While not given the impetus of expansion, the Southeastern Conference would be wise to also give a hard look at its divisional setup and strongly consider a realignment of its own.
Since the East/West setup was established in 1992 when Arkansas and South Carolina joined the SEC, six teams have accounted for the last 18 league championships — three from the West (LSU, Alabama and Auburn) and three from the East (Florida, Georgia and Tennessee).
But, while the West has seen all six of its members win at least a share of the division title (Ole Miss is the only one to not appear in the SEC Championship Game after losing the head-to-head tiebreaker against LSU in 2003), the East has been a three-horse race all the way. Taking that into account, along with the fact that the divisions have begun to present balance issues in men's basketball as well, the time has come to switch it up.
There has been a lot of talk with the Big Ten about necessary ground rules for realignment; what rivalries have to be protected in divisional play, what ones can be split up, how a competitive balance can be struck and such.
For the SEC, there should be a few ground rules.
First, Alabama and Auburn have to be in the same division. The same goes for Mississippi State and Ole Miss, Georgia and South Carolina and the Tennessee-Vanderbilt-Kentucky trio.
Second, the goal is to split the division and conference title winners so we have three recent league champs and six recent title game participants (the 2003 Rebels aren't counted for the sake of symmetry).
Third, as many rivalry games as possible need to be protected.
Some will have to become divisional crossovers and some to be relegated to non-annual status, but that's an unfortunate reality that just has to be dealt with.
With that in mind, here's what the new and improved divisional setup should look like:
In the Bryant Division (East and West is out, legendary coaching names are in) Alabama and Auburn are joined by the aforementioned trifecta of Tennessee, Vandy and Kentucky. The Third Saturday in October is now a divisional game, and it only seems fitting that the two teams the Bear coached in the SEC would be together in the division that is named in his honor.
To round out the field, Arkansas, which is already a divisional rival of Alabama and Auburn and is within relative proximity of the other three schools.
Now, I'm sure that there's going to be some anger from Razorback fans that they're separated from LSU, but when push comes to shove, the Golden Boot is the newest and youngest end-of-season rivalry game in the league, and as a result is taken out of the divisional setup. However, it's not going away — LSU and Arkansas will become each others' permanent annual interdivision rival.
As for the Bayou Bengals, they head with the other half of the old west, Mississippi State and Ole Miss, to join Florida, Georgia and South Carolina in the, you guessed it, Spurrier Division. Florida-LSU becomes a division game, the Border Bash and Cocktail Party are preserved, and the SEC has a chance to ride recent events and possibly build two more rivalries in MSU-Florida (Dan Mullen vs. Urban Meyer) and USC-Ole Miss (back-to-back Gamecock railroadings of quality Rebel squads).
Along with LSU-Arkansas, the other annual interdivision games are Alabama-Mississippi State (the two closest SEC schools by geography), Auburn-Georgia (The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry), Tennessee-Florida, Vandy-Ole Miss and Kentucky-USC.
Are some quality annual games lost? Yes — Alabama-LSU immediately jumps out, but the two will still play each other, albeit less frequently, and it's highly likely that the two will meet often on the first Saturday in December at the Georgia Dome.
It would be extremely easy for all parties involved to use the logic of "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" and leave everything be, but a divisional shakeup is something that could bring a lot of benefits.
___________________________________________
Bryant Division
Alabama
Auburn
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Kentucky
Arkansas
Spurrier Division
South Carolina
Florida
Georgia
LSU
Ole Miss
Mississippi State