Tramel's ScissorTales: Could Alabama be an annual OU opponent in SEC's 3-6-6 model?

ESPN reports that momentum mounts for the Southeastern Conference to play a nine-game league football schedule when OU and Texas join, meaning a 3-6-6 model would be implemented.

The 3-6-6 model includes three annual opponents for every school, with the rest of the SEC rotating through twice every four seasons on each schedule.

The nine-game conference schedule means more money from ESPN, which grows as tired as the rest of us for Alabama-Chattanooga and LSU-McNeese State games.

The SEC will use a recipe of several components to determine annual opponents:

∎ Longstanding rivalries. OU-Texas, Alabama-Auburn, Georgia-Florida, Ole Miss-Mississippi State, etc. Those are rooted in granite.

∎ Geography, when possible. In other words, no great reason to have Texas A&M play South Carolina when Texas A&M-Arkansas might do.

∎ Historical scheduling balance.

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There’s the rub. The 16-team SEC will consist of eight brands that typically are higher-profile – OU, Texas and SEC legacies Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana State, Florida, Auburn and A&M. You could quibble that Ole Miss and Tennessee have had their moments over the years, or that Kentucky is an up-and-comer.

But most reasonable people can agree that if you give each school two annual opponents from within its designed group of eight, the schedule will be about as balanced as possible.

It’s also possible that consensus was reached on the nine-game schedule by requiring such balance. The non-traditional powers were believed to have supported eight-game schedules. Giving them a scheduling break might have tilted the vote in favor of nine games.

But such a plan would negate OU playing both Arkansas and Missouri every year, though both make sense for the Sooners.

OU and Missouri, who spent more than 90 years as conference mates before Mizzou left the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012, have played 96 times. That’s more than just a handful of SEC series.

OU and Arkansas are campuses separated by 243 miles. That makes them geographically closer than all but a handful of SEC pairs.

But the SEC likely will pick one or the other, not both, to match with the Sooners.

OU obviously will play Texas every year. But who else?

Georgia has Auburn and Florida.

Auburn has Georgia and Alabama.

Texas has A&M and OU.

The SEC could go many directions for the Sooners.

A&M, for instance. But reports say the Aggies and Louisiana State want to remain annual rivals. If the Aggies want LSU, the SEC might acquiesce, considering A&M wasn’t keen on Texas joining the league in the first place.

LSU and Florida have been annual rivals for 50 years, a remarkable streak considering the SEC’s scheduling quirks. Keep them together, plus give LSU an annual game against A&M, and that leaves only one option.

That’s right. Alabama.

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OU-Alabama every year. Crimson and cream vs. Crimson Tide.

The Sooners wanted the SEC, the Sooners would get the SEC.

I don’t know how Bama would react to such an assignment. I don’t know why the Tide would care. Why does Godzilla care what it eats?

But Alabama is like OU and Texas in the Big 12, like Ohio State in the Big Ten, like Southern Cal in the Pac-12. The Crimson Tide carry a lot of weight in the league office.

Would Bama politick against the Sooners as an annual rival? Maybe.

Bama has several traditional rivals. LSU-Bama has become a national game. Bama-Ole Miss is deep Deep South tradition. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is just 82 miles from Starkville, Mississippi, so Bama-Mississippi State makes a lot of sense.

I suppose the SEC could save the Alabama-LSU series instead of LSU-Florida, making the Gators an annual OU opponent, though there’s little tradition there.

Or the SEC could tell A&M it’s going to keep things regionally, making Sooners-Aggies an annual series.

No matter what, it appears the nice little trio of Texas, Arkansas and Missouri as annual opponents, which would be quite comfortable for OU football, is not likely to happen.

And Alabama every year could.

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Mike Gundy popular with OSU fans

Mike Gundy is more popular than ever. OSU basketball optimism is slipping. Cowboy Nation loves its leadership.

Those are the primary themes that emerged from Dave Hudson’s annual survey of OSU athletic fans.

Hudson is a friend of mine and for more than a decade has queried OSU fans on a variety of subjects. This year, 1,476 fans responded.

These are the highlights:

∎ OSU fans predict an average of 8.8 wins in 2022, the highest guess since 2017. Vegas has the over/number for Cowboy wins at 8.

∎ Fans give OSU victory probabilities for the following games: Arkansas-Pine Bluff 98%, Central Michigan 92%, at Kansas 91%, Arizona State 85%, Texas Tech 75%, West Virginia 74%, Iowa State 71%, at Texas Christian 71%, Texas 63%, at Kansas State 63%, at Baylor 53%, at OU 46%.

Using those probabilities, OSU has a 1.8% chance of going undefeated. The 46% chance of a Bedlam road victory is the highest in the 12-year history of the survey.

∎ Fans list the following order for their preference of expanding with current Pac-12 members: Oregon, Utah, Washington, Arizona State, Arizona, Colorado, Stanford, Washington State, Oregon State, California.

Solid list. My only quibble would be moving Stanford above the Arizona schools.

∎ OSU fans say the conference realignment of the last 14 months leaves these schools or leagues in this order of improving their stock: SEC, Big Ten, OSU, OU, Texas, Atlantic Coast Conference, Pac-12.

Sorry, but I can’t agree. The financial uncertainties remain for the Big 12. The Cowboys’ optimism should not be so high, from a strict money standpoint.

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∎ OSU fans say their most desired placement in future conference realignment goes in this order: Expanded Big 12, SEC, Big Ten, ACC.

∎ On the future of Bedlam, only 27.3% of fans want to keep the football series alive, down from 27.5 last year. On the future of all other Bedlam sports, 60.1% want to keep it alive, up from 49.7 last year.

You know my feelings. Everyone on any side that wants to dismantle rivalries are enemies of the sport.

∎ Baylor replaced Texas as the second-most favorite game to win, behind Bedlam.

∎ Fans picked the following Big 12 standings: OSU, Baylor, OU, Texas, Kansas State, Iowa State, TCU, West Virginia, Texas Tech, Kansas. The top three all were relatively close, much like the preseason media poll.

∎ Forty-two percent of fans said OSU will play in a national title game sometime in the next 10 years. In 2012, 89% of fans said the Cowboys would make the title in the next decade, and that total remained above 57% the next six years. But the previous three years, those totals have been 43%, 38% and 24%.

Making the title game is hard. Incredibly hard

∎ Gundy’s approval rating is 95%, back to around where it was from 2011-18. The previous two years, it checked in at 68% and 78%.

∎ Basketball coach Mike Boynton’s approval rating was 70%, after four straight years in the 90s. Athletic director Chad Weiberg’s approval rating was 87%, higher than predecessor Mike Holder ever achieved.

∎ OSU president Kayse Shrum ranked No. 2 in approval rating, ahead of all but Gundy among coaches and administrators. Predecessor Burns Hargis was popular but never ranked higher than No. 4.

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Maine travelblog: Missing out on Leominster

We made it home from Maine in the wee hours of Monday morning, a day late, but the silver lining was an extra day in New England.

But I missed a golden opportunity. A massive blunder. I’ve been kicking myself since I discovered my snafu.

The backstory. Our Saturday night flight from Portland, Maine, to Chicago was canceled, and Southwest rebooked us for a Monday flight. Uh, think again. Instead, I got us a Sunday night flight to Chicago from Manchester, New Hampshire, 95 miles away. With no rental cars available in Portland, we Ubered to Manchester.

All of which meant we awakened Sunday with an open day before we had to be back at the Manchester airport around 5 p.m.

We loved our trip to New England two years ago, but the one thing we didn’t really do was spend time in Brattleboro, Vermont, just across the New Hampshire state line. So Sunday, we drove through southwestern New Hampshire to Brattleboro.

Turns out, Brattleboro was sort of a dud. Aesthetically pleasing, hard by the Connecticut River. But not all that much going on. Crowded downtown, with both cars and walking tourists, for reasons I still can’t figure out.

We walked the several blocks of downtown in less than 30 minutes, with nothing much to capture our fancy, then headed out. We stopped on the edge of town and grabbed a pizza at Ramunto’s, which has several New England locations, and it was quite good after a week of eating seafood.

With extra time on our hands, we decided to drive the 10 miles or so south to Massachusetts and cut across that commonwealth going east toward Boston, before heading back up to Manchester.

Massachusetts was interesting. We loved western Massachusetts two years ago, and eastern Mass was captivating, too. Perhaps not as visually stimulating as Vermont or as charming as the villages of New Hampshire, but still a nice way to spend the day.

We drove about an hour east toward Leominster, which is some 40 miles from Boston, then turned off and drove north back into New Hampshire, eventually through Nashua and on to the Manchester airport.

The highlight of the day was both drives through New Hampshire. The hamlets are pristine, the views idyllic. I don’t know why things change so dramatically when you cross into or out of Vermont or Massachusetts or even Maine. Nothing against those states. All are wonderful places. But New Hampshire is tops. Probably my favorite state in the union.

We made our flight with ease, took the late Chicago-to-OKC flight and landed about 12:20 a.m. Were home by 1:10 a.m. or so.

Then Monday morning, I discovered my error.

Leominster is the hometown of Mark Daigneault.

And even worse, I knew but had forgotten, that the Thunder coach’s family long has owned an Italian restaurant in Leominster.

I could have had lunch at the Daigneault family restaurant, Il Camino. Skip the pizza in Brattleboro and an hour later I could have been dining in Leominster.

Opportunity missed. What an oversight on my part.

I’ll try to do better next time.

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Mailbag: Dillon Gabriel & Roman Gabriel

Dillon Gabriel will quarterback the Sooners this season, and OU fans are fascinated by the name.

Matt: “I noticed today that Dillon Gabriel has a brother named Roman, and of course that begs the question if they are related to the great Roman Gabriel, quarterback of the Rams and Eagles. Great story potential here! He was in several John Wayne movies as well. Thought you might be interested.”

Tramel: I remember well Roman Gabriel. Loved him with the Los Angeles Rams. North Carolina State graduate. Good looks. Hollywood connections.

Alas, there’s apparently no close family connection with Dillon Gabriel, whose father, Garrett, was a University of Hawaii quarterback.

Roman Gabriel’s father was a Filipino immigrant who settled in North Carolina. Garrett Gabriel settled in Hawaii but migrated to the Islands from the U.S. mainland.

Roman Gabriel was an N.C. State star and was the second overall pick in the 1962 NFL Draft, by the Rams, with whom he played 11 seasons. Then Gabriel spent five seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Gabriel was the 1969 NFL most valuable player. He twice led the league in touchdown passes. Not a superstar. Not a Hall of Famer. But a really good quarterback with a glorious name.

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The List: NBA national television appearances

The NBA schedule has been released, and the defending champion Warriors play a whopping 30 national-television games – games broadcast on ABC, ESPN or TNT. Here are the top 10:

1. Warriors 30: America can’t get enough Steph Curry.

2. Lakers 27: America can get enough of the Lakers and usually do. But West Coast teams generally have a better chance at national television, for the back end of ESPN and TNT doubleheaders.

3. Celtics 25: Boston in contention is good business for the NBA. Now, about those Knickerbockers.

4. 76ers 23: Joel Embiid and James Harden are ratings winners.

4. Bucks 23: Often overlooked, despite the 2021 championship, but TV loves Giannis Antetokounmpo.

6. Suns 22: Phoenix has yet to slip from grace, after its playoff meltdown last spring.

7. Mavericks 21: Luka Doncic, Luka Doncic, Luka Doncic.

8. Clippers 20: The biggest TV mystery. Why aren’t more people bullish on the Clips? I probably will pick the Clippers to win the NBA title.

9. Grizzlies 18: Can Memphis replicate the Thunder success story of a decade ago? The Grizzlies are on the path, but the hard part (four Western Conference finals) is ahead.

10. Nuggets 16: Just when you think the Eastern Conference is making inroads, here comes this list, with seven of the top 10 from the West.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today. 

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Could 9-game SEC football schedule mean OU-Alabama series every year?