Wednesday, August 11, 2021
How Do You Arrange a 16-Team SEC Conference?
It came out of nowhere.
Surprising almost everyone in college athletics, Oklahoma and Texas made the next big move in the realignment puzzle, announcing a departure for the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference.
This obviously shakes the college football scene dramatically. The SEC's brand, already extremely strong, just got even stronger. They'll hold tremendous clout in CFP discussions and the television contracts will be through the roof. It was a bold, impressive move by both sides to pull this off, especially in how quiet they kept talks for months until the last 10 days of blitzkrieg movement.
The question now is how the SEC rearranges their scheduling. Eight conference games simply won't be enough for a 16-team league. Also, with the playoff expanding to 12 teams, the SEC has the opportunity to put multiple teams into the playoff, which means that they have to create a system that will set them up to seize this opportunity year after year. So, here are the options (ranked from most to least likely).
Four-team pods — Creating pods of four, where there are three permanent opponents and six rotating conference opponents per year seems to have had momentum with fans from the beginning. This system would allow everyone in the conference to play each other within two years and every senior to have played each team home and away during their time on campus. Also, given the chance to put four teams in the playoff, creating pods and sending the champion of each pod to the playoff seems to be a good move for the conference.
The drawback? Drawing the pods up geographically (which is the way to do it) will definitely have some pods stronger than others. Given power shifts happen, this can be overcome, but there will be grumblings early on. Also, the possibility of adding another game to create a mini-playoff to determine a conference champion might not go over well with coaches.
Divisions — Move Alabama and Auburn to the East and Missouri, Texas, and Oklahoma to the West, creating two divisions of eight. Teams play their divisional slate and have no permanent cross-division opponents, allowing a senior to play everyone at least once during their time on campus. The conference is used to the divisions and it creates the least hassle of the options. Furthermore, it provides the easiest, least costly way to travel during a pandemic or any other situation, as the teams are sorted geographically.
The drawback? The desire for teams to play their entire conference twice, so that every senior gets to play once on every campus is one. The other is that divisions can get large in size and if the conference wants to continue to expand, it can create divisions that are basically conferences within a conference, whereas the pod system makes expansion easier.
No divisions — Let all the teams play with no divisions or pods, sending the top two teams to the conference title. This one is popular for those who don't like the shifts of divisional power, as the conference championship often didn't have the two best teams because one division could have the two, or often times, three best teams within it.
However, this system can create mass chaos. It could force an extremely elaborate tiebreaker system for the conference championship. It could allow for a geographical nightmare, where a school could play several teams that are hundreds of miles away while not getting to play teams nearby. The system works in basketball, as the schools all play each other as there's a lot more than 12 games in a hoops system. But creating this system in football would be a complete and utter mess.
Time will tell as to what the SEC decides to do. But make no mistake: the entire college athletic world will be watching.