The SEC is once again on the cutting edge of college sports evolution
We have been down this road before. No one should be remotely surprised that the tidal waves of change in college sports usually have their origins in the Southeastern Conference. If the reports that originated with the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday are true, then the SEC is about to turn college sports on their ear once again.
Many credible sources have confirmed the Chronicle report that Texas and Oklahoma are ready to bolt the Big 12 Conference to join the SEC, turning what is already the most powerful league in college athletics into a virtual King Kong, particularly for football. It seemed like nothing more than a juicy rumor when first reported Thursday morning but that rumor has grown legs and taken on a life of its own in less than a day, helped by SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who essentially punted when asked if there was any truth to it. That was followed by both Texas and Oklahoma issuing rather bland, non-committal statements that neither confirmed nor denied their interest in making the move. Call them non-denial denials.
Sankey never said, “That’s just a rumor.” He never said, “We’re quite content with our current 14-team league.” He simply said he was focused on the 2021 season. This is the most powerful man in all of college sports. Had he said there is nothing to the rumor, it would have died on the vine. By basically ignoring the question, his answer spoke volumes that there is already discussion going on to expand the SEC.
When pressed for their comments, neither Texas nor Oklahoma offered a vote of confidence for the Big 12. They could have said, “We love the Big 12 and we’re eager to help negotiate a great new television contract.” They could have offered a flat-out denial, but they didn’t. They offered bland statements that essentially said they aren’t going to talk about rumors and speculation. To do so would have forced either a lie or confirmation and neither one were ready to do anything except live under the cone of silence.
When Big 12 athletic directors held a conference call Thursday evening for the purpose of getting a commitment from all member schools to sign a 5-year extension to the current media agreement, neither Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte nor Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione participated. Their absence was like throwing a couple of 50-gallon gas cans on a bonfire to the SEC speculation. To the Big 12 hopes of staving off a raid of its two most powerful members, it was an 8-inch stiletto to the heart.
That Oklahoma and Texas weren’t on the call spurred whispers from more than one industry analyst to say it’s all but a done deal that they will be leaving. If they do bolt, you can just about bet the farm that the ripples we are feeling now will soon become a tidal wave that will completely alter the college sports landscape.
That the SEC finds itself at the cutting edge of the societal evolution that is college sports should be expected. After all, it was the SEC that was the first conference to expand to 12 teams for the purpose of staging a conference championship football game. Florida State and Miami were the first choices of SEC commissioner Roy Kramer but when both said no (FSU joined the ACC in 1991, Miami stayed in the Big East until 2004), South Carolina and Arkansas were added. The first SEC Championship Game in football was held at Legion Field in Birmingham in 1992 with Florida’s Shane Matthews lighting up Alabama and nearly springing the upset of the year before the Gators fell, 28-21. Less than a month later, Alabama ended Miami’s 29-game winning streak to take the national championship.
Four years later, the Big Eight absorbed Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor and Texas A&M from the Southwest Conference to form the Big 12. The Atlantic Coast Conference added Florida State in 1991, then expanded again in 2004 to 12 teams. The Big Ten added Penn State in 1990 and expanded to 12 in 2011. The Pac-10 expanded to 12 teams in 2011 also. The SEC, ACC and Big Ten have since expanded to 14 teams.
It was the SEC that first proposed the BCS as a way of determining a national champion in football. It was the SEC under Mike Slive that first proposed a playoff. It was shot down but it led to a better format than the BCS for determining the national champ. When it came to the creation of the current 4-team College Football Playoff, again it was the SEC that led the way. It is the SEC that has also produced four of the seven champions in the 4-team playoff era.
Football is the twin V-12, 750 horsepower engines that drive the Good Ship SEC and the addition of a pair of schools that have combined to win 11 national championships (Oklahoma 7, Texas 4) will only make the SEC – winner of 12 national championships since 2003 – even more powerful than it already is. Football is the driving force behind the 10-year, $300 million a year contract the SEC has with ESPN that kicks in in 2024. That will provide a net increase of $17 million a year for each of the SEC’s 14 schools, bringing with it a payoff of $63 million a year or more per school. The network payout gap between the SEC and the Big 12 is about $7 million a year now. The Big 12 contract with Fox and ESPN expires in 2025 and there is no way a new contract will offer much more than the current $38 million-plus payout.
The SEC won’t have to hold a gun to the head of the executives of ESPN/ABC to re-negotiate the TV contract to include Texas and Oklahoma, either. The extra $40 million a year to cover the cost of two new teams will be made up in advertising revenue when Texas and Oklahoma start playing the likes of Florida, Georgia, Alabama and LSU on a yearly basis. It’s a network scheduler’s dream scenario. The SEC Game of the Week is already the best in college football. It will be even bigger with expansion. Now throw in something like an Alabama-Oklahoma SEC Championship Game? Or Florida-Oklahoma? The ad revenues from that game alone would be monstrous.
And football isn’t the only sport that would benefit. In addition to their 11 national championship history in football, Texas and Oklahoma bring a combined 82 national championships in other sports. The SEC won seven national championships in 2021. Texas won three and Oklahoma one. For example, the SEC would pick up Oklahoma’s championship level gymnastics and softball programs as well as Texas’ powerhouse baseball and swimming programs. Oklahoma has wrestling and men’s gymnastics so those programs would find a new league in the same way Florida and Vanderbilt lacrosse play in the American Athletic Conference and South Carolina men’s soccer competes in Conference USA.
Texas and Oklahoma are the cash cows of the Big 12, which will shrink from 10 to eight teams if they leave. Commissioner Bob Bowlsby would have to make some unprecedented moves to save the league from extinction. It was suggested by Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports that the league could boldly go after Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State from the Pac-12 to expand to 12 teams and offset the loss of Texas and Oklahoma. That move would be far more palatable to a TV network like Fox or CBS than raiding the American Athletic Conference for Cincinnati, Memphis, UCF and South Florida but it still won’t equal what the SEC has to offer.
If the Pac-12 were to lose four schools to the Big 12, it would face an expand-or-die mandate that might force the additions of San Diego State, Boise State, BYU and UNLV. Although those four don’t measure up academically to the rest of the Pac-12, survival will be at the core of whatever is next. Of course, the Pac-12 could move boldly and try to lure the three Texas schools – Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech – and add Oklahoma State to expand its television footprint.
Kansas, with its basketball tradition, will be a prize that the Big Ten might try to pry away but Kansas and Kansas State have always been joined at the hip. Would the Big Ten be willing to add both Kansas schools? And what happens to Iowa State?
At ACC Media Days Thursday, new commissioner Jim Phillips made it perfectly clear he’s been sending out overtures to Notre Dame, which is independent in football but an ACC member in all other men’s and women’s sports. The addition of Notre Dame and a cherry pick of West Virginia from the Big 12 would make a nice expansion to 16 teams for the ACC.
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The College Football Playoff is going to be expanding from four to 12 teams. An expanded playoff will benefit the Southeastern Conference if the league takes the right approach to league play. Currently, the SEC features two 7-team divisions. If the league were to follow the same format, it would essentially create a pair of separate conferences within the conference. Here is what a two-division league would look like:
SEC EAST
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Alabama, Auburn
SEC WEST
LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas
Obviously, there would be seven games against division teams, but it would take at least three games against teams from the opposite division to make sure that every school in the league benefits from expansion. As we’ve seen from the current format, it takes years for a team from the SEC East to play all the teams from the West. This year, for example, Florida will be playing host to Alabama. The last time Alabama came to Gainesville for a game was 2011 and the last regular season meeting between Florida and Alabama was 2014 in Tuscaloosa.
This might create an opportunity for the SEC to do something cutting edge like four 4-team quads that could ensure that every team in the league plays every single team home-and-home at least once every four years. It would mean a 9-game SEC schedule and would work like this: Using Florida as an example, joined by Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee in quad one. Florida would play Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee either home or away every single year. The Gators would then play two teams from the other three quads on a home-and-home basis. After two years, the Gators would play the other two teams from each quad home-and-home.
With the 9-game schedule, Florida would still be playing Florida State on a yearly basis and would have room to add two other non-conference games.
Here is what four 4-team quads could look like and what each quad would look like in terms of championship quality:
QUAD ONE
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee
National championships from this quad
Football (8): Tennessee (1938, 1951, 1998); Florida (1996, 2006, 2008); Georgia (1942, 1980)
Men’s basketball (2): Florida (2006, 2007)
Women’s basketball (8): Tennessee (1987, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1997, 2007, 2008); South Carolina (2017)
Baseball (4): South Carolina (2010, 2011); Florida (2017); Georgia (1990)
Softball (2): Florida (2014, 2015)
Men’s outdoor track (8): Florida (2012, 2013, 2016, 2017); Tennessee (1974, 1991, 2001); Georgia (2018)
Women’s outdoor track (2): Tennessee (1981); South Carolina (2002)
Men’s indoor track (6): Florida (2010, 2011, 2012, 2018, 2019); Tennessee (2002)
Women’s indoor track (3): Tennessee (2005, 2009); Florida (1992); Georgia (2018)
Men’s cross country (1): Tennessee (1972)
Men’s tennis (7): Georgia (1985, 1987, 1999, 2001, 2007, 2008); Florida (2021)
Women’s tennis (9): Florida (1992, 1996, 1998, 2003, 2011, 2013, 2017); Georgia (1994, 2000)
Men’s golf (6): Florida (1968, 1973, 1993, 2001); Georgia (1999, 2005)
Women’s golf (3): Florida (1985, 1986); Georgia (2001)
Men’s swimming (3): Florida (1983, 1984); Tennessee (1978)
Women’s swimming (10): Georgia (1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2013, 2014, 2016); Florida (1979, 1982, 2010)
Gymnastics (14): Georgia (1987, 1989, 1993, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009); Florida (1982, 2013, 2014, 2015)
Soccer (1): Florida (1999)
Equestrian (6): Georgia (2003, 2004, 2008, 2009, 2014, 2021)
QUAD TWO
Alabama, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Kentucky
National championships from this quad
Football (19): Alabama (1925, 1926, 1930, 1934, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, 1979; 1992; 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2020); Auburn (1957, 2010)
Men’s basketball (8): Kentucky (1948, 1949, 1951, 1958, 1978, 1996, 1998, 2012)
Baseball (2): Vanderbilt (2014, 2019)
Softball (1): Alabama (2012)
Women’s outdoor track (1): Auburn 2006
Women’s cross country (1): Kentucky (1998)
Women’s tennis (1): Vanderbilt (2015)
Men’s golf (2): Alabama (2013, 2014)
Women’s golf (1): Alabama (2012)
Men’s swimming (8): Auburn (1997, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009)
Women’s swimming (5): Auburn (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007
Gymnastics (6): Alabama (1988, 1991, 1996, 2002, 2011, 2012)
Volleyball (1): Kentucky 2021)
Equestrian (6): Auburn (2006, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2019)
Rifle (3): Kentucky (2011, 2018, 2021)
Bowling (2): Vanderbilt (2007, 2018)
QUAD THREE
LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas
National championships from this quad
Football: LSU (1958, 2003, 2007, 2019); Ole Miss (1960, 1962); Arkansas (1964)
Men’s basketball (1): Arkansas (1994)
Baseball (7): LSU (1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2009); Mississippi State (2021)
Men’s outdoor track: LSU (1933, 1989, 1990, 2002, 2021)
Women’s outdoor track: LSU (1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2008); Arkansas (2016, 2019)
Men’s indoor track: Arkansas (1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2013); LSU (2001, 2004)
Women’s indoor track: LSU (1985, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2007, 2008, 2011); Arkansas (2015, 2019)
Men’s cross country: Arkansas (1984, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000); Arkansas (2015, 2019)
Women’s cross country: Arkansas (2019)
Men’s golf: LSU (1940, 1942, 1947, 1955, 2015)
Women’s golf: Ole Miss (2021)
QUAD FOUR
Texas A&M, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri
National championships from this quad
Football: Oklahoma (1950, 1955, 1956, 1974, 1985, 1985, 2000); Texas (1963, 1969, 1970, 2005)
Women’s basketball: Texas A&M (2011); Texas (1986)
Baseball: Texas (1949, 1950, 1975m 1983, 2002, 2005); Oklahoma (1951, 1994)
Softball: Softball (2000, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2021); Texas A&M (1983, 1987)
Men’s outdoor track: Texas A&M (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013)
Women’s outdoor track: Texas A&M (2009, 2010, 2011, 2014); Texas (1986, 1998, 1999, 2005)
Men’s indoor track: Texas A&M (2017)
Women’s indoor track: Texas (1986, 1988, 1990, 1998, 1999, 2006)
Women’s cross country: Texas (1986)
Men’s tennis: Texas (2019)
Women’s tennis: Texas (1993, 1995, 2021)
Men’s golf: Texas (1971, 1972, 2012); Oklahoma (1989, 2017); Texas A&M (2009)
Men’s swimming: Texas (1981, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021)
Women’s swimming: Texas (1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991)
Men’s Gymnastics: Oklahoma (1977, 1978, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)
Women’s gymnastics: Oklahoma (2014, 2016, 2017, 2019)
Volleyball: Texas (1981, 1988, 2012)
Wrestling: Oklahoma (1936, 1951, 1952, 1957, 1960, 1963, 1974)
Using the four quad system, Florida’s schedule for the first two years of an expanded SEC would look like this:
Game 1: Paycheck game with someone from the Sun Belt.
Game 2: at South Carolina
Game 3: Vanderbilt from quad two
Game 4: at LSU from quad three
Game 5: Tennessee home from quad one
Game 6: at Texas A&M from quad four
Game 7: Georgia from quad one in Jacksonville
Game 8: at Auburn from quad two
Game 9: Ole Miss home from quad three
Game 10: Oklahoma at home from quad four
Game 11: Paycheck game for homecoming
Game 12: Florida State at home
How schedules and formats for league play are worked out will be determined in the future, but one thing that seems rather certain at this point is the SEC is about to expand. And, when it does expand, college sports won’t be the same again.
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