Kirby Smart not against SEC breaking from NCAA in college football
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We are just past the midway point of the college football offseason, and so far things have been a bit tense in discussions over rule changes and the potential expansion of the College Football Playoff.
With so much up in the air, not only with the CFP, but also regarding tampering issues, NIL regulation, and a long list of other topics of conversation, it's fair to feel your eyes glaze over when discussing college football at this point in the calendar. While that may be the reaction for some, others feel frustration.
One of those appears to be Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart, who spoke on the search for agreed-upon rules between the conferences at this week's SEC spring meetings. At some point, Smart says he's going to start arguing for a "take our ball and go home" type strategy.
"I’ve said this for a long time to our president, I’ve been a huge advocate that if we can’t find rules that everybody plays by, then we should play on our own,” Smart told reporters. “I’m not afraid of that. I’m not afraid to break away and say that our conference is strong enough to go out and play."
In this scenario, Smart says the SEC should break away from the NCAA at large and no longer participate in the College Football Playoff or Bowl Series, instead choosing its own rules and crowning its own champion.
“If we could actually function financially, it would make our programs more stable. We could support things financially. I’m talking about all the sports and do our own rules – I’d be all for that.”
It's one thing to say this and imagine a world where the SEC plays in a league of its own, but it would be a completely different thing for it to actually come to fruition and be viable. While some of the best teams in the nation — Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Texas, etc. — are in the conference, going away from the Big Ten in particular would be devastating for not only the league but the sport at large.
The Big Ten has produced the last three national champions, and the SEC has missed out on the championship game altogether since 2022, when the Bulldogs won it. It's clear that these two conferences are the best in the sport, so imagining a world where they didn't play against each other would be devastating.
Is Smart serious when he pitches this idea, or is he just throwing something out there in hopes that the downside spurs on meaningful conversation? Let's hope it's the latter, and that we never have to realize a world where this happens.
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This article originally appeared on UGA Wire: Kirby Smart: SEC should 'break away' if rules aren't agreed upon
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