Colin Cowherd blasts SEC coaches for infighting, calls league 'The Real Housewives of the SEC'

May is usually the time of year when Power Four college football coaches and administrators come together and coalesce around certain ideas during their individual conference Spring meetings, usually held within a stone’s throw of a beautiful beach. The ACC met this past week in Amelia Island, Fla., while the Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC will hold their annual Spring meetings over the next few weeks.

And while much of the offseason conversation has revolved around College Football Playoff expansion, the league where “It Just Means More” has been delving into more reality TV territory. This is following a week where multiple SEC head football coaches lobbed viral barbs at some of their conference brethren.

LSU‘s Lane Kiffin started it off Monday when a quote in a Vanity Fair cover story about his move from Ole Miss to Baton Rouge suggested Mississippi’s troubled racial history made recruiting Black players to the Rebels difficult throughout his six-year tenure in Oxford. A day later, Texas coach Steve Sarkisian attacked Ole Miss’s academic standards when he told USA Today a player can earn a degree from the school for “basket weaving.” That inspired jokes from around the SEC, including new Florida coach Jon Sumrall.

On Thursday, prominent FOX Sports radio host Colin Cowherd blasted the SEC for its internal “cat-fighting.” He playfully suggested the league’s football coaches were acting more like they were part of the “The Real Housewives” reality TV franchise.

“I feel like the SEC has become ‘The Real Housewives of the SEC’ — everybody’s taking shots and throwing drinks in each other’s face,” Cowherd said Thursday. “And they’re making a lot of noise, and there’s a lot of commotion. (Meanwhile), the Big Ten is … the CEO of the waste management company, the founder of the waste management company, who is quietly the richest guy in town times 10, and he’s just staying out of the (lime) light. They’re just keeping quiet.

"The SEC has become the Real Housewives. They don't really have the power they used to. They've aged and they're a little dysfunctional. The real power is the Big Ten."@colincowherd discusses the infighting between SEC head coaches pic.twitter.com/DTb0pvYcaT

— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) May 14, 2026

“But in the SEC, Kiffin is throwing a drink in Ole Miss’ face, and Sark is throwing one, and they’re throwing high heels at each other and screaming and making all sorts of noise,” Cowherd continued. “And the real wealth in town is the Big Ten and they’re like, ‘Look at those silly kids.’ Big Ten, man, I just talked to a Big Ten athletic director yesterday and their revenue projections were huge, and they blew through them. You see Ohio State’s roster? $45 million.”

The SEC’s reputation as college football’s premier conference has taken a serious hit in recent years, especially as the Big Ten has claimed the last three consecutive College Football Playoff national championships. Prior to the Big Ten’s current three-year run — Michigan (2023), Ohio State (2024), and Indiana (2025) — the SEC held dominion over the sport with 13 national championships between 2006-22, including six of the eight CFP national titles between 2015-22.

Now, though, based on this past week alone, Cowherd sees the SEC as little more than a dysfunctional group of desperate reality stars eager to stay in the spotlight long past their prime.