Nick Saban-Jimbo Fisher’s Nile Beef Explained
USA TODAY’s Dan Wolken explains how Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher fell out over recruitment and NIL.
US TODAY
If you’re an SEC football fan of a certain age — say, around my age — you don’t have strong memories of the conference before it spanned two divisions.
After expanding from 10 to 12 teams with the addition of Arkansas and South Carolina, the SEC boldly split into divisions in 1992. That allowed the conference to host an SEC championship, thanks to an NCAA rule that allowed such an event when a conference included divisions.
Thirty years later, divisions are passé, especially after the NCAA Division I Council voted last week to no longer require conferences to require divisions to host a league championship. The Pac-12 and Mountain West relinquished divisions for 2022, and the ACC intends to do so by 2023.
Oklahoma and Texas will join the SEC by the 2025 season, and that expansion could mark the end of the SEC’s divisional era. A big family with 16 teams.
The SEC has yet to finalize a planning model for its expanded future, but here are the key proposals, according to Sports Illustrated and ESPN:
Possibility A – An eight-game SEC schedule. Each team would have a specific rival they would face each year – think Alabama-Auburn; Ole Miss-Mississippi State; Florida-Georgia — and the other seven conference opponents would flip every year, allowing a team to play all of its nonrival conference opponents every two years.
option B – A nine-game SEC schedule. Each team would have three designated rivals they would play each year, plus six rotating SEC opponents. This, in turn, would allow a team to play any Conference enemy at least once every two years.
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I won’t spend much time analyzing Option A for a number of reasons.
For one, I prefer plans that offer more conference play. Anyone think Alabama vs. Southern Miss is better for the sport than Alabama vs. an SEC enemy?
An eight-game conference schedule leaves room for more cupcake games to top up coaches’ records. I’m sorry, but this is a big boy league. If a trainer needs gimme wins to stay employed, just pay the trainer their severance pay and move on.
Adoption of Option A would also mean that some historical rivalries that help make college football what it is would not happen annually — games like Auburn-Georgia would be forced to take place behind the Iron Bowl and the “Cocktail Party” to take a back seat. ”
Option B offers an additional conference game and preserves more annual rivalries. So if those are the two leading options, then I will stand behind that choice.
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However, creating a schedule for this model is a chore. Some teams have three or more natural rivals, while others only have one or two rivalries worth protecting.
Maintaining a rivalry can come at the expense of another team’s optimal schedule. Also, this model isn’t ideal for creating a balanced schedule – a team’s schedule strength would depend in part on how strong its three competitors are – but certainly schedule strength would be accounted for to some degree.
I spent two hours in one evening this week settling rivalries for Option B in a way that offered any semblance of fairness. Several times I thought I had a great plan until I reached the last few puzzle pieces that wouldn’t click into place.
Here are the top two options I’ve come up with for this 3-6 planning model (three annual rivalries plus six rotating SEC opponents):
My plan 1 for each team’s three rivals in a 3-6 model
Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Tennessee
Arkansas: Missouri, Texas, State of Mississippi
Maroon: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky
Florida: Georgia, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt
Georgia: Florida, Auburn, South Carolina
Kentucky: South Carolina, Auburn, Tennessee
LSU: Texas A&M, Alabama, Ole Miss
Ole Fraulein: State of Mississippi, Vanderbilt, LSU
State of Mississippi: Ole Miss, Arkansas, Texas A&M
Missouri: Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina
Oklahoma: Texas, Missouri, Florida
South Carolina: Kentucky, Georgia, Missouri
Tennessee: Vanderbilt, Alabama, Kentucky
Texas: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas A&M
Texas A&M: LSU, Texas, State of Mississippi
Vanderbilt: Tennessee, Ole Miss, Florida
My plan 2 for each team’s three rivals in a 3-6 model
Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Tennessee
Arkansas: Missouri, Texas, Tennessee
Maroon: Alabama, Georgia, State of Mississippi
Florida: Georgia, Kentucky, Oklahoma
Georgia: Florida, Auburn, South Carolina
Kentucky: South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi State
LSU: Texas A&M, Alabama, Ole Miss
Ole Fraulein: State of Mississippi, Vanderbilt, LSU
State of Mississippi: Ole Miss, Kentucky, Auburn
Missouri: Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina
Oklahoma: Texas, Missouri, Florida
South Carolina: Kentucky, Georgia, Missouri
Tennessee: Vanderbilt, Alabama, Arkansas
Texas: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas A&M
Texas A&M: LSU, Texas, Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt: Tennessee, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Have a better idea? Well, considering the SEC has placed Missouri on its East Division for the past decade, the conference would likely benefit from your leadership.
Blake Toppmeyer is the SEC columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer. If you like Blake’s reporting, consider it a digital subscription so you can access everything.
