Oklahoma football: SEC may scrap divisional format when Sooners arrive
By Chip Rouse
While all focus currently within the Oklahoma football program is on competing well and winning as member school in the Big 12, the SEC is busy at work considering alignment and scheduling when the Sooner and Texas join that conference.
The Sooners are about to close out a second season after announcing their plans to leave the Bog 12 for the Southeastern Conference. Whether OU and Texas will depart after next season or the year after is unclear, although Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said recently he fully expects both schools will fulfill their obligation and not leave the Big 12 before June 30, 2025, when the current media rights agreement expires.
Earlier in the planning process, there was talk that the SEC was considering going with an expanded divisional format that would add two more four-team divisions, or pods, to the current two-division structure comprised of seven teams each.
Considering natural rivalries and geographical factors, a couple of divisional alignments were being floated, both keeping the Sooners and Longhorns together in the same pod.
One idea was along geographic lines, which would combine, OU, Texas, Missouri and Arkansas. Another possibility was to put Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M and Missouri together on one of the pods based on historical considerations.
The way the schedule would work in a four-pods structure, you would play the three teams in your pod every season and two teams in the other three pods based on a rotational schedule as part of a nine-game conference schedule.
It appears now, however, that the SEC is leaning more in favor of scrapping the idea of having divisions or pods altogether.
According to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, the idea now is to go with one 16-team division when Oklahoma and Texas join the conference.
The conference “is leaning to move to a one-division model,” Sankey said recently.
"“We right now are not thinking about maintaining a two-division format for football scheduling in the SEC.“It would potentially be one single division with the idea we want to rotate our teams through our campuses more frequently,” he said."
Going in this direction would align the SEC with other Power 5 conferences in the Big 12 and Pac-12. Both of those conferences have the two top teams, based on records and head-to-head tiebreaker outcomes, play for the conference championship.
A final decision has not been made on this issue, but this is the way SEC officials are looking at the issue at this point in time. Sankey did not confirm nor comment whether the OU-Texas rivalry would remain an annual affair.