I see and understand your point JRSec; however, I agree with H1 about Tennessee dying in that division. It is getting to the point that current recruits don't even remember a strong Tennessee squad as the Fulmer years fade in the rear view mirror. The strongest SEC schools since 2000 are all in that south division, and all their MNC the last couple decades, except LSU and their 2 MNC. That division would be by far the strongest and most cutthroat in CFB. They would beat each other senseless and one or two schools are going to become mostly mediocre (or worse) and likely Tennessee would never recover it's former glory. I think those schools would actually end up not wanting to be in that division together due to it being hard to maintain the level of success they are used to, but if the rivalries are that important, more power to them. That division should get it's own TV contract if it happened!!

OU dropped NU and that was arguably the most significant rivalry in CFB in the 70's and 80's because they thought keeping that game and playing in the B12 south division would be too difficult. If conferences are going to realign properly and fairly some schools will have to let go of the past. If OU/NU, KU/MU, UT/A&M, and WVU/Pitt could all end then I think some of those schools would be okay with playing each other every few years. At least the rivalry would not be dead. I could be completely wrong though. I don't live in SEC country.

The north division is weak and reminds me of the B12 north division. The west is really competitive and good though. Maybe break it like this:

East
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Duke

Central
Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, MSU

West (same as yours)
LSU, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Baylor, Missouri, Mississippi

I'd just keep one protected rivalry game, if it was a deal breaker. Sometimes you have to compromise to make things fair and competitive. Say 5 games versus your division, 3 versus one of the other divisions and 1 protect rivalry. That way you would play each school in the other divisions at least once every 4 years and in 8 years a full cycle of home/home. I think those divisions give the SEC the best chance to have its best 4 schools (3 division winners and 1 at large in its conference semis) and the networks would be happy because the biggest names would likely continue to have great success to drive their ratings. You could always switch MU or Arkansas to keep the Mississippi schools together too if you did not keep a rivalry game out of division.

Divisions that are competitive and fair are hard to design as you get bigger, if nobody lets go of some annual rivalries. This one of the problems with B12 expansion back to 12. Nobody wants the old north south split because it resulted in one being the best football division in CFB and the other being the weakest in CFB. Also nobody wants to let go of annual UT and OU games for games with schools that are addable currently.

This is why I love this SEC board. Lot of interesting discussion with lots of different viewpoints (the PAC is weakly represented though), usually with some rational for why they think that way, and it usually stays very civil, unlike the main realignment board.