This Week Around The SEC
Image: On3 Sports
By Garrett Armbrust
This week has been a busy one in SEC headlines with eight teams in the league hosting a regional this weekend and the annual spring meetings taking place in Destin, Florida. Plus, there’s more news concerning the House settlement.
SEC Destin Meetings
Greg Sankey appeared in front of the coaches to talk about the future of the league this fall with the ongoing talks of the College Football Playoff format changing. Sankey proposed multiple ways for the SEC to succeed in the new future of college football. The 5-11 model was proposed for the new 16 team playoff model which seems likely to come.
Some coaches, such as Lane Kiffin, believe that it should just be the “the best system with 16 should be the 16 best.” The question that is asked a lot in this 5-11 model is, would the SEC benefit from this more than the potential “16 best teams” model? If the SEC has a deep season you would imagine it might be possible to get more than 5 SEC teams in the CFP any given year. Questions then arise on what would be better for the SEC regular season in regards to playing 8 games or 9 games.
"I don't need lectures from others about the good of the game. I don't lecture others about the good of the game," said Sankey when he took the podium yesterday. The commissioner seems to believe that he doesn’t need any other commissioners to tell him the way that the CFP should be regulated within the possible format. Sankey believes that he is doing what’s in the best interest of his conference. This seemed to be a shot at the ACC/BIG12 who have called for a format that would allow their teams to get equal representation that the SEC/BIG10 get.
House Settlement news
In the house settlement side of SEC news, it appears that we are witnessing some of the most important decisions in college athletics and revenue sharing right in front of our eyes. As reported by Outkick, “the State of Tennessee passed a law that protects in-state schools from any type of fallout from the House settlement.” What this essentially means is that if in-state Tennessee schools don’t agree with possible regulations put in place by the College Sports Commission they basically have a way that they don’t have to follow them.
This is where the talks of schools like Vanderbilt and Tennessee could potentially be “kicked out of the SEC” in the future if they don’t follow the rules put in place by these “College Sports Commission” people. Obviously the chances that anything like that happening to any in-state schools is very low and there would have to be other situations that happen that cause drastic movement.
SEC Baseball Represent Well in the NCAA Tournament
In more exciting news, 8 of the 16 national seeds this year in the NCAA Baseball tournament included SEC programs, including the top 4 seeds all being within the conference. Vanderbilt got the number 1 overall seed while Texas, Arkansas, and Auburn wrapped up the top 4. The SEC showed itself as one of the deepest conferences in college baseball history, with 10 SEC teams ending the regular season in the top 25 in RPI.
Tennessee, LSU, Georgia, and Ole Miss are the other 4 SEC teams who received regional host sites in the NCAA Tournament. If Tennessee and Arkansas get through their regionals a Vols vs. Hogs super regional in Fayetteville would be on tap for a trip to Omaha. This is Tennessee’s 4th time hosting a regional since 2021 in Lindsey Nelson Stadium. The Vols will also be looking for their 4th College World Series trip to Omaha since 2021.