Eliminate interdivision games, play home-and-home series
I'm zero-for-three on suggestions for Southeastern Conference headquarters in Birmingham.
This summer, I proposed a conference divisional realignment. It fell on deaf ears. I came up with football rivalry trophy concepts in September. USC will play Georgia in Athens 144 days from now, and we still don't have a "Peach Basket" to award the victor. Last month, I ruminated on a potential new format for the SEC men's basketball tournament. It, of course, has gone nowhere.
Another idea hit me Sunday at Carolina Stadium — the league needs to change the way it schedules its regular season in baseball.
South Carolina's three-game series with SEC East rival Vanderbilt this weekend was tremendous. All three sellout crowds got more than their money's worth. Each game was well-played, intense, exciting and compelling. After the Gamecocks put a wrap on the series win with a 5-3 victory in Game 3, I heard several times in the press box, out in the stands and on Twitter how great it would be if USC and Vandy could meet again in the SEC Tournament or College World Series.
You know what I thought? Why can't they both meet again in, say, a week or two?
The point of a division is to group teams and have them compete against each other at a greater frequency than teams not in the division. That's not what happens with SEC baseball. USC plays each of its divisional foes exactly three times for a total of 15 games in the division. It also faces five West teams in three-game series for a total of 15 games.
That should change. Instead, the SEC should institute a scheduling model that harkens back to the days of Major League Baseball before interleague play and have teams play only in their division, facing divisional opponents in two series each season — one at home, one on the road — with no interdivisional games.
Such an arrangement would bring several benefits. Travel costs would be cut down, as the divisions are separated by geography, not which two football teams the league wants in the conference title game with regularity (cough, ACC and soon the Big Ten, cough). Rivalries would begin to play the role they do in other sports, where there is more focus on divisional alignment. Divisional races would be enhanced, making a division title that much more meaningful.
The Gamecocks' current situation is proof something needs to be done with the schedule. Due to a scheduling quirk, USC is done playing league games in the division for the remainder of the season. The Gamecocks will finish with five straight series against SEC West opponents, three of which will come on the road.
So, the SEC's best team at the moment (according to the national rankings) is in a divisional race but will not have a chance to play in the division again. The drama of last year's do-or-die series against Florida for the East and league titles to close the season will instead be replaced by the Gamecocks hanging out at Dreamland and playing Alabama on the season's last weekend.
No one can argue that's a good thing, or that it's smart to voluntarily prevent the stellar theater that is produced when division foes meet more than once. An unbalanced schedule would do wonders for the SEC, just as it has in the big leagues, where each team plays its divisional counterparts around 18 times a year. In fact, I wish it would go further. I'll gladly take as many Yankees-Red Sox, Cubs-Cardinals, Dodgers-Giants, Phillies-Braves and Twins-White Sox games as they can give me.
Keeping regular season games inside the division would strengthen the SEC Tournament as well. Instead of the league's top eight teams making it to Regions Park in Hoover, Ala., each division's top four teams would make it. Both divisions would be put into pools. All four teams play each other, and the pool winners meet up in a best-of-three SEC "World Series," with the two divisions finally meeting to see which is stronger.
It would be great if the Gamecocks meet Vanderbilt. But fans shouldn't have to hope things fall right in Hoover or rely on the cosmos aligning in Omaha. Rather, they should've been able to head home Sunday knowing another showdown, and three more great games, were scheduled for Nashville in the coming days.