Keep Your Enemies Closer

One thing I lost in all the kerfuffle about the SEC/Big12 champions bowl is an increased likelihood the two will play some cross conference games to bolster in season schedule strength. It only seems to reason that with increased pressure to get teams in the playoff or whatever that both conferences have something to be gained from adding a marquee match up or three across the conferences.

If money is going to be the primary driver in this deal, then getting A&M-Texas back or a yearly rotation of Oklahoma/Okie State/West Virginia vs. LSU/Alabama/Georgia or whatnot isn't out of the realm of possibilities. While this is countering Jim Delany's Pac1X alliance with the same move, it works due to the current place the SEC and Big12 are in among the college football firmament.

I know there are folks panicking about the possibility of another tough football game on the schedule. I, for one, welcome it. As a fan, I get much more excited about playing top tier teams than I do MAC Southern Conference teams.

TD

Don't Be Ridiculous, Lemon

Dude. A playoff? Really?

I've uttered those words at least twenty times over the past four months years. Yes, I know, the WHOLE world is demanding a college football playoff. Except those of us that don't want one.

Blutarsky has been at the blogging forefront of the anti-playoff resistance. Like Blutarsky, I know the vast majority of the arguments for a playoff are shortly translated to there is more money in it for the conferences. Hey, I'm a Jack Donaghy capitalist. Being such, I also believe that quality of product is more important than doing what merely brings in more money, as long as you are making enough money to know the name of the secret European country only rich people know about.

Now, Mike Slive drops the big one and brings Chuck Neinas Bob Bowlsby and his Big 12 from the realm of the dead to a likely defacto full time seat at the semi-final table. The SEC Championship will soon be a national quarterfinal. The genius of Slive's plan is cutting the ACC and Big East and Notre Dame out of the game. If Roy Kramer is seen as the father of the Conference Championship Game. Slive may well be seen as the father of the Super Conference. Oh, I know Delany made a move to get some teams first (there is also a Schadenfreud thing about Nebraska in all of this I didn't think about), but this move will hasten the coming tide of new conference expansion.

A couple of other thoughts have come to mind.  First, will the teams play in the Sugar Bowl? Fiesta Bowl? Rotate? Play at another place? Second, hasn't the SEC given the Big 12 champion an easier road into the BCS or whatever championship game, since the Big 12 doesn't currently have a championship game? Third, when will South Carolina propose that the conference representative in the SEC/Big12 bowl game be the team with the best record in September? Fourth, is Bob Bowlsby a vampire?

As you can tell, there are a lot of details to be worked out.

TD