This is probably the weakest SEC football has been in a LONG time at the same time as SEC basketball being the strongest its ever been. In fact, there are some metrics which show that this year's SEC basketball is the best one-year league in NCAA history. Right now, 13 of their 16 teams are projected to make the NCAAT. A 14th and 15th are right there on the cut line and there's even a very small chance all 16 could make it. They have the best coaches and the best players. That means $$$$$. They are spending too much of it on hoops. Need to let the ACC have basketball back and go spend like wild men on football.
SEC needs to forget hoops and start focusing on football again
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
- Start date
Everything okay down there in the south? After a northern team beat a pacific northwestern team for the title last season I figured they'd be back with a vengeance. Now you have three brand new northern teams in the final four, including two who haven't won a natty since first dates entailed a dude in parachute pants picking up a chick with a shoulder-padded sweater in his dad's Buick Skylark to go roller skating.
Maybe they could if they weren't spending a fortune on basketball. Give up basketball!!!! The ACC needs it back.
I think the biggest difference between now and just a few years ago is that is that they can't hoard talent.
Credit the Big 10 for some power moves recently. Their marquee football programs, tOSU, MIchigan, Oregon, PSU etc are now on a much more level playing field with the SEC's elite in the current system.
Nonsense, they just actually had to go on the road and. beat someone now instead of just beating up each other. They have never had to to do that. The playing field is level so they can’t deal with it all of sudden.
That being said they don’t have to get better. Just need to change the format (and narrative) back to what works for them. Sankey is already hard at work blaming the conference championship byes and making sure the SEC writers and talking heads pick the top 8 seeds from next year on.
That being said they don’t have to get better. Just need to change the format (and narrative) back to what works for them. Sankey is already hard at work blaming the conference championship byes and making sure the SEC writers and talking heads pick the top 8 seeds from next year on.
And yet, those teams have a combined 1 win over the SEC plus Michigan's bowl win over an unmotivated Alabama. I will admit those teams are closer to the SEC's top teams but everyone is. Even the ACC is closer to the SEC in football than it is in basketball. Comes down to money. The SEC has weirdly become infatuated with basketball dominance and are paying out the ass for coaches and players. They need to stop.
I wonder if NIL is beginning to level the playing field in college football. The SEC has long been known for its shady boosters funneling top talent to programs in places like rural Alabama. Now, with NIL, other teams have legal avenues for their boosters to attract elite players to their programs. NIL might actually be saving college football by keeping players in school longer and creating a more competitive landscape, rather than the same four teams dominating year after year.
Money is not unlimited. Look at Auburn. If they allocated $10 million more into football player salaries instead of basketball, do you think that could buy them a few more football wins. Just for kicks, let's say after this year, Auburn let's Bruce Pearl walk, hires some MM lottery ticket and takes away NIL funding for hoops and use that $10 million to buy Quinn Ewers and Jeremiah Smith. Do you think they'd win a lot next year? They are spending too much on basketball. I was also reading an article that Bama fans aren't donating enough to the players salary fund. Though I am sure they have rich boosters, it's generally a poor fanbase and there is the idea that these people don't believe in making college kids millionaires.
Actually, most SEC schools have always cared about basketball to some degree. They just don't care about it to the same degree they care about football & don't want it to hinder the success of the football program. Other than Kentucky, if a school was going to go big into cheating, it was going to be in football. They weren't going to let hoops take them down the repeat offender status. That's why Norm Sloan & Jim Harrick were quickly booted for violations that really aren't close to the scale of some of the shenanigans that have went on in SEC football. Now that is as easy as stroking a check to buy your talent, that's what they are doing.
Ya know, if they wanted to deemphasize basketball and allocate that money to football, they would do so. They obviously don't want to.
And that's wrong. Greg Sankey needs to have a Come to Jesus Meeting with those the ADs. They need to ease back on hoops for the good of football.
