SEC EXPANSION (TAKE 2)

Ninety minutes... that was all it lasted. Ninety minutes after I posted my previous blog entry (Is That Music I Hear?), I saw the story on ESPN. Doug Gottleib reports Texas A&M will leave the Big 12 for the SEC. Florida State, Clemson and Missouri will likely follow.

Let me first say that I can’t imagine for even a second that Gottleib of all people is the one who knows the story. Not Stewart Mandel or Clay Travis or Pat Forde... self absorbed Doug Gottleib?? That would be the day.

However, just in case this story has merit, I’ll give you my plan for the newly expanded SEC, and how I see the other dominos falling.

The easy assumption is that Clemson and FSU slide into the SEC East and A&M and Missouri head to the SEC West. In that scenario, even with a nine game league schedule (seven divisional games and two cross-overs), you would go seven years between playing schools on the other side. It would be longer if you continue to guarantee cross-over games like Alabama-Tennessee or Auburn-Georgia.

I propose four divisions of four where the two division winners with the best records play for the league title. A nine-game league schedule is a must. The Pac 12 has one, and the Big Ten will do the same in 2017. I think the ACC will play a nine-game league schedule very soon... but more on them later.

In the SEC, you’d play everyone in your division and two teams in each of the other three divisions. That way, you could play everyone else every two years.

Even the pairings are easy. The Coastal division would consist of South Carolina, Clemson, Florida and Florida State. The North could be Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Georgia. The Gulf would be Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi and Mississippi State, and the West would be LSU, Arkansas, Texas A&M and Missouri.

With so many interdivisional games, the schedules would be as balanced as you could get them. Plus, schedules would have variety. You wouldn’t be playing the same seven teams all the time at the expense of former rivals.

So, there is my plan for the SEC, but what about everyone else? I think the ACC stays at ten and plays a full nine-game league schedule. The ACC Championship Game has been a colasyl flop. With FSU gone, the possibility of a Miami-FSU championship (which is a major reason the ACC created the game) is gone forever.

What about the Big Ten? They came to a quick consensus over Nebraska, but the Huskers were a no brainer. I think the Big Ten would like to stay at twelve teams for now, but I wouldn’t rule out an announcement from Jim Delaney saying they will reopen their investigation of expansion. With Missouri off the table, they will look east towards Rutgers, Syracuse, Pitt and possibly Maryland and Virginia.

That leaves Notre Dame. I believe like many others that only in a world of 16-team superconferences, would the Irish have no choice but to surrender independence and join a league for football. That is still the case, unless Texas goes independent. There is no chance that ND would join a league like the Big Ten if the Longhorns had just thumbed their nose at the Big 12 and Pac 16 and went solo. How would that look to the nation and their own fan base? Texas can do it on their own, but we can’t?

If the SEC is about to go to 16, the Big Ten will eventually do the same... without Notre Dame. The ACC may merge with some remaining football members of the Big East (only atfer the Big Ten and others go to 16). As for the Big 12... its days are numbered. When Texas packs up and leaves, it will be a free for all. Some will make Larry Scott’s Pac 16 dream of 2010 a reality. The rest will turn to the Mountain West Conference.

I knew we had only postponed the inevitable apocalypse of college sports last year. I didn’t realize the moratorium would be this short. Here’s hoping this is just another scare. The saving grace here is that the source is Gottleib. No way he has it right.