Preserving rivalries, a case in simplicity?

Could it really be this simple? vineyarddawg takes a stab at preserving specific rivalries in the face of conference expansion.

The simplest solution, I suppose, would be to keep the 8-game conference schedule and go back to having 12 teams rather than 14 in the SEC. And personally, I would keep A&M, add Clemson, and dump Arkansas, Mizzou, and South Castlevania. Rather than make that radical suggestion that has no possibility of actually happening, however (I've already done that, for the record), I will stick to an option that is more plausible... and, in fact, makes the most sense from a scheduling standpoint.

After securing an NCAA waiver to continue having a conference championship game, the SEC should drop the divisional structure of the league. Instead of being forced into some odd "geographically aligned" divisional system that requires us to play Missouri more frequently than we play Auburn, the SEC should implement a system that allows each team to preserve its most important rivalries while giving the league the greatest amount of flexibility to rotate teams' schedules.

That solution is to assign each team in the conference 3 "permament rivals," then rotate the final 5 conference games between all of the remaining conference opponents. At the end of the season, the teams with the two best conference records (regardless of geography) would meet in Atlanta. For example, the SEC's new "preserved rivalry" lineup could look something like this (rivalries listed roughly in order of importance to each school):

Team	Rival 1	Rival 2	Rival 3
Alabama	Auburn	Tennessee	LSU
Arkansas	Texas A&M	Mizzou	Mississippi State
Auburn	Alabama	Georgia	Mizzou
Florida	Georgia	LSU	South Castlevania
Georgia	Auburn	Florida	South Castlevania
Kentucky	Tennessee	Vanderbilt	South Castlevania
LSU	Alabama	Ole Miss	Florida
Mississippi State	Ole Miss	Arkansas	Texas A&M
Missouri	Texas A&M	Arkansas	Auburn
Ole Miss	Mississippi State	LSU	Vanderbilt
South Castlevania	Georgia	Florida	Kentucky
Tennessee	Alabama	Kentucky	Vanderbilt
Texas A&M	Arkansas	Mizzou	Mississippi State
Vanderbilt	Tennessee	Kentucky	Ole Miss

See how I did that? With 5 games used to rotate between the remaining 10 teams, every school could make a complete home-and-home circuit of all conference teams in 4 seasons. And I didn't even get paid a single dollar, let alone the mind-boggling figures the geniuses in AD's offices around the conference get paid to come up with this stuff.

I'm still not pleased with expansion and would resist moving away from the "unclutteredness" of the two divisional champs meeting in Atlanta. But, vineyarddawg's solution seems to be a worthy compromise to me.