SEC Is Strong Despite Getting Less Than It Bargained For

The Southeastern Conference came up short on the 16-team television giant it dreamed about, but it now boasts a 12-team league spread over nine states that is sure to offer some attractive TV matchups.

When expansion fever first broke out last year, there was talk of a 16-team SEC that would gobble up Texas and Texas A&M; from the nation’s third most-populous state and Florida State and Miami from the fourth largest.

But the Texas schools, under political pressure at home, decided to stay put in the Southwest Conference. And Florida State and Miami, both independents, looked elsewhere -- FSU joining the Atlantic Coast Conference and Miami deciding to hook up with either the ACC or the Big East.

“Sometimes your strength hurts you,” said Joe Dean, athletic director at Louisiana State. “We have the best football league in America. Maybe that scared off some people.”

So the SEC ended up with Arkansas from the Southwest Conference and independent South Carolina, two teams with loyal athletic followings but questionable TV value -- certainly nothing like Texas or Penn State, which began the shakeup by joining the Big Ten Conference.

“The thing that people miss is that while TV is one of the driving forces, so are football ticket sales,” Dean said. “Arkansas and South Carolina are strong additions for us. They don’t hurt us TV-wise and we’re picking up two whole states.”

The SEC has a strong TV package with Turner Broadcasting System, and the failure to pick up Florida State or Miami is tempered by the fact that the league already has Florida.

“We were very strong to start with, and that has certainly not been diminished,” said Tennessee athletic director Doug Dickey. “The thing it does do, as far as TV is concerned, is enlarges the choices when people are looking at our conference on a given day. ... There’s another option for ESPN or TBS beyond the key game that CBS may have taken.”

The 12-team lineup also allows the SEC to do something that no other major conference can do -- split into two divisions. That could set up a big-money showdown between the two division winners in football since the NCAA allows a 12th game on the schedule.

For instance, just imagine Auburn and Tennessee meeting at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta or Legion Field in Birmingham for the conference championship, with the winner advancing to the Sugar Bowl.

“That would be the only way to have a fair champion,” said Florida football coach Steve Spurrier. “Even with 10 teams we don’t play everybody else (the SEC has a seven-game league schedule). Some years, a team wins it because of scheduling.”

The league’s athletic directors will meet in Birmingham Oct. 10-11 to discuss the new alignment, but Dean already can envision one possible divisional structure. Kentucky, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida would be in the east and LSU, Auburn, Alabama, Mississippi, Mississippi State and Arkansas would make up the west.

“The balance of those two divisions looks good,” he said. “And there are certain groups of teams that have got to be kept together. You’re not going to separate Alabama and Auburn, or Georgia and Florida.”

With divisions, each team would probably play the other five teams in its division each year and two from the other group on a rotating, home-and-home basis. But Dean’s scenario, for instance, could present some problems since it would separate Auburn from Georgia, Florida and Tennessee -- three of its biggest rivals.

“I don’t have that answer,” Dean said. “There may be another way.”

Dickey, the Tennessee athletic director, said it is imperative that important rivalries be kept intact.

“There are some rivalries that have been very good for season-ticket sales and donor-based contributions,” he said. “We’ve got to be careful that we don’t give up some of those things.”

Not everyone believes that bigger is necessarily better.

“I’m a traditionalist,” said Kentucky football coach Bill Curry. “I thought it was pretty good the way it was. I think that the reality of TV markets and money and all that was the reason for the expansion. I’m not at all sure that’s all good. Nonetheless, it’s a fact of life.”

Others are more optimistic.

“I’m an expansionist,” said Auburn basketball coach Tommy Joe Eagles. “Both schools joining the SEC have outstanding basketball traditions and strong programs right now, particularly Arkansas,” which reached the Final Four last season.

While most of the attention has been on football, basketball also stands to be affected by any realignment. Eagles would like to see two divisions, with a 16-game conference schedule (home-and-home with intradivisional opponents, one game against each team from the other division) instead of the current 18-game format (home-and-home with every school).

“We’d still be playing everyone in the league,” he said. “And an added benefit to that is it would allow us two more non-league games. The 18-game league schedule in the SEC is brutal.”

SEC commissioner Roy Kramer said it is possible the SEC will remain as one 12-team league and not split into two divisions. But a division plan will be considered.

“It’s certainly one of the possibilities that will be looked at very shortly by our athletic directors,” he said. “Our intention is to go into our discussions with an open mind and with every possible option, take a look at all of them and be as creative as we can in order to arrange the schedule.”

What about the future? Tulane, West Virginia and Louisville have been mentioned as possible candidates if the SEC decides to expand further.

“I think there will be a time of evaluation,” said Mississippi State athletic director Larry Templeton. “It could be over, but I don’t think we’re to the point of saying we’re shutting the door.”

Geography will be a factor in future expansion plans, according to Dickey.

“We’re not going to invite Wyoming to join,” he said.

“You know, its further from Tuscon, Arizona to Seattle that it is from Tuscon to Chicago. Arizona could be in the Big Ten as easy as they are in the Pac 10. There are some strange alignments.”

But, Dickey added with a laugh, “If Notre Dame wanted to join the SEC, I’m sure we would look at that.”