Mississippi State HC Mike Leach would rather have Texas and Oklahoma on the schedule and see Alabama and Auburn football head to the SEC East and said as much at SEC Media Days 2022, proclaiming that ‘if Alabama and Auburn move to the East and then we have to play Texas and Oklahoma instead, that works out quite well for us.’
Leach has a 1-1 record against the Tigers and an 0-2 record against the Crimson Tide as head coach of the MSU Bulldogs. He lost to Gus Malzahn in Starkville during the 2020 pandemic-stricken college football season but marched into Jordan-Hare Stadium last November and stunned first-year HC Bryan Harsin’s squad after going down 28-3 at one point in the first half.
Texas and Oklahoma will be making their way to the SEC in 2025, with the Big 12 becoming pretty stacked in 2023 when UCF, Cincinnati, BYU, and Houston make the jump from the Group of 5 to the Power Five. With the SEC expanding, there have been talks of pods as well as changing the current SEC East/SEC West alignment to make more logical geographic sense.
If Alabama and Auburn football were sent elsewhere in either arrangement, it’s clear that Leach would cherish the chance to face schools outside of the Yellowhammer State — which tends to produce the most daunting road environments and hardest trench battles.
Auburn football could use a switch to the SEC East
Year in and year out, Auburn has one of, if not the, hardest schedule of any team in the country. Typically, teams like Arkansas are right behind them. It’s not rocket science as to why that is; the SEC West is the most stacked division of any in the country.
The SEC East outside of defending champs Georgia, Kentucky in recent years (though questionable for the long haul), and a burgeoning Tennessee, looks pretty weak in comparison and has never been collectively stronger than their counterparts in the west.
By the time realignment rolls around once more, it’s more likely that an Arch Manning-led Texas will have it figured out than Billy Napier’s Florida Gators. Shane Beamer may have cooked up something nice in Columbia, SC, by 2025 but Brian Kelly more likely will have really been able to figure out how to whip up a nice Bayou recruiting masterpiece of a future class, and then stacked several up over time.
Fly War Eagle would love what Leach is describing.