an annual game. Using this table eliminates both of those games.

Yeah, it does force teams to play each other simply because they line up. There's really no way to make a table work and keep all the rivalries. You could still keep all the interdivisional rivalries, but you couldn't express it in a table like this. For example, having UT play Bama in the South and Florida in the East, but Bama wouldn't play Florida in the east.