Tennessee football: SEC scheduling proposals good for Vols, bad for league

As a Tennessee football fan, do you care about tradition and fairness, or do you want whatever helps the Vols best? Well, when the league expands to 16 teams in the near future with the additions of the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners, those two things will be at odds.

According to Ross Dellenger of SI.com, the number of scheduling format proposals for the 16-team league has been cut down to two just ahead of their annual meeting in Destin, Fla., next week. Both give Rocky Top an advantage going forward.

One is an eight-game format where a team has one annual opponent and then plays the other seven on a rotating basis of the remaining 14 available opponents. The other is a nine-game format where teams have three annual opponents and then play the other six on a rotating basis of the remaining 12 available opponents.

In either scenario Tennessee football wins. Let’s start with the eight-game schedule with one annual opponent. If that happens, the Vols’ foe will be the Vanderbilt Commodores or South Carolina Gamecocks. They won’t draw the Alabama Crimson Tide, as the Iron Bowl with them and the Auburn Tigers will be preserved.

You could maybe say they’ll draw the Georgia Bulldogs, but UGA is likely to draw South Carolina or the Florida Gators first, especially with Florida needing an annual opponent. There’s no way, despite the history, that the Vols’ draw is Florida. Simply put, Vandy is the obvious choice.

What if there’s a three-team rotation? Well, Dellenger predicted UT would face South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Alabama. Given South Carolina’s location, it’s almost certain the Vols will have to play them in a three-team format. Vanderbilt, meanwhile, is an in-state foe, so the league will protect that game too.

Taking that into account, it’s accurate to assume both will be on Tennessee football’s slate annually, a huge advantage, even if they have to face Alabama with that. Either way, this is good for the Vols. However, it’s bad for the league.

For starters, this obviously involves eliminating divisions, meaning it’s likely just the top two teams with the best record will face each other in the SEC Championship. In a 16-team league, teams will have six or seven opponents they don’t play in a year depending on this format.

That creates a huge level of unfairness and disparity in scheduling. If there’s a difference of two or three games in an eight-game schedule, fine, but this is a scenario where you have a difference of seven games in an eight-game schedule or eight games in a nine-game schedule. As a result, the draw for teams makes a huge difference in determining records.

Take the standings this past year, for example. What if one Tennessee football got to face Vanderbilt, Florida, Auburn, South Carolina, the Texas Longhorns, the LSU Tigers and the Missouri Tigers? That’d be a heck of a random draw if Vandy was the one annual opponent.

Then look at the Auburn Tigers on the other side, whose annual opponent could be Alabama. What if they also faced Georgia, the Arkansas Razorbacks, the Ole Miss Rebels, the Kentucky Wildcats, the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas A&M Aggies? If both are in the race to play for the title, the Vols would have an insane advantage.

Going to nine games makes it slightly better, but you still have the same issue. In reality, eliminating the divisions only keeps some semblance of fairness if you have a nine-game schedule and a league with 14 teams. Once it goes to 16 teams, there is too much disparity.

Secondly, though, it also will eliminate rivalries no matter what. The Vols can’t keep playing Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Vanderbilt and Kentucky on a regular basis. Okay, you might not consider some of those rivalries, but many traditionalists do.

So what’s the solution? Honestly, the best move for the Southeastern Conference is to keep the divisions. Move Alabama and Auburn to the SEC East, and Missouri joins the West along with Texas and Oklahoma. There are so many reasons this works.

You play all seven teams in your division and two in the other division on a rotating basis, so every four-year player plays every SEC school at least once. As a result, teams competing to win their division will have at-most two different foes in a nine-game schedule, which isn’t bad. That creates fairness and allows teams to see each other frequently.

More importantly, though, it actually preserves rivalries. The eight most-played games in the SEC when the league expands will all be protected: Georgia-Auburn, Ole Miss-Mississippi State, Texas-Texas A&M, Texas-Oklahoma, Tennessee-Kentucky, Tennessee-Vanderbilt, LSU-Mississippi State and LSU-Ole Miss.

Add in Tennessee-Alabama, and nine of the 10 series among teams in the league that have played at least 100 games will all be preserved. Only Mississippi State-Alabama would go. You also restore old Big 12 and Southwest rivalries involving Missouri and Arkansas.

In many ways, this split restores rivalries once lost and brings back more traditional ones than what existed when the league was at 12 teams. However, it would be horrible for Tennessee football, as the Vols would then face Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Auburn every year.

Honestly, though, the divisions wouldn’t usually be stacked, as LSU, Texas and Oklahoma are powerhouse programs on their own, and now that Texas A&M has those deep pockets, they’re going to compete. As a result, there’d be a balance of power.

Simply put, this is a win across the board, and any fan of the sport in general should want it. The question for those in Rocky Top is do you prefer that, or do you prefer what’s easiest for Tennessee football? After all, the leading proposals give them a major unfair advantage. You could say it’s bittersweet for fans who care about both.