The Auburn Tigers-Georgia Bulldogs football rivalry isn't going anywhere.
The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry lives on.
USA Today's Blake Toppmeyer relayed the SEC's positive view on AU-UGA, the Third Saturday in October matchup between Alabama and Tennessee, and other 1A rivalries.
"Light the cigars, folks, and score a noteworthy step toward the preservation of SEC rivalry games," Toppmeyer wrote.
"A longstanding discussion point around SEC circles has been that, unless the conference moves to a nine-game conference schedule, prominent secondary rivalry games like Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia could fall off the annual schedule.
"But, there’s a conference schedule model on the table that would preserve multiple annual rivalry games for at least some SEC schools, even within an eight-game conference schedule format.
"Alabama-Tennessee, Auburn-Georgia and Texas-Texas A&M are among the rivalry games that could be preserved within a continued eight-game format."
In an everchanging college football world, where the Big 12 is a zombie amalgamation of bits of the former Pac-12, former AAC schools, and an independent (BYU), and the Atlantic Coast Conference got itself pieces of northern California schools from the Pac-12, familiarity is nice.
The SEC has already accepted a decade and a half of change, with Texas A&M and Missouri preceding Texas and Oklahoma's arrivals in 2024. The "It Just Means More" fanbases can use a bit of tradition.
Moving to nine conference games is the fairest way to settle who should get an auto-qualifier bid considering other conferences play that many. The SEC has gotten away with it for a while, but the expanded College Football Playoff are times the conference needs to change with.
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