SEC set to resolve 8- or 9-game football schedule in Destin
What appeared to be a football scheduling slam dunk a year ago is no longer a layup as the SEC spring meetings convene this week in Destin.
The idea of nine conference games has lost its universal appeal and will place the debate center-stage at a posh, oceanside resort on Florida’s Panhandle.
“There’s a lot of mixed feelings,” Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin told the Sentinel.
The pending arrival of Oklahoma and Texas in 2024 appeared to signal the inevitability of an additional conference game. The league delayed a vote in June 2022 to await further details on an expected College Football Playoff expansion.
Since those meetings, economic and competitive realities have set in.
The price will have to be right for college football’s top conference — winners of 13 of the past 17 national championships dating to the Gators’ 2006 title.
ESPN based its 10-year, $3 billion TV deal with the SEC, set to begin in 2024, on an eight-game conference schedule. Contracts were signed in 2020 prior to Oklahoma and Texas deciding to leave the Big 12.
An additional game now would come at a cost for a company facing financial challenges. ESPN has lost 11% of its subscribers since 2019, according to the Wall Street Journal, and is amid layoffs.
The Disney-owned network could struggle to incentivize the SEC to play another conference game.
Some schools also view another league game as a competitive disadvantage.
247Sports reported Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi State and South Carolina oppose a nine-game model. Each program historically has not reached the six-win threshold required to earn a bowl bid until late in the season, if at all.
One surprising opponent to nine games could be Alabama, according to 247Sports.
One permanent opponent and seven rotating ones would make up an eight-game conference schedule. A nine-game slate would feature three permanents and six rotating.
After coaches and administrators weigh both sides, the league hopes to settle the matter by week’s end.
Coaches will meet Tuesday and Wednesday aiming to agree on a scheduling model. The proposal will require athletic directors to approve it Thursday and school presidents to vote Friday.
Whatever the decision, the league plans to eliminate the two-division setup in place since 1992 when South Carolina and Arkansas joined the league. This way schools will play each other at least twice every four years — a big win for players and fans.
Florida, for example, has played Auburn twice since 2007 (2011, 2019) after the schools had been bitter rivals for decades dating to 1912.
“We’re going to have such better schedules even in an eight-game model because we’re going to be rotating a lot more,” Stricklin said. “You’re going to have all these really good matchups that we haven’t had that are going to be coming on campuses more often.”
Leading up to the 2022 meetings, Stricklin advocated for nine games, telling the Sentinel, “We should lean into our strength. People want to see SEC games.”
Rarely, though, are college sports premier powerbrokers and biggest personalities on the same page.
The spring meetings serve as a quasi-Casual Friday for a contingent of serious-minded, hyper-competitive individuals. Nick Saban can be seen in shorts or Kirby Smart in flip-flops just a short walk from their $500-a-night suites to the emerald green waters of the Gulf Coast.
Inside the Sandestin Hilton conference rooms viewpoints and agendas often clash.
Unlike football scheduling, everyone in Destin is sure to share concerns with sports gambling.
Alabama fired baseball coach Brad Bohannon May 4 for suspicious betting activity involving the Crimson Tide. The Tuscaloosa News reported Friday the father of a University of Cincinnati player placed bets triggering Bohannon’s firing, along with the dismissals of two Cincinnati staffers.
Meanwhile, a combined 41 athletes are suspended at Iowa and Iowa State while the NCAA investigates potential gambling violations.
“Because of the topical nature of it it’s going to be talked about,” Stricklin said.
Name, image and likeness legislation and athletic compensation also will hot topic as the groundbreaking law approaches its two-year anniversary July 1.
“I’ll be curious what our presidents have to say about it,” Stricklin said. “There continues to be conversations with the people in Washington [D.C.], trying to figure out what what some kind of consistent rule might be and how you achieve that.”
Oklahoma and Texas will have representatives in Destin but cannot vote until their membership becomes official next year. The Sooners and Longhorns originally planned to join the SEC in 2025 but agreed to pay $100 million in grant-of-rights fees to the Big 12, allowing the schools to leave early.
“That’s really kind of squeezed this football scheduling conversation a little bit,” Stricklin said.
