LSU/Tennessee is not a traditional rivalry. But it is a matchup of two of the Southeastern Conference’s most storied football programs, and let’s be honest, it’s the SEC. Every game is a rivalry. Before conference realignment in 2012, the SEC expanded to 12 teams in 1992 and they’ve played an eight-game conference schedule ever since. With that eight-game conference schedule, teams would play five games against their division, then three games against the opposite division.
Starting in 2000, teams would still play three teams from the opposite division, with one of the games locked every year and the other two rotating between the other five teams in the division.