Well now that the the move is officially set for the 2024/5 season, let the speculation resume!
While acknowledging that 16 team conferences are unwieldy and pretty much awful for scheduling, I think the least of all evils is the 3+6+6 format. Three permanent rivals, and then playing home-and-home with 6 schools for two years, and then switching to the other 6 during the two years after that.
That format maintains a lot of the longstanding rivalries, but also offers the chance to play EVERY school in the conference for at least 2 of every 4 years.
I'm certain that a million of these proposed rivalry scenarios will be produced between now and the time the 2024 schedule is released, but here's one dude from the internet's opinion on the matter, in nice graphical form:
This is both decent and realistic.
There are the obvious ones that have to be.
But as a person who has done this exercise numerous times, I keep ending up with the same "look outs" that need to be kept in mind.
#1 - not saddling Auburn with 3 big-boy programs. They want Bama and UGA....you can't give them a 3rd heavyweight.
#2 - folding in A&M, Texas, and OU...and whether they like it or not, folding them in with Mizzou, Arky, and LSU.
#3 - matching Vandy and Mizzou up with teams with 2 heavies in their trio
#4 - out of Florida, UGA, and Tennessee, deciding how to chop them up
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#1 is basically saving Auburn from itself and #2 is fun, but going to be imperfect....you have UT-A&M, then Arky being a former SWC member and Mizzou a former Big 8 member (a la OU).
I view all the big-boy programs as fastballs and you have to work in programs like Vandy, Mizzou, UK, and the MS schools as change-ups.
