AU vs. Washington State rumor

WJOX in Bham and the Seattle Times reported yesterday that Auburn and Washington State have been working with ESPN to put together a package that brings Washington State into Jordan-Hare for the 2006 Season Opener. This would be a similar deal to the Oregon State vs. LSU arrangement that ESPN brokered in 2004.

This is still in the Rumor stages because the Seattle Times says it's all but a done deal while the Huntsville Times says it isn't. Regardless, it's nice to see SEC teams using the 12th game to think outside of the box.

[Photo: Ryan Leaf's old school to hit the plains?]

So far, all the powerhouses in the SEC -- except Florida -- seem to be working hard to either use the 12th game to continue their tradition of scheduling at least 1 solid non-rival OCC game a year (Tennessee, Auburn and Bama have been good at this lately with games versus Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Southern Cal, Georgia Tech, UCLA, etc) or they are using it as an opportunity to begin doing so. UGA falls into the later category scheduling Arizona State ('08 and '09) and Colorado ('06 and '10). Spurrier and the Gamecocks have also been trying to book UNC for an extended series.

Upcoming SEC Non-Rival OCC Games of Interest:
Alabama vs. Penn State - 2013/2014
Arkansas vs. Southern Cal - 2005/2006
LSU vs. Arizona - 2006
LSU vs. Arizona State - 2008
Ole Miss vs. Wake - 2006/2008
Ole Miss vs. GT - 2010/2011
MSU vs. West Virginia - 2006/2007
UT vs. Cal - 2006/2007
UT vs. UCLA - 2008/2009
UT vs. NCSU - 2008/2012
Source: NationalChamps.net

Also, UGA is rumored to be talking with UCLA for a two game series in the 2011-2013 time frame.

Tweet