Texas A&M is traveling to LSU this weekend to take on Lane Kiffin’s Tigers for their first road trip of this young season, and they are in need of a win in the worst way. Wins are hard to come by for the visitors in Tiger Stadium, however— the Aggies got their first win in Baton Rouge as a member of the SEC only last year.
Even though they traveled to face off with LSU last season, though, they are doing so again for the second straight season. This is highly irregular for a conference opponent— the normal pattern is to swap back and forth, year by year, so that there is an even split of home and away games.
Indeed, up until this year, that is the pattern that the Aggies have followed in their games against the Tigers. Starting with the game at Kyle Field in 2012, A&M and LSU have rotated between College Station and Baton Rouge every year up until this one— so what gives?
SEC’s scheduling shift has now given Texas A&M a raw deal with LSU matchup
It all has to do with the SEC’s shift to a nine-game conference schedule this past offseason. The SEC had to move away from a divisional model when Texas and Oklahoma joined the conference, scrapping the old East and West divisions, thanks in large part to the impracticality of either 1) putting Texas or Oklahoma in the SEC East or 2) switching an existing SEC West team to the East…