The pods determines your 3 permanent opponents, and all 4 teams in the same pod share the same permanent opponents. The other idea gives each team its own 3 independent of anyone else.
Pods also mean you can also have a team like Vandy with 3 strong teams in their pod, giving them zero "weaker" permanent games. The alternative gives you the possibility of each team having one traditional (or forward-looking) non-power permanently on their schedule.
You can't make everyone happy, but I think the 3-6 format gives you the best chance at making the most people happy.
3 permanent SEC games 6 rotating SEC games 2 non conference #1 vs #4 #2 vs #3 SEC championship CFP Championship vs whoever from B10/ACC/P12
It's a lot of gate money and TV money to give up, so it likely won't happen in the short term. But I could see that being the end game when the P5 schools break away. As more players sit out games or whole seasons to protect their futures, I think the 12th game (usually against an FCS team) gets reexamined. I'm at the point where I'd almost rather see an extra bye week for each team if they need a break near the end of the season. It still gives espn the same # of weeks in the season, you just skip the A&M vs SC State and Florida vs FAMU type of games.
Take away those type of games and you likely see a lot of those smaller schools close up shop. They need those games against the big schools in order to operate.
isnt conventional thought that the other 12 teams would also play each other, seeded accordingly, on that week 13? bolsters resumes and tv inventory. like the B1G did in covid year
Could results in too many rematches. Which nobody would want to watch if the game doesn’t matter. Anecdotally, I wouldn’t care to watch those games. Eventually the playoff will go to 12 and having a mini-tournament would result in the teams cannibalizing potential playoff seeds. Plus you have teams like Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Georgia too a lesser extent that play comparable non-conference rivals. Taking away 2 non-conference games provides zero incentive to play a good out of conference team when you would give up 2 home gates. The financials just don’t add up to me.
Agree that the extra game at the end of the season would not be very compelling. And with the PITA of planning personal travel at the last minute for a meaningless SEC game, I don't think it would be worth the trouble.
One of my concerns about college football is the games no longer mattering. I know that’s inevitable on some level just by nature of having a playoff and championship game. But I mean more so like the NBA where watching the regular season gets boring because nothing matters aside from the playoffs. The low number of games guards against that but putting a meaningless game during the season doesn’t seem prudent.
Yea I was just pointing out that saying they would reduce to 11 games for twelve teams under that hypothetical is incorrect.
Joke’s on you. The games already don’t matter. You already know which handful of teams are going to be in the playoff every year.
Sorry Aubren bros, if I'm picking 3 permanents for UF, it's SC, Vandy, and UT. It's a sad state of affairs in Gainesville these days and we'll take our best chances. Spoiler If we, one day, return to not sucking, it would actually be UGA, LSU, UT
I know that one irks some people but it was one of 4 losses that season. The not-fumble from 2006 is way worse.
Florida vs UT will not be one of the permanent rivalries. UT has played Bama, Vandy and Kentucky over 100 times each(next SEC opponent would be Ole Miss at 66 games). And due to how they view it and how important the games are to their home schedules, both Vandy and Kentucky will fight to keep Tennessee as their permanent opponent. I think Florida gets UGA, Auburn and either Kentucky or LSU. LSU will depend on whether they want Bama or Florida every year.
The difference in Jimbo from ESD to NSD was pretty interesting to me. ESD Jimbo on ESPN was all smiles with the "We are all doing what we always did, it's just out in the open now" line. NSD Jimbo didn't want to discuss any of that.
Also the thought of Saban enjoying his debbie cakes reading about Prime buying a kid for a cool $1 million in the newspaper was fun.
It's like when you pay a bunch of money to mack down a chick, then you realize how much more it's gonna cost to actually keep her
Kentucky is not giving up the Tennessee game. I’m not going to read your list if you don’t understand this.
warms my The league’s two new members coming in 2025, Texas and Oklahoma, have reshuffled the gridiron hierarchy deck a bit. But most within the conference would consider the top half Alabama, LSU, Auburn, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Georgia and Florida. The bottom would be Tennessee, South Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Missouri.