The SEC Forum at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Oh believe me, I'm extremely glad to have lived through many of the LSU seasons I lived through.  I was vaguely aware of LSU football when I was a kid because my dad brought me to Ole Miss games, and it's just a cultural thing when you grow up in Baton Rouge.  But I was big into basketball back then.  It was my favorite sport to play, so I guess it's natural that it was what most interested me.  There were some decent teams in the late 80's, but I kinda knew about them, moreso than followed them.  And of course, games weren't on TV so much back then.  

Then when I got a little more interested--about middle school--the 90's happened, where we were awful for a decade.  Like, 3-8 awful.  It sucked to pay attention more and get more interested and the team be so bad, but it was what it was.  

When Saban turned things around it was a magical time.  I never took the Les Miles years for granted and I've been harsh on the hordes of LSU fans who did/do.  

I think I trace the death of my give-a-damn to a specific point in the 2014 LSU/Alabama game.  It didn't happen all at once, but I clearly recall a moment when I thought, "What am I doing?  Why do I care so much?  I'm not so sure this interests me like it did."  The interest was still rather strong at that point, though.  

I hate to say this, but that snowballed the next few years, and, unfortunately, while I gave it a lot of lip service, the 2019 season never excited me or caused me to care like I wished I did.  I was fully aware of what I was watching.  I knew I should be loving the hell out of it.  But it never meant as much to me as 2003, for example, or 2007.  Or other seasons that didn't end with NCs.  One sad piece of evidence of that is I can't name tons of guys from that team, just the major stars, really.  otoh, I can still remember the backup left-guard from the 2005 team, and a long list of people like him, from many years.  I remember events and game-flow from specific games, who we played, what point in the season we played them, all the narratives.

Literally, I can't remember who we played earlier this year.  The other day I saw something about us winning against Vanderbilt last year and I thought to myself "We played Vandy last year?"  

But, ask me about LSU vs. Vandy circa 2005, and I can tell you tons about that game, even where I was watching it and with who.  

Just seems like if 2019 inspired a "That's nice" from me, and everything since has merited a "Sucking sucks.  Oh well," then it becomes clear something just isn't hitting like it used to.    
 

The powers that be had to have been presented with equitable scheduling where everyone played everyone else very frequently and said "nah, our way of pulling it out of our asses where A&M plays UGA once a decade is the right call."

And no, it's not even for 2026 and beyond, just more even.  Tennessee was handed 2 cupcakes for the next four years.  

But the willful choice to actively go with the worse option is the problem we've dealt with, at least lately.  It's fucking stupid.  It's embarrassing.

Re the bolded, I assume that you are referring to the "permanent rivals" (or whatever they are called) for each program. I don't assert that the SEC made perfect choices there, but I do think that it was a tough assignment.

Each program was motivated to (1) preserve its permanent rivalry (or rivalries) and/or (2) have the easiest possible remaining permanent opponents.

I haven't seen anything about the methodology used to determine those "permanent" opponents. Did each school submit a list of "druthers" in ranked order? Was it all done in a smoke-filled room? Or in a dark room where mushrooms are fertilized with horse dung? Or in an open manner in which every school had representatives present? Was the stated criterion, in which the bottom 8 programs would get one top 8 opponent and two bottom 8 opponents, while each top 8 program would get two top 8 opponents and one bottom 8 opponent, met? Was it clear to each school which tier it was in?

Top 8: Georgia, Bama, LSU . . . ?

Bottom 8: Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, South Carolina . . . ?

From OU's perspective, we had to have Texas on the list of permanents. After that, I suspect we stated some preferences that may or may not have been met. We got Texas and we certainly could have done worse in our other two permanents.

In any event, the permanent rivals will be re-evaluated after four years (I'd make it eight years if I were king), so there's potential for evening things out if that needs to be done.

In reality:

OAM's all upset about Tenn drawing KY, and Vandy --- which was done at the behest of Kentucky and Vandy, us being both their cheif rival, and 1 certain stadium filler for THEM, not US.  We fill our stadium regardless.

Also, it makes historical sense being that TN/KY is the 3rd oldest rivalry in the SEC, and TN/Vandy being the 4th.

Surprise Episode:

https://twitter.com/SECShorts/status/1988601535744647316?s=20