Long post incoming, so spare me the snark or TLDR.
This doesn’t excuse what happened yesterday or in the Kentucky and LSU games but something I thought about last night and today.
It’s frustrating to play in the one league where the transfer portal and NIL have created the same parity and results you see in the NFL on a week to week basis and be competing against teams for 7 playoff spots in three other leagues where that level of competition doesn’t exist. I think that’s something Greg Sankey has to be thinking about in negotiations as to what the playoff structure looks like going forward, especially if the SEC goes to 9 league games.
Consider the league standings in the SEC and Big 10. Alabama and Ole Miss currently sit at 6 and 7. Opposite them in the B10 are Iowa and Washington. I have a hard time believing OM or Alabama would be 6/7 in the Big Ten with the benefit of playing Washington and Iowa’s schedules. Yet they are competing with teams for playoff spots in the B10 (and the other two leagues) who do get the benefit of playing schedules against teams whose NIL programs are minuscule to nonexistent.
Think about the NIL commitment in the middle to bottom tier of the SEC compared to the B10 other leagues. You don’t think Oklahoma, Auburn, and Kentucky have a collectively larger NIL war chest and more talented rosters than Wisconsin, Northwestern and Maryland? Don’t hear much about the NIL dollars flowing in College Park. That phenomenon has created the parity in the SEC that is currently working against it under the current playoff structure.
Maybe this is coping, but something has to change if the SEC is going to continue to cannibalize itself while teams like Indiana, Miami, and SMU can skate by in weaker leagues.
This doesn’t excuse what happened yesterday or in the Kentucky and LSU games but something I thought about last night and today.
It’s frustrating to play in the one league where the transfer portal and NIL have created the same parity and results you see in the NFL on a week to week basis and be competing against teams for 7 playoff spots in three other leagues where that level of competition doesn’t exist. I think that’s something Greg Sankey has to be thinking about in negotiations as to what the playoff structure looks like going forward, especially if the SEC goes to 9 league games.
Consider the league standings in the SEC and Big 10. Alabama and Ole Miss currently sit at 6 and 7. Opposite them in the B10 are Iowa and Washington. I have a hard time believing OM or Alabama would be 6/7 in the Big Ten with the benefit of playing Washington and Iowa’s schedules. Yet they are competing with teams for playoff spots in the B10 (and the other two leagues) who do get the benefit of playing schedules against teams whose NIL programs are minuscule to nonexistent.
Think about the NIL commitment in the middle to bottom tier of the SEC compared to the B10 other leagues. You don’t think Oklahoma, Auburn, and Kentucky have a collectively larger NIL war chest and more talented rosters than Wisconsin, Northwestern and Maryland? Don’t hear much about the NIL dollars flowing in College Park. That phenomenon has created the parity in the SEC that is currently working against it under the current playoff structure.
Maybe this is coping, but something has to change if the SEC is going to continue to cannibalize itself while teams like Indiana, Miami, and SMU can skate by in weaker leagues.
