As a power play, Slive’s move to arrange a Rose Bowl counterpart succeeds on a number of levels with other conferences and with the networks. But it’s going to have an impact on the SEC meetings in Destin coming up soon, as well. At least as far as Steve Spurrier is concerned.
South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier rarely comes to the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla., empty handed. Last year, he used the opportunity to propose that coaches should be allowed to pay into a fund that would go to the players. (Which conveniently minimized the headlines for another bout of Stephen Garcia-reinstatement-related drama.) This year, Spurrier has a more practical idea to discuss.
He thinks the SEC should choose its division champions in football based on division record instead of overall conference record. “Your division champ should be decided on division games. Last year, it wasn’t fair for Tennessee and Florida,” Spurrier said. “They both played LSU and Alabama. Us and Georgia didn’t. So, us or Georgia almost had to win the division simply because of the schedule.”
Good luck on getting anyone to pay attention to that, Coach Evil (Genius). The new bowl game – more accurately, the implications of the new bowl game – is likely to dominate the discussions. And what time isn’t spent on that is going to be directed towards another big subject.
“What’s going to take the day is discussion on the conference’s position on the four-team playoff,” SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom said this past week. “The commissioners were charged with going back to their conferences, with each conference stating a position on their preference. There will be a lot of discussion on that.”
It sounds like there will be plenty of that.
Whether the SEC concurs with the Big Ten proposal remains to be seen, but the SEC no longer appears to be fighting the suggestion that all four teams must be conference champions.
“What if the No. 1 team, the No. 7 team, the No. 11 team and the No. 17 team happened to be conference champions?” Alabama coach Nick Saban said recently in Mobile. “You are not really getting the top four teams. If you look at all the years when we’ve had issues with who plays in the championship game, there is an odd team that is left out.
“In 2003, when I was at LSU, USC got left out. Auburn got left out when they were undefeated [in 2004]. Those are the times when people start screaming.”
I’m impressed he noticed.
Seriously, that’s some very major stuff to hash through. Add to that the decision about the size of the conference schedule and you’ve got a very full plate for the SEC. Slive has effectively buried Spurrier’s lede, so to speak.
Get The Picture 
The division only argument will be moot once we go to 16 teams, 4 divisions and a scaled down NFL style schedule (play the teams in your own division, plus all of the teams in another rotating division – eg: SEC South vs SEC East)
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Why four divisions? Four conferences each with two eight-team divisions makes the math for a national playoff both obvious and easy.
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4 divisions so you can have an SEC semi-final…think how much $$$ those 2 games would be worth.
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Big 10/Pac 10 champs play in the Rose Bowl; SEC/Big 12 champs play in the New Bowl. How far are we from the braintrust deciding to just pit the winners of those two games against each other and be done with it? Sorry ACC, Big East, ND and everyone else. You’re out.
It wouldn’t be popular, but it sure would be lucrative. Conference championships become the regionals, the Rose and New bowls are the semis, and your championship.
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I’ve had that same thought. I think that scenario for now is going to be used as very heavy leverage to fashion a postseason the power conferences are happy with, rather than being that postseason.
It’s also very heavy leverage to pry certain teams away from certain conferences.
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As a threat it probably is sufficient leverage to influence the post-season. To move Notre Dame, which is the only team that is 1)outside that four conference footprint, 2) worth it to any conference that could get it, 3) not already making noise about moving without this threat out there and 4) the Moby Dick to Delany’s Ahab, it’s going to have to be more than a threat.
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And that sounds quite terrible.
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Absolutely! And how long before the outsiders looking in pull out of the NCAA(they will get the blame, not the BCS) and form a more equitable group with their own NC? Swimming in circles and creating more division can’t be good for fans nor college football.
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How ’bout awarding the SEC title on how many points you score in your cupcake games? Pretty good way to sell more coke-flavored ice and stale hot dogs in the 3rd and 4th quarters.
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Well, that would leave our little sisters in Atl at a HUGE disadvantage (I know they are in the ACC) because those “cups of ice” and hotdogs are part of the allure of the flats, seeing as how they have to bribe anyone with $20 in their pocket to waste an otherwise perfectly good afternoon to attend games in the North avenue ghetto. They should throw in free medical care to anyone selected in the “lottery” afterward for potential robbery victims. You can’t make this stuff up.
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Steve Spurrier- The Lederhoser of the SEC.
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By the time Moobs Johnson’s last year rolls around (soon, even with the coddling that the ajc does to him/them) It wouldn’t suprise me if the completely took out their outside gates, and posted signs around downtown similar to this: “Hungry? Hot, or just want to sit down for awhile without the APD harrasing you? Come by Booby Dudd stadium at twelve this saturday for food, relaxation, and social “networking”. All that is required is that you sit through several short, uninspiring “presentations” afterward. Then you lock them inside for the next three hours, and force them bear witness to the snooze-fest that is gt football, Kinda like a timeshare. Everyone wants the freebies.but its nowhere worth what it will cost you in patience, boredom, not to mention your wallet. (First 100 to arrive leave with their own peronal security to make sure they are able to leave the neighborhood safe. 🙂
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No way the SEC/Big 12 game becomes a semi-final, unless you happen to like your 1 and 2 or 1 and 3 seeds facing off in the semis. Won’t always be the case, but it would be more than 50% of the time.
The 4 conferences, 8 divisions model makes for easy playoff math – but since when is the point of any of this to create easy math? Texas/Oklahoma/Texas Tech 2008 still happens in that set-up. So does LSU/Alabama. It just penalizes teams in stronger conferences even more.
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Color me so tired of caring what Steve Spurrier thinks about anything.
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