Georgia football: Auburn should not join the east, the SEC should end divisions

Much has been said lately about Auburn possibly joining the SEC East to move Missouri into the West.

The Auburn Tigers are once again at the center of possible changes in the SEC. Just 15 years ago, they pushed to change scheduling so everyone in the SEC had only one permanent cross-division rival.

As a result, Auburn no longer played Florida every year. Georgia dropped Ole Miss. And other rivalries like Alabama vs Vanderbilt, Arkansas vs Tennessee, South Carolina vs Mississippi State, and Kentucky vs LSU also broke up.

Of course, only Florida vs Auburn and Georgia vs Ole Miss were major rivalries. But it was still a shame to see pairs of teams who used to play every year, play twice every six years, to now once every six years.

Florida versus Auburn wasn’t just a minor rivalry either, the two played each other every year from 1945-to-2002 and have met 83 times. But since 2002, the Gators and Tigers have only played three times.

Georgia vs Ole Miss doesn’t have as much history. But the Bulldogs and Rebels have played 46 times and they met every year from 1966-to-2002.

And now there are talks of Auburn joining the SEC East which would most definitely signal the end to another long, historic SEC rivalry; Alabama vs Tennessee. The Crimson Tide and Volunteers to this date have met 98 times and every year since 1944.

It doers not look like the there will be any changes in the near future, but there are definitely possible as long as Missouri is in the SEC East. Which no one is arguing that Missouri should be in the East. But for fans of SEC football, of competition and the history of the teams in the SEC, they do not want to see any more rivalries be broken up and put on long hiatus’s.

Eventually however, something should and will be done about Missouri being the wrong division. But here are a few solutions to keep rivalries intact.

Conference expansion

It’s going to happen eventually. While smaller conferences probably do make more sense since they make scheduling and deciding champions much simpler. But bigger conferences make more money and having a championship game brings its own benefits.

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As it pertains to our issue, the SEC would need to expand eastward. Most SEC expansion speculation always involves Oklahoma and Oklahoma State joining the SEC, but I just do not see that happening.

Oklahoma as always been a major political force in their own conference. Whether it’s the Big 8 or Big 12. They’ll still be a political force in the SEC, but not as big with Alabama, Georgia, Auburn, LSU and Florida already in the conference.

The B10 would be much better conference for their interests. Nebraska has lost much of its influence, that only leaves Ohio State and Michigan as the other major influences in the Big 10. basically for Oklahoma it comes down to, do you want to share influence inside the conference with five other teams or just two or three?

As for Oklahoma State, they’ll most likely follow Oklahoma. Or the Big 12 could find a way to survive which I believe is the most likely scenario. Give Houston a couple more years to prove they can win consistently, and then try to lure someone like Boise State, BYU or maybe even UNLV.

I really do think that when the SEC expands, attracting teams from the east would be much easier, since there is one conference in the eastern United States that is stronger than most conferences but still not as prestigious as the SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big 10 and Pac 12.

That is of course the American Conference, and they have teams that will be attractive to the SEC and ACC in the near future. One of those teams in particular that I believe will one day be in the SEC is East Carolina. That will put the SEC in the state or North Carolina. They have a unique and fashionable look from their logos to their uniforms. And they actually have a really nice stadium.

Another team would be Cincinnati. Ohio might not be a southern state, but Cincinnati is right on the state line with Kentucky. Plus they’re only about an hour and a half away from Lexington on Interstate-75. In fact, I-75 also connects them to Knoxville, Atlanta and Gainesville.

There’s also Central Florida in Orlando and South Florida in Tampa. The SEC already has a presence in Florida of course, but moving further south wouldn’t hurt.

So there are options out east that could keep Auburn in the SEC West while also allowing Missouri to join the west.

But there is another option.

Get rid of divisions

One solution I first saw last year had me intrigued but it’s not one many people have seen. I saw it in an article on SB Nation.

Their idea was to eliminate divisions and give every SEC team three permanent opponents. For Georgia, they had us playing South Carolina, Florida and Auburn every year. But if this was to be adopted by the SEC, they could go a different route.

Besides the three permanent rivals, every SEC team would also have two groups of five teams that would switch out every year. That means, no more waiting six years to play every team in the conference and 12 years to play in every stadium in the SEC (unless you’re Georgia, Florida or happen to play Arkansas in Little Rock).

Now every team in the SEC would play each other after just two years, and they would play in every stadium after just four. We would finally feel like a unified conference again instead of two separate conferences inside of one.

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This would kill two birds with one stone. There would no longer be a need to get Missouri out of the SEC West. And it would not only preserve rivalries, but revive old ones and create new ones.

In SB Nation’s model, Georgia might not play Tennessee every year any more, but they would still play every other year. That would certainly keep that rivalry healthy. Florida and Auburn would also be able to play every other year and that would breath new life into that rivalry. And who knows who else could spark a rivalry under this format.

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