Bret Bielema wants to see SEC have inter-conference football series
Bret Bielema is an idea man.
Earlier this offseason he expressed his desire to allow underclassmen who declare for the NFL draft but go undrafted to be able to come back to school. On Tuesday at the spring SEC meetings, Bielema said he wanted to have an inter-conference challenge for the SEC and suggested the Big Ten and ACC as possible opponents.
Arkansas’ Bret Bielema favors an SEC/Big Ten or SEC/ACC challenge in football, similar to basketball model
— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 31, 2016
So let’s have some fun with Bielema’s idea. Here’s how we’d design an SEC-Big Ten challenge. Multiple SEC and ACC teams already play each other regularly, so it’s not nearly as fun to extrapolate out that possibility.
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• Alabama-Ohio State: This one is pretty self-explanatory, don’t you think?
• LSU-Michigan: Remember all the rumors that Les Miles would be Michigan’s coach?
• Arkansas-Wisconsin: Since this is Bielema’s idea, he gets to play his former employer.
• Tennessee-Penn State: We could have suggested Vanderbilt for Penn State, but we’ll go with Tennessee.
• Florida-Nebraska: A rematch of the 1996 Fiesta Bowl sounds pretty good to us, though it would be fun to see Mizzou play Nebraska to rekindle the Big 12 fiestiness.
• Georgia-Michigan State: New Georgia coach Kirby Smart gets to face the team his defense dominated in the Cotton Bowl.
• Texas A&M-Iowa: These two programs are pretty contrasting, so they’re a good fit for a rivalry series like this.
• Ole Miss-Minnesota: You know you want to see a guy with the last name of Freeze meet the guy who ate a Dilly Bar on the sidelines.
• Missouri-Maryland: Two conference transplants can face each other. And we like the M theme.
• Mississippi State-Illinois: Yeah, we’re not sure what to say about this one other than we were needing to fill out the rest of the schedule.
• Vanderbilt-Northwestern: The academic trash talk could be fun.
• South Carolina-Purdue: Maybe Drew Brees and Steve Spurrier can come back to play quarterback for each team.
• Kentucky-Indiana: The geographic proximity makes too much sense.
Bielema also said Tuesday that all of the coaches he’d talked to about his underclassman rule were in agreement with him. Unlike the NBA draft, which has a longer period for underclassmen to declare and those who don’t sign with agents can remove themselves from draft consideration.
Bielema: Coaches he has spoked to are “100 percent” in agreement of undrafted underclassmen being allowed back to school.
— Jon Solomon (@JonSolomonCBS) May 31, 2016
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @NickBromberg
