The SEC Spring Meetings came to a close on Thursday. That means talking season is right around the corner. We are all ready for the games to start, but some very important topics were discussed this week in hotel rooms on Florida’s Gulf Coast with all of the important members of the conference present.
KSR has provided coverage of the event all week and will now close shop on an eventful few days on the beach after the Memorial Day holiday. Change is coming to the SEC and college football at large whether we like it or not.
1. Kicking the future schedule discussion down the road
After not agreeing to a long-term schedule plan following the elimination of divisions after adding Oklahoma and Texas to the league in last year’s spring meetings, now felt like a good time for the SEC to have some preliminary discussions regarding what the conference slate could look like in 2026 when the 14-team College Football Playoff era begins.
That did not happen.
The SEC is moving forward with the current eight-game system that will include the same schedule for each team with a home-and-home setup. That means some programs will have to wait even longer before facing each other.
Greg Sankey and the league office were able to preserve all of the league’s prominent rivalries in this two-year setup, but some tough decisions could need to be made this time next year when it’s time to lock in a permanent scheduling format. How access to the 12-team College Football Playoff looks like for the SEC could go a long way. If a 9-3 SEC team is left out of the postseason field, that could be enough motivation to keep the schedule at eight games.
There is still the money angle, and ESPN has not been willing to re-negotiate the original deal that goes into effect this season. Will that change after this season? We will have to play the waiting game for at least one more year.
2. A push for injury reports
Injury reports in the SEC? SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey went on record to disclose that the conference was discussing implementing “availability reports”.
“We don’t want to just rush into something,” Sankey said. “It’s not injury reporting. It’s a very different circumstance given some of the privacy issues we have. Yet when you start to see the numbers of dollars being bet on legalized sports gambling around college sports — not just football, but men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, baseball — all of those catch your attention.
We don’t know what any of the protocols will be as of now. We do know that Steve Sarkisian and Mark Stoops both said that they have no issue with the change. The Big Ten had their own injury report system last year. The SEC could join the party in 2025 at the same as the two-minute warning arrives in college football.
3. College athletics still wants help from Congress
College athletics keeps asking for help from Congress. That help has not arrived yet. With the antitrust issues now seemingly out of the way following House v. NCAA, Greg Sankey and other college commissioners now need help to prevent student-athletes from becoming employees.
“I think Congress has still an opportunity to use the structure of this settlement to enact legislation to strengthen the future of college sports,” Sankey said.
The upcoming election throws a wrench into Sankey’s plan. College athletics needs help to go above certain state laws and get national legislation passed to allow the NCAA to enforce rules. The settlement is a big first step, but college athletics still doesn’t want to turn players into employees.
“The breadth of the settlement is intended to give us a path forward, provide a level of clarity about the future that doesn’t embed employment automatically,” said Sankey.
College athletics do not want to deal with a collective bargaining agreement or a players union. A payment system is now set up, but a system must be established to enforce rules. Sankey and the NCAA believe that getting a bill passed through Congress is the best way. Expect a big push to be made after this college football season ends and there is more clarity on which way the U.S. Senate could lean regarding a bill proposal from the NCAA.
4. Coaches do not want walk-ons to go away in college football
Schools will no longer have scholarship limits thanks to House v. NCAA. That means roster caps to limit the number of players on a college football team. That could mean the end of walk-ons.
Football coaches in the SEC were adamant about not losing walk-ons this week in Destin. There is some concern about what the new roster limits could be.
“There’s a lot of variables that come into play,” new Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer said. “So first and foremost it comes to health, safety and efficiency and having a successful practice that I think you want to execute each and every day. That’s important with the number that’s on your roster.”
Unlike the NFL, college football teams cannot hit the waiver wire in October to fill a position if the injury bug arrives. Having just 85 players on the team could cause some serious depth issues at multiple schools.
There is some concern within the coaching industry if schools were only allowed to fill teams with just 85 scholarship players. In a surprise, this ended up being the most discussed topic in Destin. There will be some heated dates between coaches and administration about where this lands. Budgeting just became more important in college athletics thanks to revenue-sharing. That could force football staffs to operate without 120 players on the roster.
The post Change is Coming: 4 takeaways from SEC Spring Meetings appeared first on On3.
