Conference Realignment: Texas A&M to SEC, Superconference Scheduling

As the Aggies made their move to the SEC official Sunday, the nation begins to wonder who will follow. Mike Slive and the SEC will go where the money is first, making Mizzou (St. Louis and Kansas City markets) and Virginia Tech (Washington D.C.) huge targets. West Virginia is the other big name being thrown around because of their culture and placement in the east. Each has a good shot at entering the nation's best football conference.

For the sake of this article, let's just assume that eventually, Missouri, Virginia Tech and West Virginia all get the invite and all accept, making a 16-team superconference. Now the SEC will have to look at multiple options for scheduling, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Two Eight-Team Divisions 

The SEC currently retains two six-team divisions, an East and a West. With the addition of Texas A&M, there is no other place the Aggies could go except into the West. Using the assumption that Mizzou, WVU and V-Tech all join up, Missouri would be the eighth team in the West while West Virginia and Virginia Tech would be the be the seventh and eighth teams in the East.

With a 12-game schedule, every team would have to play the other seven teams in their division. For example, Texas A&M would play LSU, Arkansas, Mizzou, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Alabama and Auburn every year, switching off at home.

Currently, the SEC has it set up so that each university has a "locked" cross-divisional rival that they also play every year. With the addition of the four proposed teams, Texas A&M would be "locked" with Virginia Tech/WVU and Mizzou would be "locked" with West Virginia/V-Tech (who this is doesn't really matter). That makes a total of eight conference games so far.

The SEC now plays eight conference games, five of which are in the division. To force intra-divisional conference play due to larger divisions, the league needs to increase that number to around nine or 10 games. With this concession, Texas A&M would play a rotation of one to two teams from the East division every year along with their "locked" rival.

This system would also decrease the chance that teams that played each other during the regular season would face each other in the conference championship game, making for more excitement in Atlanta.

Four Four-Team Divisions

During the summer, a fellow SEC member from GatorsFirst wrote a fantastic article on how a four-division four-team conference would work. It would take meticulous planning and some dealing between the schools, but it could certainly be done. Furthermore, it could turn the conference into the NCAA football's first playoff system. 

The so-called "pod system" would provide only three division foes. This way, a team could have more latitude to play more teams from the conference in successive years. The SEC would split into four divisions of four universities each: an East, West, North and South (or Central perhaps?). 

This system's drawback would be that each divisional winner would have to play an extra game due to the playoff system. This would be a strain on the players and coaches of the upper-tier schools who might play at least one extra game every season. With that in mind, the SEC might reduce out-of-conference games to compensate.  

Essentially, every division would have a winner. With four division victors, they would play each other in a strongest record vs. weakest record and middle record vs. middle record. The winner of each game would meet in the conference championship. Ultimately, this would be provide that the SEC be in the national championship every single year considering the road that the SEC champion would have to take to get there.

Which Is Better?

There is no certainty on which system will provide better competition between the schools or the most exciting games. Personally, I like the idea of the "pod system." I'm a strong proponent of getting rid of the BCS and adopting a playoff system, and a divisional system as such would be the first step in that direction.

Retaining the two divisions would provide a sense of security in something the league knows, but it really puts a strain on intra-divisional competition. The SEC was the first to pioneer a championship game, a clash that is watched every year by millions of college football fans. Why can't the SEC by the first to venture into a playoff system? There is no reason not to. After all this realignment mess is over with, matching up divisions will be the SEC's next big challenge, and it sure will be interesting to see what Birmingham comes up with.