NC State & Virginia Tech Next For SEC?

Southeastern Conference — 26 January 2012

What do you make of this Clay Travis fellow? I never knew much about him til I somehow ended up following him on Twitter. I found myself agreeing with much of what he had to say, until a friend of mine near the Tennessee border alerted me to the fact that he’s a big time Big Blue hater. Like, he REALLY hates Kentucky. Seems what he has to say on the radio down in Nashville is a little different than what he has to tweet.

Based on that, I certainly don’t want to promote him, but I must admit his takes on conference expansion and realignment have been pretty spot-on so far. In his latest piece on outkickthecoverage.com, Travis, a Vandy Law grad, tells us why The Wolfpack and Hokies will be joining soon, how the conference will be split into 4 sub-divisions, and why the upcoming SEC Network is set to make BILLIONS…with a B. Here’s a taste, as he has UK in the now smaller “East” division. You can read more at the link below.

At 16 teams the SEC will reformat to four divisions of four teams each.

Here’s what that could look like:

Three notes:

a. I tried to keep in-state rivals in the same divisions.

b. The primary goal of the divisions has to be mixing up the would-be powers of the conference. That is, they can’t be too top-heavy.

c, The two parenthetical teams are an attempt at yearly rivals. You’d follow a 3-2-3 model under this idea. Three teams from your own division, two yearly rivals, and three rotating opponents which would allow you to complete the entire circuit every six years. As you can see, the top teams have the toughest out of division rivals. The goal is to keep any one team from having too easy of a path. As is presently the case in a 12-team SEC, the toughest teams in conference have the toughest SEC matchups from other divisions.

SEC South

Florida (Tennessee and Georgia)
Virginia Tech ( Missouri and Texas A&M)
South Carolina (Vanderbilt and Arkansas)
N.C. State (Missouri and Miss. State)
These are two teams from the original SEC east melded with two new additions. I’m trying to keep the relative strength of the divisions somewhat equal, but this one is definitely a bit top-heavy. It could make sense to switch out Vanderbilt/Kentucky with N.C. State, but I’ve also tried to balance the top-heavy nature of the divisions by setting up South Carolina with Vanderbilt as one of its consistent rivals. That way the Gamecocks get a relatively easy yearly opponent which helps to balance out the toughness of the division.

SEC East

Georgia (Florida and Auburn)
Tennessee (Florida and Alabama)
Kentucky (Miss. State and Texas A&M)
Vanderbilt (Ole Miss and South Carolina)

Four of the six teams of the original SEC East remain minus the two teams that went to the SEC South. Georgia and Tennessee are the traditional powers in this division. As you can see, the top teams in this division, Tennessee and Georgia, have absolutely brutal rivalry games every year against top teams from outside their own divisions while Kentucky and Vanderbilt have easier rivalry games.

SEC Central

Alabama (Tennessee and LSU)
Auburn (Georgia and LSU)
Ole Miss (Vanderbilt and Arkansas)
Miss. State (Kentucky and N.C. State)

The name is also flexible here, I’ve abandoned the SEC North (since these teams aren’t north) in favor of the SEC Central, but as you can see, four of the original teams from the SEC West are actually included in this division.

All season long the Iron Bowl would still loom as the ultimate challenge, although now it would likely determine who wins the division and advances to the Final Four of the SEC.

SEC West

Missouri (Virginia Tech and N.C. State)
Texas A&M ( Kentucky and Virginia Tech)
Arkansas (South Carolina and Ole Miss)
LSU (Alabama and Auburn)

A bit of the old Southwest Conference brought to the SEC.
…

Meet the SEC’s own Football Final Four, the future of college athletics.

With the success the SEC would have putting on its own Final Four eventually every major conference would move to 16 teams and adopt the same format.

But if you want to know the future of the SEC, you’ve just seen it.

http://outkickthecoverage.com/secs-future-will-include-16-teams-four-divisions-of-four.php