All teams in every conference with divisions across the country have several out-of-division or cross-division games each year. I don’t see how divisions would reduce the possibility of playing twice to any discernible degree. Happens regularly.

Because the SEC is considered such a power conference, as soon as the playoff goes to 8 or 12, there will be a STRONG possibility that they could play the same team 3 times. Once in the regular season, once in the SEC championship game, and once in the playoff. This is a conference with divisions.

Anyway, my opinion is that a division needs to have at least 8 teams to significantly reduce the chance of a chump team making it to the conference championship game.