The SEC has been at the forefront of this latest round of realignment movement. When the additions of Oklahoma and Texas become official, the conference will have seven teams that have won BCS or College Football Playoff titles along with various other playoff or title game appearances. However, in realigning my SEC, I did not want a bloated 16-team league, so I cut it down to 12, which includes one of the historically great programs. As always, shoutout to Ben for helping out with this series. 

The New-Look SEC:

West: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU,  Mississippi State, Ole Miss

East: Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

If you remember from previous articles, I sent Texas A&M and Missouri back where they truly belong, and not for one second were Oklahoma and Texas considered to be added to the SEC. 

It was a good conversation between Ben and I as to what team we could add that would be worthy of being placed into the SEC after cutting the Aggies and Tigers. We almost wanted to cut Vanderbilt and go with a 10-team conference but decided that would be too much. We came close to adding another Tiger team — Clemson — but we decided that adding Florida State would be the proper move, closing out a loop that was formed all the way back in Part 2.

Geography wise, it just makes sense. Missouri as a team in the East Division was always strange to me, so it gets the boot while the Seminoles step in. They already have a rivalry with the Gators, and with their annual end of the season matchup a conference game, it only adds more fuel to the fire. As for on-field performance, it’s still shocking to me that it was not that long ago that Florida State beat Auburn in the 2013 BCS National Championship Game and followed that with an appearance in the inaugural College Football Playoff and two New Year’s Six Bowl game appearances. Since then, the Seminoles have drastically fallen off, with only two bowl appearances in the last six seasons with an Independence Bowl win in 2017 and a Sun Bowl loss in 2019. So it could be argued that throwing them into the SEC would be a terrible idea. However, I think it could work wonders. 

Clemson runs the ACC, and Miami suddenly has the financial support it has desperately needed along with a coach who knows how to win in Mario Cristobal. Florida State has shown slight improvement ever since its head coach Mike Norvell arrived in 2020. But there is still the lingering expectation that Florida State should be battling for the conference title, not wallowing in its decline. If the Noles were dropped into the SEC however, that would dampen expectations greatly and allow the program the proper time and resources (that SEC money hits different) to get back to their glory days. Either that or they become a punching bag for their new conference opponents.