What if...the SEC had never expanded?

[AUwent 3,778]

Oh what the heck, it's the dead of January. I figured I would ask this because it's been on my mind a lot over the last few years, and that is (obviously): what if the SEC had stayed the same after 2011? How would different teams' seasons since then have been different? In my spare time recently I've been gradually making up how league schedules would have been in the years since (currently on 2014), using the same format and rotational patterns from 2002-11. IMO, this is much better than how it is currently, and gave me a longing for when it was like this. I tried balancing out who has to play teams coming off bye weeks--so any weird changes are likely because of that. This took A LOT of shuffling of OOC games.

Anyways, here's what I came up with for us, to be updated.

 

2012

9/1--vs. Clemson (Atlanta)

9/8--@ Mississippi State

9/15--Louisiana-Monroe

9/22--Louisiana State

9/29--@ Florida

10/6--@ Mississippi

10/13--Arkansas

10/20--Vanderbilt

11/3--New Mexico State

11/10--Georgia

11/17--Alabama A&M

11/24--@ Alabama

 

2013

8/31--Washington State

9/14--Mississippi State

9/21--@ Louisiana State

10/5--Mississippi

10/12--Western Carolina

10/19--Florida Atlantic

10/26--@ Vanderbilt

11/2--@ Arkansas

11/9--Tennessee

11/16--@ Georgia

11/23--Arkansas State

11/30--Alabama

 

2014

8/30--@ Kansas State

9/6--San Jose State

9/13--Arkansas

9/20--Louisiana State

10/4--@ Tennessee

10/11--@ Mississippi State

10/25--Louisiana Tech

11/1--@ Mississippi

11/8--Kentucky

11/15--Georgia

11/22--Samford

11/29--@ Alabama

 

2015

9/5--vs. Louisville (Atlanta)

9/12--Jacksonville State

9/19--@ Louisiana State

10/3--San Jose State

10/10--South Carolina

10/15--@ Kentucky

10/24--@ Arkansas

10/31--Mississippi

11/7--Mississippi State

11/14--@ Georgia

11/21--Idaho

11/28--Alabama

 

2016

9/3--Clemson

9/10--Arkansas State

9/17--Louisiana State

9/24--@ South Carolina

10/8--Arkansas

10/15--Florida

10/22--@ Mississippi State

10/29--@ Mississippi

11/5--Louisiana-Monroe

11/12--Georgia

11/19--Alabama A&M

11/26--@ Alabama

 

2017

9/2--Georgia Southern

9/9--@ Clemson

9/16--Mercer

9/23--Mississippi State

9/30--@ Florida

10/7--Mississippi

10/14--@ Louisiana State

10/21--@ Arkansas

11/4--Vanderbilt

11/11--@ Georgia

11/18--Louisiana-Monroe

11/25--Alabama

[TigerOne 1,161]

We would have won less games?

[AURex 2,083]

What if the SEC had expanded intelligently?

A&M and Mizzery in the West, Auburn moves to the East. Bama as the historic rival for Auburn, thus preserving the Iron Bowl. A&M and Mizzery play their Big12 rivals (including each other).

I never understood the thinking of the SEC when they added A&M and Mizzery.

 

[Swamp Eagle 5,165]

6 hours ago, AURex said:

What if the SEC had expanded intelligently?

A&M and Mizzery in the West, Auburn moves to the East. Bama as the historic rival for Auburn, thus preserving the Iron Bowl. A&M and Mizzery play their Big12 rivals (including each other).

I never understood the thinking of the SEC when they added A&M and Mizzery.

 

They didn’t want the possibility of an all-state-of-Alabama championship game. That’s all I can figure.

[woodford 3,682]

8 hours ago, AURex said:

What if the SEC had expanded intelligently?

A&M and Mizzery in the West, Auburn moves to the East. Bama as the historic rival for Auburn, thus preserving the Iron Bowl. A&M and Mizzery play their Big12 rivals (including each other).

I never understood the thinking of the SEC when they added A&M and Mizzery.

 

The reason is money. That’s the short answer. Both schools were willing to make the jump. That’s probably another.

The SEC should have ever expanded. Both are outsiders and they always will be imo. 
 

I’m usually not a fan of conference expansion. It was the beginning of the centralization of the sport in efforts to mirror it in the image of the NFL for the tv networks. The only big move I would make is put Notre Dame and BYU (for balance sake in terms of numbers) in the Big 12 to solidify it as a solid conference that will provide incentives for OU and Texas to stay and not bolt for the B1G down the road. Our favorite sport will be immensely less exciting with 24 team conferences  

 

[RHN1975 302]

It is crazy to think back to how much this game has changed since the SEC first expanded to get Arky and USC. This conference truly did change the landscape of college football and got us to the point where we are now. Watched part of "The Play that Changed the Game" on the SEC Network. It is pretty amazing to think without the interception Langham made against Florida how much different this could all look. 

 

 

[McLoofus 35,182]

10 hours ago, AURex said:

What if the SEC had expanded intelligently?

A&M and Mizzery in the West, Auburn moves to the East. Bama as the historic rival for Auburn, thus preserving the Iron Bowl. A&M and Mizzery play their Big12 rivals (including each other).

I never understood the thinking of the SEC when they added A&M and Mizzery.

I'm mostly on board with this, but the elephant in the room- pun intended- is bama/UT. Imagine if the SEC told us we had to give up the DSOR. (Which is what they'd be asking  of bama if they moved us to the East and bama could only keep one cross division rival. They'd be asking it of UT, too, but something tells me they wouldn't mind as much.)

I'd also hate to trade LSU and TAMU for UT and UF. I know that we have more history with the teams in the East but TAMU has already surpassed UT in the SEC pecking order and that gap is only going to grow. And LSU has been a really exciting matchup more often than not, with national championship implications every other year it seems. Maybe we'd have that with Florida, but LSU's brand of awful fans comes with a side of gumbo.

[AUApostle 7,663]

8 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

I'm mostly on board with this, but the elephant in the room- pun intended- is bama/UT. Imagine if the SEC told us we had to give up the DSOR. (Which is what they'd be asking  of bama if they moved us to the East and bama could only keep one cross division rival. They'd be asking it of UT, too, but something tells me they wouldn't mind as much.)

I'd also hate to trade LSU and TAMU for UT and UF. I know that we have more history with the teams in the East but TAMU has already surpassed UT in the SEC pecking order and that gap is only going to grow. And LSU has been a really exciting matchup more often than not, with national championship implications every other year it seems. Maybe we'd have that with Florida, but LSU's brand of awful fans comes with a side of gumbo.

I kind of get the TAMU talk, but what we all really need is the original big 6 to play each other every year.  That is the most fair way to have a conference schedule.  Since joining, TAMU and Arkansas are about as up and down as Missouri and USC, so they balance each other out (although TAMU is a sleeping giant and we're all just waiting for them to wake up).  Find a way to get uga, bama, UF, LSU, UT, and AU to play each other every year.

[Win4AU 4,055]

Only real difference would be 2014 butt fumble, one less loss in 2016, and maybe Gus isn’t canned this season.  Mizzou hasn’t been an issue other than 2013 SECCG.  2014 still got thumped by UGA and the Bama shoot out.  2016 Auburn ended up in the Sugar bowl so I don’t know if it could have gotten much better?

[McLoofus 35,182]

4 minutes ago, AUDevil said:

I kind of get the TAMU talk, but what we all really need is the original big 6 to play each other every year.  That is the most fair way to have a conference schedule.  Since joining, TAMU and Arkansas are about as up and down as Missouri and USC, so they balance each other out (although TAMU is a sleeping giant and we're all just waiting for them to wake up).  Find a way to get uga, bama, UF, LSU, UT, and AU to play each other every year.

I can guarantee you that UT doesn't want any of that. They just can't compete with the other teams in that group anymore. 

Also, could that result in a UK or Ole Miss or whichever lower team is "up" in a given year dominating a softer schedule and getting to Atlanta ahead of a team that had to play 5 of those 6? (Or 4 of the 5 that are usually a tough out)

 

[AUApostle 7,663]

1 minute ago, McLoofus said:

I can guarantee you that UT doesn't want any of that. They just can't compete with the other teams in that group anymore. 

Also, could that result in a UK or Ole Miss or whichever lower team is "up" in a given year dominating a softer schedule and getting to Atlanta ahead of a team that had to play 5 of those 6? (Or 4 of the 5 that are usually a tough out)

 

Good point.

[AUwent 3,778]

On 1/5/2021 at 9:43 AM, Win4AU said:

Only real difference would be 2014 butt fumble, one less loss in 2016, and maybe Gus isn’t canned this season.  Mizzou hasn’t been an issue other than 2013 SECCG.  2014 still got thumped by UGA and the Bama shoot out.  2016 Auburn ended up in the Sugar bowl so I don’t know if it could have gotten much better?

IDK. What if we had entered the UGA game in 2014 at home and NOT coming off a shocking and crushing upset loss? Conversely, in 2013 could we really have made that play in Sanford? There's a possibility that 2013 and 14 would've just flipped results.

(Updated with 2014.)

EDIT: Now with 2015 as well...blech.

[IronMan70 3,277]

It would be so easy to add 2 teams and have 4 divisions of 4.  Each division would have 1 pair of current rivals. A 9 game SEC schedule consisting of 3 divisional games + 6 non-divisional games. Each team would play every non-divisional team every 2 years. So if you have 2 rivals now, you would play the 2nd rival every other year, instead of each year. A fair trade to be able to play every SEC team in 24 months.

SEC South- Alabama(r), Auburn(r), Miss., Miss St.

SEC North- Tennessee(r), Vandy(r), Kentucky, ADD TEAM

SEC East- Georgia(r), Florida(r), South Carolina, ADD TEAM

SEC West- LSU(r), TAMU(r), Arkansas, Missouri,  

(r)=divisional rival

 

 

[AUwent 3,778]

Updated with 2016. We could’ve possibly won 10 games.

EDIT: Now 2017.