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Alabama, Tennessee, and the Future of Rivalries in the SEC

The SEC still has a scheduling problem.

Despite the recent release of the planned conference schedule through the year 2025, the SEC has a scheduling problem that it must address if the conference wishes to keep pace in modern college football. There are several causes of this problem: the need for seven (at a minimum) well-attended home games to provide a consistent revenue stream; additional division games due to conference expansion; and the desire to win six games and ensure a trip to a bowl game. One issue that should not have a role in the SEC's scheduling dilemma is traditional cross-division rivalry games.

College football is a sport soaked-through with tradition. In a world that is morphing around us, anything in life that is unchanged is soothing to society. In the South, college football is this security blanket. We can attend, cheer, and celebrate our favorite team's games just the way our grandmothers and grandfathers did 50 years ago. Over the years, for geographic or competitive reasons, some games have risen above the rest as landmarks in our college football lives.

The problem of how to maintain these rivalry games in the era of conference expansion is not new. The yearly Oklahoma-Nebraska game was altered in 1996 when the Big 8 and the remnants of the SWC were merged to form the Big XII. These two teams have been among the most successful throughout the history of college football. They have played a total of 86 times, and have won a combined 90 conference titles.

But they have met only ten times since the creation of the Big XII. This game was further altered when Nebraska left the Big XII for the B1G in 2011. They are scheduled to meet again in 2021 and 2022, but outside of these two games, there is little hope that one of the nation’s oldest and most meaningful rivalries will exist with any regularity in the future.

Similarly to the Oklahoma-Nebraska game, the Alabama-Tennessee rivalry is currently under siege. For Alabama fans, perhaps no game surpasses the historical significance of the Tennessee game. Occurring every year in the middle of October, this game has traditionally provided the litmus test to indicate if a national championship was something that dare be dreamt of. Lose, and it was not in the cards; win, and the chance to become legendary was in front of you, ready for the taking. These two are unquestionably the most successful teams in SEC history, combining for 43 conference titles and 21 national titles. Only the recent struggles of Tennessee and the historic success of Alabama have brought the "fairness" of a yearly game between the two into question by other teams in the league.

Heroes are born and kings toppled in these games. Paul Bryant famously played in the 1935 Tennessee game with a broken leg. When Phillip Doyle walked into Neyland Stadium on Oct. 20, 1990, he was simply Alabama's place-kicker. He walked out a legend after making a 48-yard field goal as time expired to give heavy underdog Alabama the win. Mike Shula led Alabama to a 10-win season as head coach in 2005. Yet, his tenure began to sputter to a halt when he refused to go for a potential game-winning touchdown on 4th and goal late in the 2006 game. Instead, he chose to kick an easy field goal, despite the protests of his own players. Alabama would go on to lose 16-13, and he would never be able to win back the respect of his players or the fans.

These are the kind of historic events that can only occur in a game with the meaning of a fierce, desperate rivalry. The outcomes of these games affect the lives of people across all of college football each and every year. But the best thing about these emotions is that they are not unique to Alabama and Tennessee fans. Whether you are loyal to Tuscaloosa, Oxford, or Athens, you have experienced these things firsthand. The elation as a last-second field goal sails through the uprights. The desperate hope of a miracle play in the 4th quarter that will swing the momentum of the game. To put it simply, these games are too important to disappear as a yearly occurrence.

As humans with an uncertain future, the past is all we have to identify who we are and where we have been. The house we grew up in, our first car, the high school we graduated from -- all these things make up who we are and mark our own progress through time. In our college football lives, these rivalry games represent the same important milestone events.

So, to all Alabama and Tennessee fans, enjoy the importance of these games and the nervousness you feel deep in your gut as the seconds tick down to kickoff. And to all other fans (particularly those residing in southeast Louisiana), enjoy your own rivalry games, and leave this one alone.

A FanPost gives the opinion of the fan who writes it and that fan only. That doesn't give the opinion more or less weight than any other opinion on this blog, but the post does not necessarily reflect the view of TSK's writers.

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