The SEC Was Outmaneuvered By The Big 10

Well, at least Lane Kiffin and this writer think so.

Kiffin didn’t say that of course – he was asked about the SEC’s decision to add a 9th conference game.

But his answer is revealing and I’ll add my own thoughts.

It’s at the 15:00 mark.

1. Until the playoff system had been fixed with actual SOS consideration or auto bid resolution, and playoff size, adding the 9th conference game was a mistake.
2. Putting half of the SEC on the road 5 times a year in-conference is not helpful in the current environment. (Texas-OU, Florida-Georgia exceptions)
3. The current CFP committee rubric, irrespective of SOS, is pure win-loss bias: 10-2 can be in, 9-3 is out. So the league added potential losses, possibly cost itself an additional bid, and beat its playoff entrants up more.
4. The SEC already had 8 of the Top 10 hardest schedules in the country. So the instinct of league management was to make it harder with no guarantees?
5. It’s about mental engagement week to week, not just total play count and injuries.

**

My thoughts?

Big 10 commish Tony Petitti set the agenda with a compliant press that only nine conference games offered legitimacy and used it as a deceptive stand-in for strength of schedule. The Big 10 played 9 conferences games, the SEC only played 8. Perceptual advantage? Big 10.

The Big 10 set the agenda, the SEC scrambled to react. A recurring theme.

Instead of swallowing the hook, Sankey should have chuckled, deflected, and responded that the bottom of the Big 10 is non-competitive, of course they’d say that. Then show the Big 10 national champions’ non-con schedules. Then shown the true SOS metrics by S+P, ESPN, FEI, ESPN. And remind everyone that both league’s number of conference games represented half of the total conference membership.

The SEC trickled a few things out – incoherently- and then set out to prove the Big 10 wrong by adding a ninth game.

I’ll show that Tom Sawyer how to paint a fence! He can’t fool me.

Before even discussing nine conference games, you have to force the CFP to show a defined process that can differentiate a 9-3 team with a high SOS vs a 10-2 or 11-1 team that didn’t play anyone.

Or wait until after the playoff expands.

The SEC did neither.

Nine conference games was the lead for pulling the SEC into an expanded playoff: the Big 10’s ultimate goal.

Now the SEC must agree to expansion because that’s the only way to conceivably allow for a 9-3 team with a high schedule difficulty getting in most years.

Perhaps you may want expansion, that’s fine, but you go there on your terms, not the Big 10’s.

Sankey also didn’t negotiate dropping the SEC title game before adding the 9 conference game. That will happen, but until then, it’s more wear and tear on your two best entrants with a 9 game SEC schedule and at least one P4 non-con when your league is in a three year championship drought.

**

Right now the SEC makes less on its TV contract on a per team basis vis a vis the Big 10 despite averaging 2 million more viewers per game.

That seems suboptimal.

The SEC may want to find a commissioner who has done things beyond a career in sports administration and coaching golf. Before succeeding Mike Slive as SEC Commissioner, Greg Sankey’s area of expertise was NCAA compliance.

A useful skill set. In 1986.

Big 10 commissioner Tony Petititi’s background?

JD Harvard Law, VP ABC sports programming, ran CBS Sports for 12 years, CEO of the MLB Network for 13 years.

One conference is equipped to deal with a new era of college athletics.

The other is headquartered in Birmingham.