Alabama and Ole Miss played a 7th conference game during the 70's when 6 were the standard for the 10-team league. Those games did not help or hurt either team in the SEC standings by rule. It would be hard to get any SEC East team to voluntarily play an extra game against Alabama if it lessened their chances of a title or a bowl game, but it might not hurt as bad if the bowls were seeded.
Respectfully, you've got this a tiny bit wrong.
The rule prior to 1970 was that to remain in conference you had to schedule A MINIMUM of six SEC games, and the ADs were in charge of this, which is why Alabama did not play Ole Miss for nearly two decades (and vice versa. It was similar with LSU). Of course, the six-game schedule was the relic of the days there was a 12-team SEC that included Tulane and Ga Tech. Obviously once those teams left the SEC, it was much more difficult for teams to schedule six conference games or avoid each other.
In 1966, for example, Alabama and UGA split the SEC title despite UGA (technically) only playing five conference games. They spot UGA a break because they had had the Tech game scheduled for years, and the Yellow Jackets had left the SEC late enough that it was impossible for UGA to find a conference opponent (Ole Miss played 7 SEC games that year, and they couldn't schedule Alabama because of the "cool down" period following the alleged fix).
In 1970, the SEC began exerting a bit more control over the conference schedule (they basically said in 1966 for everyone to get things in order because changes were coming). One of the changes was that since it was now a 10-team conference, they reduced mandatory conference games from six to five.
What eventually happened was a complaint about Alabama "gaming" the system, which - in fact - we did.
In 1972, we won the SEC by 1/2 game over Auburn despite losing the infamous Punt Bama Punt game.
Why did we win? Because we played eight conference games to their seven.
In 1977, we won the SEC by 1/2 game over Kentucky, but it wouldn't have mattered as UK was ineligible. Both teams were unbeaten.
On May 27, 1980, the SEC, Big Eight, Orange and Sugar Bowls met in Palm Beach, Florida to discuss several related issues. One was a potential swap between the Big Eight and SEC regarding which team went to which bowl. The conferences and the bowl games both realized the potential of repetitive bowl games, so they decided to see if they could reach an agreement on last-minute swaps. Obviously, this never happened.
At the same meeting, the SEC considered two requests by the football folks:
1) going to an 8-game conference schedule starting in 1988
2) set the conference champion on the basis of NO MORE THAN six conference games
Just by chance, Alabama and Ole Miss were scheduled to play SEVEN conference games in 1980-81. So the obvious solution was simply to declare those non-conference games because getting an opponent at a late date was next to impossible back then (these games had been scheduled in the mid-70s).
So you're correct that Alabama and Ole Miss played games that didn't count towards the conference - in 80 and 81.
But the mandatory games were only five (not six), and the games DID count in the standings, which is why we won the 1972 SEC title.
