college football conference expansion scenarios are the one thing allowing me to goof off at work lately and in the grand scheme of things; teams like texas, colorado, mizzou, texas a&m, rutgers, utah, nebraska, notre dame (fat chance) plus many more could be changing conference addresses. and what will the SEC do in response to this? probably nothing, because you know, we set up our conference the right way. we split revenue equally, we're not geographically unbalanced and so on..... BUT let's say for the sake of argument the SEC has to expand with at LEAST two teams. in the interest of 90 days between now and the next LSU sporting event that i care about, gimme your plans as SEC commish for expansion. use whatever logic you like with whatever teams you see fit. split the divisions up. and if you really have time on your hands tell me how the rest of the country shakes out too. if you still have time after that, get on the horn to EA sports and ask them why i can't create my own conferences in their game and thus my own college football expansion gamerverse. (yes i know you can switch teams btwn conferences but i actually want to create conferences) and also remember when you played a coll fb season and you could choose btwn the bowl system or playoffs?? i want that option back. i'll post my ideas in a little while... opcorn:
I believe that the current SEC is the best possible setup but ok, I will bite. What is great about the current geography of the SEC is that a fan can really drive to any away game. Some are fairly long drives but all can be done within a typical day/waking hours. Any expansion of any sort complicates this, but you can do it in a manner that still gives fans an opportunity to drive to most away games. In the west, I present to you tow teams: Texas A&M & TCU In the east, I present to you two teams: Florida St. & Georgia Tech Three of these teams already have natural rivalries. Some from the past, some current. LSU & aTm share a great history of matchups. Georgia vs Georgia Tech along with Florida vs Florida State are obviously ongoing rivalries. Then there is TCU. The Dallas / Fort Worth market would be a great addition to our conference. Now for scheduling. In order to truly make this work, you obviously have to play every other team form your own division in order to truly be determined as division champ. So for starters this adds two more games to the current 8 game conference slate, making it a total of 10 conference games and only 2 non-conference games. I would propose dropping the permanent opponents from the opposing division for each team. (Bama/UT, LSU/UF, etc). You continue to cycle through a rotation of home/away series with two opposing division teams each year. This brings the total conference games down to 9 and allows for 3 non-conference games per year. There will be an imbalance of home vs away conference games each year with this scenario though. Thus a loss of a home game in some years for teams. However, this has worked for other conferences. Just have to schedule in a fashion to make sure that a team gets the extra home game every other year. With the extra money the expansion brings, it should more than make up for the loss of a home game every other year. That's my thoughts for now. I've almost convinced myself. The new influx of aTm jokes alone would make it worthwhile. Almost.
I like that, but i would go with Louisville added to the West instead of A&M. A&M is going where Texas is.
That may not be as far away from reality as you think. I do find it kinda strange that with all the big talk from the Pac - 10, Big -10, and ulimatums being made by the Big 12, that Slive has been rather quite over the past week. He has stated in the past that the SEC is going to be proactive should the conferences choose to expand, but now that the talk has heated up he has become quite. Almost as if he is plotting behind the scenes in order to not tip the other conferences off as to what the SEC might do. At least I haven't read a whole lot as of late, I may have missed it though.
This is fun to talk about, but I really don't think the SEC needs to do a single thing to stay at the top. I do not think we will see Texas or Texas AM coming to the SEC. Texas will decide, and I don't think Texas will consider the SEC due to academics. Some really crazy stuff would have to happen for those two to end up in the SEC. They are a package deal by law. I could see the SEC offering all four Texas schools, that might trump the Pac 10 offer. Texas, Texas AM, Texas Tech, and Baylor. Florida State is interesting you essentially pick up the other half of florida, not sure how much that adds to the table though. TCU is interesting, it gets you into the Texas market. I would think North Carolina, West Virginia might be good ideas as well.
I agree with the geographical advantages our conference offers. A fan can realistically attend every away game. There are long drives but none that are "out of the question". If I had to pick I'd have to go with the Ga Tech and Fla St. additions. I just think they'd fit well in the SEC.
I'd rather add Houston and Georgia Tech. Pick up two huge markets in Atlanta and Houston without adding two more monster contenders to the SEC upper tier.
First off Get RID of NON-Conference games in every conference..(This would FORCE Notre Dame to pick a place to play) IF the SEC has to expand in the West there is only 2 schools I would consider TCU or Houston....getting into the Texas high schools would be a HUGE plus! In the East I would pick up perhaps a team out of North Carolina East Carolina wouldnt be a bad choice.
Although I haven't heard any talk lately, there used to be alot of talk about Arkansas moving to the Big 12. From a money standpoint, wouldn't make much sense to do that. Georgia Tech is a logical choice. Have to admit, I never thought of Houston but that could definitely work. What about Southern Miss? Other than Curley Hallman and "the diva", I don't know much about their program and whether they could make it in the SEC Regardless, I like the idea of getting rid of the permanent opponent!!!!
