Mississippi State, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Vandy need to be somewhat evenly distributed due to their suckiness.
Agreed. As of right now things are kind of even. We have Vandy, Kentucky, and South Carolina and the West has Ole Miss, Miss St, and Arky.
Having worked with both Auburn and Alabama fans for a little while I've noticed that the Auburn fans are the ones who see the Iron Bowl as their biggest game every year. Alabama fans are split. The majority of them see the Iron Bowl as a bragging rights rivalry game but the Tennessee game is by far a more hated rivalry. I'll ask some Bama fans today if they had to give up one game which one would it be...should make for some fun field research.
Had this conversation quite a bit with bammers earlier in the decade, and they were pretty unanimous that Tennessee was bigger for them. Our struggles coupled with AU's title/Cam have shifted things as of late.
I'm merging these because I think it is interesting speculation, and it is easier to find the realignment discussion if it is limited to one place.
The new conference actually divides fairly well North to South. Kentucky, Tennessee, Vandy, UGa, SoCar, Missouri, and Arkansas. Florida, LSU, Bama, Auburn, Miss1, Miss2, A&M. I took a bit of liberty with Georgia's geography, but I think it makes sense. With one game inter-division rivals, you can still protect UT/Bama, and you can add Arkansas and A&M. You would lose either Georgia/Florida or Georgia/Auburn and UT/Florida, but you can't have everything. It isn't exactly balanced in today's football conference, but I'm not sure that over all sports and over a longer time that there is a more even split.
Field Research Findings: - 9 different gumps were asked "Who would you choose to keep in the situation of losing either the Auburn or Tennessee rivalry?" - All 9 gumps responded that they would rather keep the Tennessee game. - Reasons for keeping Tennessee over Auburn ranged from "Auburn always has been little brother and always will be" to "I hate Auburn and hope they lose every game, but I hate the color orange and anything Tennessee related more." - The majority of the gumps promptly followed their answer up with extremely high compliments of Dooley and think he will get things turned around sooner than later. *noted fear in the eyes of 2 gumps*
If you read message boards or comments on articles about expansion, it seems like more Bama fans would keep UT if they had to pick. Still, I feel like most Bama fans would prefer Auburn. My friend is a student at Bama and I have little doubt they consider Auburn a bigger rival.
Out of curosity, are you in northern or southern Alabama? I've often been told geography plays a big role in determining which you hate more.
Northern Alabama. That would makes sense though. I'm sure the Southern Gumps would favor the Auburn game due to the proximity. What's interesting though is I wonder how the Auburn grads are spread throughout the state. I would assume most of them would be located here in Northern Alabama because of all the engineering that goes on. Most of the engineers I know are Auburn grads with a few Miss. St grads mixed in.
No clue. That's just what I have always heard. Around Huntsville and north the Bammers hate UT more, but the farther south you go the more it switches to Auburn.
Add Missouri to the east instead of Auburn, let them have A&M as their cross-division rival and all is protected.
I just hope that if Missouri and Tennessee are somehow in the same division, we get them early in the season. Don't want to head up there in November.
We'd be fine in the cold. These guys practice early in the morning in November. That can be pretty cold in East Tennessee.
Okay, forget about what I said about forgetting about geography. We just need to focus on REAL geography, rather than the perception of geography. I am tempted to do this today, and if I do I will post the results: Take a look at the road travel-time distance between each school in the conference, and break the conference up so that each division has a relatively equal average travel time between it's division opponents. Thoughts?
Sounds good. However, they need to stick Mizzou in the East and be done with it. [uck fay] all kinds of realignment.
