The Southeastern Conference may very well end college football as we know it if those in charge aren’t careful. The SEC and Big Ten’s recent rhetoric is damaging to all those that lie beneath the two superconferences.
Just because one collegiate sports conference does most of the winning does not mean that one conference should hold all of the power. If the NCAA was an actual respectable governing body, we wouldn’t have to be in situations like these.
All of this stems around SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey’s comments at the SEC meetings in Florida at the end of May. The long and short of it? This whole 12-team College Football Playoff experiment isn’t good enough if there aren’t more SEC teams in it. Guarantee at least four SEC teams (and four Big Ten teams, for that matter) or there will be hell to pay.
To unpack that a little, the SEC and Big Ten’s proposed addendum to the current CFP format – a 12-team model with automatic qualifies for conference champions of the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 and the highest-ranked Group of Five conference champ and seven at-large bids for the rest of the country to vie for, ultimately to be chosen via committee – adds even more automatic bids. The two mega conferences want there to be four spots each reserved for their respective conference, two spots guaranteed for the ACC and Big 12, respectively, a G5 autobid and three at-large spots, bringing the total number of playoff teams to 16.
That’s a whole lot of expansion for a sport that only had two teams playing at the end of the year for a national title.
Personally, I see the planned proposal as a slap in the face to every other conference not named the Big Ten and SEC. Those of us with eyes know that those two groups have been more successful than the rest of the country, but shouldn’t they still have to earn the right to further prove their dominance? If we’re giving them twice as many playoff slots than the Big 12 and ACC – power conferences with pedigree in their own right – aren’t we just furthering the divide between the Haves and the Haven’t-As-Much?
There was this novella that my ninth grade English teacher forced me, and others, to read called “Animal Farm,” which was an allegory for the Russian Revolution. While communism isn’t on the horizon for college sports, there are some similarities between the SEC, Big Ten and the pigs on Manor Farm.
Spoiler warning, in case you haven’t read the novella published in 1945.
The animals of Manor Farm overthrew their human leaders and took control governing themselves, which is essentially how the conferences have operated with a focus towards college football for a good while. The pigs were the smartest group. The SEC is the most dominant group. You may see where I’m going here.
Eventually, the pigs began to take, take, take and take some more, going against the instilled golden rule of equality. The SEC’s proposed playoff plan is just one step further in saying some animals are more equal than others. After this inevitably takes shape, which, who am I to think the mighty SEC and Big Ten are to be denied – especially since there have been reports that they can essentially force this plan into action based on prior negotiations with the CFP organization – equality will be a thing of the past in college football.
And you might be wondering, why does equality matter? Think about it – if there’s a year where the SEC is down (humor me here) and a conference like the ACC is dominating college football with six teams ranked in the top 15 while the SEC only has three such schools, would it be fair that at least one ACC school is left out of the playoff while an SEC school ranked well below gets to jump in? That’s a hypothetical that we may never see play out, but the thing about college football is that anything can happen on any given Saturday. Teams can be beaten. You’re not just automatically better than someone because of the logo on your helmet or the patch on your jersey.
We’ve already seen humans reward the SEC across other sports just this past year. Thirteen SEC teams made the college baseball field of 64, with only two advancing to the College World Series (which is still the most by any conference, to be fair). Fourteen SEC teams made the Men’s March Madness field. And most of those schools deserved to be there, too. But there weren’t any clauses that said X amount of SEC teams had to be in the field, or else. The teams made it based on their own merit and were selected as such by each sport’s respective selection committee. There are problems with committees, but I have a hard time believing these folks representing schools from across the country are going to band together so that one or two conferences get more opportunities than the rest of the nation.
In college sports, especially, what you did last year shouldn’t matter. It’s a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately sport, and the fact that we’re rewarding past dominance with future easy access is not what the sport is about.
For those who may be thinking or saying, “Well, the SEC is the best conference!” I would say that, for the most part, I agree. But keep proving it. Games aren’t played on paper or through hypotheticals.
