Potential Auburn football negative side effect #4: Red River Showdown becomes a primary SEC rivalry
Look, we recognize the historical significance of the Red River Showdown. While we won’t go as far as to say it’s the best rivalry in the country considering the near-six hour drive it takes to get from Norman, Oklahoma to Austin, Texas, and vice versa, we won’t be dense and say it doesn’t deserve consideration as a top 5 college football rivalry.
But, there’s zero (0) SEC history. That’s a Big 12/8/7/SWC formerly interconference rivalry. There’s a good chance that despite all of this, the rivalry could be given an extra spotlight due to the two teams being the new kids on the block.
That’d do a disservice to the teams that had a hand in making the SEC what it is and made it the premier conference in the country.
Potential Auburn football negative side effect #5: Who does AU play each year?
With two more SEC teams, that brings us to a grand total of 16 programs between the West and East divisions.
What does that mean for the schedule? We know Georgia is an annual schedule definite, and there are four non-conference games baked into the slate each year. So that means inter-division games would be a thing of the past or you wouldn’t play your entire division each season.
There’s a lot of scheduling headaches resulting from OU and UT joining the SEC.