Not sure why everyone hates pods - nobody seems to mind the NFL which is the same thing but "worse" in terms of duplicity of home and homes within "pods". They seem to make the most sense to me.
From all the media here in Texas during the SEC expansion news, I would be surprised if they grouped TAMU and TEX together. I think TAMU would fight that, so I would imagine:
South: MSU, OM, LSU, TAMU
West: TEX, OU, MIZ, ARK
North/Central: TENN, VANDY, BAMA, AUB
East: UGA, SCAR, FLA, UK
That seems generally "fair" across the board. Auburn can get competitive and Tennessee can't be terrible forever, right? UGA would have a pretty easy route, but FLA should come back at some point.
It just seems hard to get a 16 team conference (of which 66% of the National Champions have come from since the BCS era) boiled down to 2. It was nearly a nightmare for the B12 this season and that was only with 10 teams. You almost have to go to a 9 (or maybe 10) game schedule to make sure a coin toss or another goofy-*** tiebreaker doesn't decide the fate. After that, its SEC championship game and 3 CFP if we really move to 8 teams.
We are looking at a 16 game NCAA schedule. Is that too much? To keep it to 14 or less, there would be no more cupcake games. Essentially killing a lot of G5 programs dependent on that money. ESPN would love it though, better content.