So starting in 2023 FSU has home and homes with LSU, Bama and Georgia along with the annual Florida game.
SEC SEC SEC
Sometime around 1985-86, either
Sport magazine or
Inside Sports magazine had an article and a map of how college sports conferences should be arranged. Back then, there were a ton of good independents in football -- so one of the main thrusts of the article was to fit all those independents into conferences with what could be (or already were) natural rivalries. They also took colleges already in conferences and placed them into other conferences with natural rivals. Lastly, they broke through the ceiling of what, at the time, seemed to be a traditional conference limit of 10 teams by proposing several 12- and 14-team conferences.
I really wish I could find that map, or at least that article, online somewhere because it had some cool, ahead-of-their-time ideas. I remember clearly them slotting Notre Dame into the Big Ten (which was/is obvious and something people talked about forever, probably back to the Knute Rockne days).
They also had Florida State entering the SEC to join Florida as a natural rival. IMHO, I wish that would've happened, and then South Carolina joining Clemson in the ACC.
They presaged the joining of (part of) the old SWC with a portion of the Big 8. It was different than what ended up happening in real life -- I think they made a 14-team team SWC by using the then-current 9 members with OU, OSU, KU, KSU, and Nebraska. Something like that. Missouri and Iowa State ended up in the Big Ten, too, I think.
They did a re-arranged WAC, putting San Diego State into the Pac-10, and putting Colorado into the WAC. Boise State wasn't even on the radar yet, so no soup for them at the time. IIRC, they also maintained a Big East alongside the ACC -- no putting Penn State, Rutgers, and Maryland into the Big 10, say. I want to say that WVU was put in the Big 10, but I'm not positive on that.
I really wish I could find that article. It was a cool what-if? back then, and would be interesting to compare their ideas to what actually came to pass in the future. If any one used to read those magazines back then (should be likely given this crowd), you may recall this map and remember that it was done in pastel tones of blue, pink, and yellow. The state outlines were not exactly geographically accurate -- they were stylized and the state borders were broad white lines.
Glad they finally figured that out...there was talk about a neutral site instead.
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