I heard on the radio this morning that Georgia and Mississippi State have played only 23 times, despite being charter members of the same conference since 1932. Are there any other two schools in a conference that play this seldomly?

(09-20-2017 06:25 AM)Hokie4Skins Wrote:  I heard on the radio this morning that Georgia and Mississippi State have played only 23 times, despite being charter members of the same conference since 1932. Are there any other two schools in a conference that play this seldomly?

Depends on how exactly you define seldomly (e.g., absolute vs. relative), over which time periods, conference size, divisional structure, conference schedule, etc.

(09-20-2017 06:25 AM)Hokie4Skins Wrote:  I heard on the radio this morning that Georgia and Mississippi State have played only 23 times, despite being charter members of the same conference since 1932. Are there any other two schools in a conference that play this seldomly?

Due to expansion, coupled with a division structure that allows only one non-permanent crossover opponent each year, the ACC may well have this kind of frequency (or lack thereof) in the future. But I can't think of any cases of charter members meeting so infrequently.

Georgia Tech used to refuse to go to Mississippi to play football. I suspect some of the same is true with UGa.

From 1933 to until their expansion to 12 school they never played a round robin. If you check the records you will see the SEC title going to schools with conference records of 4-1, 6-0-1, and 5-2, etc. They had 12 schools in the conference until GT dropped in 64, and Tulane then dropped in 66, iirc the dates correctly.

When the SEC was formed we had 13 members. Sewanee dropped out early on (1940) leaving 12. In 1964 Georgia Tech became independent. In 1966 Tulane became independent. From the time it was founded the SEC schools basically played about 6 conference games but that was not set in stone. There are many times you find in the old records that one school might have played as many as 7 conference games and another might have only played 5 in any one given year.

It's wasn't the highly organized collective that it is today. Standardization was not seen as a high priority, and certainly not one that would curtail each school's right to schedule as they saw fit.

Railroads were the main transportation to games and was one of the chief reasons that the old Southern Conference split into the ACC and SEC. I highly doubt that there was a direct rail route between Athens and Starkville.

Until the SEC broke into divisions Auburn seldom played L.S.U.. In 1992 playing everyone on a rotational basis became the norm and 7 (later 8) conference games became the norm.

So for those born from the mid 80's on the only memory they would have would be of their schools playing all of the other conference schools on some kind of regular basis.

Until the 80's most SEC schools had 5 core schools they would play in a 6 game conference schedule.

Auburn played Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi State, and independent Georgia Tech every year from the early 50's until 1978 when Tech joined the ACC and the other 5 until we went to divisions in '92 when Auburn was forced into the West. We had played Georgia Tech every year (except a year or two during WWII) since 1892. We have played Georgia every year since 1894.

So to those of us who are old timers it is not unusual that we didn't play everyone in the conference on a rotational basis. Better highways and safer air travel now makes playing those games much more reasonable than it did from the 30's through the 50's.

You'll also note that Auburn played Georgia in Columbus Georgia annually for many years and we didn't play at campus sites. The same is still true of Georgia and Florida who annually play in Jacksonville. All of these schools had such games. It is one reason that Auburn and Alabama was played in Birmingham for decades. So you might have 3 or 4 actual home campus games a year in a 9 or later 10 game schedule.

So I'd say hit the historical records files of the schools in your conference and go back to your founding and see just how much the structure of the seasons and schedules have changed. You will be fascinated, and sometimes puzzled by how disorganized college football once was.

The ACC did not play a full round robin until 1972. From 53 until 71, schools played as many as 7 and as few as 4 conference games. Schools like MD, Clemson, Duke, and UNC, loaded up on big OOC games.

Until 1966, NC State, nor VT had a decent football stadium and often played in Richmond, or the Tidewater. When WF moved from Wake Forest NC to Winston Salem, I think SC and Clemson skipped them a couple of times because the venue was so small. State often played Duke or UNC at their place because of the vastly superior facilities.

No one wanted to travel to West Virginia to play, because like VT, after mid October you never knew what the weather would be like and if you did not take rail, you took your life into your own hands.

Right, not only did the SEC not play a round robin, but it was up to the individual schools to decide which other SEC teams they would play.

They are not the only conference that used to do that, but I think they did it longer than other leagues. The Pac-8 once let schools schedule their own conference games but started playing a football round robin in 1972.

(09-20-2017 10:41 AM)Wedge Wrote:  Right, not only did the SEC not play a round robin, but it was up to the individual schools to decide which other SEC teams they would play.

They are not the only conference that used to do that, but I think they did it longer than other leagues. The Pac-8 once let schools schedule their own conference games but started playing a football round robin in 1972.

I think the Western Conference/Big 10 had the earliest thing of a near round robin, but they never achieved that either unless they did so a few years before PSU was added. They played each other but skipped a school for a long time.

Before 1973 they played 8-9 conference games, after that they all played 8 for a long time.

Georgia has only played Tennessee 46 times. And that is only because they have played the last 25 years while being in the same division. From 1899-1991 it was only 21 games. And 11 of those were 1925 or prior. It was 10 times in the 66 years prior to division play.

In 1927, NC State, GT, and Tennessee shared the Southern Conference title.

NC State was 4-0 in conference beating Clemson, Florida, UNC, and SC and beating Duke and Michigan State ooc
Tennessee was 5-0-1 in conference beating or tying UNC, Vandy, Mississippi, Sewanee, UVa, and UK
GT was 7-0-1 in conference beating VMI, Tulane, Bama, UNC, Vandy, LSU, Auburn, and tying with Georgia. they also lost to ND ooc

Carolina was the only common opponent to all 3, and Vandy was the only common opponent between TN and GT.


For the most part, Duke would not play NC State unless we played in Wallace Wade and this held from 20's until the 1950's. After 2003 we only play them once every six years. That same dynamic cuts into out games with UVa. They left the SoCon in 1936, and though they rejoined in 1954, after 2003 we only play them once every six years.