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Topic: Rivalry Talk
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utee94 · « **Reply #42 on:** August 10, 2021, 10:05:56 AM »

Quote from: CWSooner on August 10, 2021, 07:36:24 AM

I'm not sure of the real rivalries in the SEC.

Is Bama-LSU not one? I have thought that it was, but maybe there's some recency bias there.

MDT tells me Bama-LSU is one that matters to him. It's not my place to second-guess actual longtime SEC fans, so I take him at his word.

The most logical divisions that preserve the most longstanding rivalries, mean moving Alabama/Auburn to the East, Mizzou to the West.

But without a perma x-div rival, then Bama-LSU is lost. To me, that's every bit as sad and unacceptable as losing NU-OU as an annual rivalry.

Like I said regarding the B12, I'm willing to accept a faux perma-rival for Texas, if it means keeping the schedules balanced and preserving important historical rivals. Even if that faux perma-rival ends up being someone uninspiring like USCe or Kentucky.

utee94 · « **Reply #43 on:** August 10, 2021, 10:08:48 AM »

^^^^^

At the same time, I also recognize that setting up the Divisions that way, likely ends up making the Mississippi schools feel like they've been shafted out of their longtime history with the SEC. There's just no perfect solution, and perhaps there are really only bad solutions.

As I've said many times before, 16-team conferences just suck. So do 14-team conferences. Really, anything over 10 is less than ideal. It wouldn't have been my choice for college football to go this route, but nobody that matters, ever consulted me on it.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #44 on:** August 10, 2021, 12:09:16 PM »

I don't think LSU-Bama was a "real rivalry" for decades, but at times it obviously is a very important game.

The Egg Bowl is a rivalry that isn't usually important. Tenn-UK is close to that. USCe-Clemson is a rivalry game, Tech-UGA, often not really of national interest.

utee94 · « **Reply #45 on:** August 10, 2021, 12:18:09 PM »

Quote from: Cincydawg on August 10, 2021, 12:09:16 PM

I don't think LSU-Bama was a "real rivalry" for decades, but at times it obviously is a very important game.

The Egg Bowl is a rivalry that isn't usually important. Tenn-UK is close to that. USCe-Clemson is a rivalry game, Tech-UGA, often not really of national interest.

Could be. But it's certainly not my place to tell LSU or Alabama who their "real rivals" are.

And the thing about traditional rivalries, is that they don't have to be nationally interesting, to be important.

In fact, the number of rivalries that are actually nationally interesting, is pretty tiny, compared to the overall set of all rivalries. National interest is the LEAST important thing to a regional rivalry.

Thumper · « **Reply #46 on:** August 10, 2021, 01:20:25 PM »

I thing that is the main point. Rivalries were local by necessity. Then conference rivalries that were not just local. ND/USC is the one that sticks out to me as the beginning of the modern national rivalries. One of the things I really liked about the Big 8, was that it left scheduling room for great non-con games. Texas was a permanent non-con game, and OU got to play the other helmet schools like USC/tOSU/Bama/ND home and home, not just in bowls.

MikeDeTiger · « **Reply #47 on:** August 10, 2021, 02:46:59 PM »

Quote from: Cincydawg on August 10, 2021, 07:45:29 AM

I'd say the historical rivalries, aside fron the in state things like the Egg bowl, are:

Bama - Tenn
Auburn - UGA
UGA - UF

That's it. I'm not including matchups between teams that have been good of late, those are just important games, like LSU-UF.

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

This is and historically has been, at least in my lifetime, the attitude of other member schools and their fans.

LSU: This is important to us.

Them: No, it can't be.

LSU: Yes, it is. Do us a solid, help us out, it costs you nothing.

Them: No..I don't think so. I don't care about it, so I can't see how you do. As for helping you out....eh, sounds like work. We'd probably have to write a memo or something. You understand the red-tape problems. Oh, by the way, don't forget to carry our banner and turn on TV sets and be crazy. The country loves crazy. So just stick to that, stop imagining that you care about things or have any history worth preserving, and don't call us again.

FearlessF · « **Reply #48 on:** August 10, 2021, 03:11:48 PM »

so, the Mississippi schools have to take one for the good of the conference

oh well, they could have been better the last 4 decades and had more pull, but............

MikeDeTiger · « **Reply #49 on:** August 10, 2021, 03:14:52 PM »

Quote from: Gigem on August 09, 2021, 03:32:11 PM

I know it seems like the pods suck but remember there will still be lots and lots of games versus the rest of the conference.

I’m all for the pods as long as they are set up so that you play so many different teams in a 4 year period.

Imagine playing Bama, Texas, Ou, UF, UGa, Auburn, A&M often. I think the way I saw it is you play the entire conference every 4 years home and away. IMO this is the only way to do it. Better yet have a playoff between pods for the CCG that way nobody can duck a great team due to a schedule quirk.

That pod in particular really would suck for us. Like I said before, it's not playing UT, OU, and even the other refugees that I mind. That's actually kinda neat. But I'd gladly forego those games to be in a pod with some of our more long-standing partners. That probably includes A&M. While I didn't watch football as that came to a close, I'm plenty old enough to remember that it was a thing in my childhood. To me it's still new, but it does have an old feel, probably because I know a ton of old LSU fans who get worked up about A&M the same way they do about Ole Miss or Alabama.

OU/UT/LSU/ARK or Mizzou.....that would ensure that every year is the games I just don't care about, and I'm waiting half the time to see teams I do care about.

Don't let Cincy fool you, LSU/Ole Miss is a thing, they just don't have the clout to make anybody else care or recognize it. The Alabama schools probably come next for us. Most Alabama/Auburns fans I know feel the same way. LSU belongs in a tier below Tennessee/Auburn and Georgia/Alabama respectively, but we're generally next on the list. It's not only a recent thing either. I know any pod or division is almost certainly going to split us up, and I hate it, but there's nothing I can do about it. At the very least I'd like to see us in a pod with Ole Miss and A&M. That's not exactly asking a lot, except for the fact everyone else has to make adjustments to accommodate it, and that's not something I'd count on. Ole Miss would want to keep MSU, and it just dominoes from there.

The only excitement I could muster for UT to take the place of one of our current annuals is that I used to live there and have a lot of UT friends (and married a Hook'em....does that make her a hooker?). The paradigm of the thing itself....we've played them maybe 13 times, only two of which I can remember. OU? Even less. They beat us a in a bowl decades ago and then we edged them out in the Sugar/NC in a defensive slugfest, but even that was almost 20 years ago. Arkansas or Missouri......meh.

There won't be a perfect solution. I resign myself to trying to be happy if we get to play either A&M or Ole Miss annually.

utee94 · « **Reply #50 on:** August 10, 2021, 03:19:47 PM »

Quote from: MikeDeTiger on August 10, 2021, 03:14:52 PM

That pod in particular really would suck for us. Like I said before, it's not playing UT, OU, and even the other refugees that I mind. That's actually kinda neat. But I'd gladly forego those games to be in a pod with some of our more long-standing partners. That probably includes A&M. While I didn't watch football as that came to a close, I'm plenty old enough to remember that it was a thing in my childhood. To me it's still new, but it does have an old feel, probably because I know a ton of old LSU fans who get worked up about A&M the same way they do about Ole Miss or Alabama.

OU/UT/LSU/ARK or Mizzou.....that would ensure that every year is the games I just don't care about, and I'm waiting half the time to see teams I do care about.

Don't let Cincy fool you, LSU/Ole Miss is a thing, they just don't have the clout to make anybody else care or recognize it. The Alabama schools probably come next for us. Most Alabama/Auburns fans I know feel the same way. LSU belongs in a tier below Tennessee/Auburn and Georgia/Alabama respectively, but we're generally next on the list. It's not only a recent thing either. I know any pod or division is almost certainly going to split us up, and I hate it, but there's nothing I can do about it. At the very least I'd like to see us in a pod with Ole Miss and A&M. That's not exactly asking a lot, except for the fact everyone else has to make adjustments to accommodate it, and that's not something I'd count on. Ole Miss would want to keep MSU, and it just dominoes from there.

The only excitement I could muster for UT to take the place of one of our current annuals is that I used to live there and have a lot of UT friends (and married a Hook'em....does that make her a hooker?). The paradigm of the thing itself....we've played them maybe 13 times, only two of which I can remember. OU? Even less. They beat us a in a bowl decades ago and then we edged them out in the Sugar/NC in a defensive slugfest, but even that was almost 20 years ago. Arkansas or Missouri......meh.

There won't be a perfect solution. I resign myself to trying to be happy if we get to play either A&M or Ole Miss annually.

Sheesh, pod talk not going away.

The divisional alignments with one perma x-div opponent (who is Alabama) would probably be the best for LSU, although they'd end up playing the OTHER SEC East teams even less than before. An SEC West of

LSU
Ole Miss
Miss State
Texas A&M
Arkansas
Mizzou
Oklahoma
Texas

That would preserve LSU-TAMU, LSU-Ole Miss, LSU-MSU, and if you set up Alabama as their x-div perma-rival, it settles that one as well.

Since Alabama would be in the East, they'd no longer need to use their perma x-div game to be Tennessee, as they'd be division-mates. And Auburn would also be in their division.

Georgia and Auburn would also be in the same division for the first time in decades.

utee94 · « **Reply #51 on:** August 10, 2021, 03:23:44 PM »

That divisional alignment with one perma x-div rival is the best chance at preserving the most existing rivalries.

The main drawback of course, is that you rarely play the OTHER teams in the opposite division. But that's currently true of the SEC and B1G anyway.

FearlessF · « **Reply #52 on:** August 10, 2021, 03:35:25 PM »

it's what happens when conferences get too large

better to play the teams in your division EVERY season and develop and keep those rivalries than to water down the entire conference with pods or trying to play every team in the conference on a reg basis

MikeDeTiger · « **Reply #53 on:** August 10, 2021, 03:40:20 PM »

That's probably as good as we could ask for. We'd lose Auburn in that scenario, and I think the fans would be pretty torn on who they'd rather keep out of the Alabama schools. One would definitely have to go though. As for never seeing the East schools...we don't see them very often anyway, sans Florida. I just hate for either Bama or Auburn to become one such school.

utee94 · « **Reply #54 on:** August 10, 2021, 04:16:28 PM »

Quote from: MikeDeTiger on August 10, 2021, 03:40:20 PM

That's probably as good as we could ask for. We'd lose Auburn in that scenario, and I think the fans would be pretty torn on who they'd rather keep out of the Alabama schools. One would definitely have to go though. As for never seeing the East schools...we don't see them very often anyway, sans Florida. I just hate for either Bama or Auburn to become one such school.

I hear you. And I suspect the fans of the Mississippi schools feel similarly.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #55 on:** August 10, 2021, 04:26:03 PM »

Where does Mizzou end up in divisions?

I had to read up on Baton Rouge history when writing my Book 3.

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Topic: Rivalry Talk

utee94

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utee94

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