Five reasons the SEC will leave the NCAA

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The calls for the SEC to leave the NCAA are getting louder and louder. What was once just a whisper or speculation has grown into a full blown movement with two of the biggest coaches in college football leading the charge, as the SEC spring meetings continue in the Florida Panhandle.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian started the recent round of discourse last week in an interview with USA TODAY Sports.

“There’s lot of sentiment for breaking away and having your own rules. That’s realistic,” Texas coach Sarkisian said. “You’re going to sign up or you don’t, but if you do, here’s our rules. Here’s how this thing is going to work.”

This week, Georgia coach Kirby Smart has been saying the same things publicly.

I’m not afraid to break away and say that our conference is strong enough to go out and play,” Smart said this week. “I mean, if we could actually function, and it financially would make our programs more stable and we could support things financially — I’m talking about all the sports — and do by our own rules, I’d be all for that. I mean, I’ve been to this meeting now 10, 11 times, and it’s frustrating at times to say, ‘Well, we can’t do this because of litigation … we can’t do this because we’ll get sued, we can’t do that.'”

Could this actually happen? Was it always going to happen? Here are five reasons the SEC will leave the NCAA:

Strength of Schedule Debate

The SEC’s biggest problem with the CFP Selection Committee is how they treat schedules. It is the SEC coaches belief that not all schedules are created equal. A win over Kansas isn’t the same as a win over Tennessee. And the league now has an example of a team that should have been in the tournament but were edged out by a team with a weak schedule to hold up and show the CFP – Texas.

The Longhorns lost three games in 2025. UT lost in the opener to Ohio State, lost to Florida at the Swamp and lost to Georgia between the hedges. Sark’s contention is that a 10-3 Texas had a better resume than 11-2 BYU.

“And to me, that’s (comparing schedules) hard to say when you go to some of these venues, especially at night,” Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks said. “When you judge Texas on the loss at Florida last year and say that’s going to be a massive hit to their résumé. Well, Florida’s a really tough team and that’s a really tough place to play.”

The Cougar’s best win was over Utah at home. BYU’s second best win? Maybe double-overtime over Arizona? Or possibly Colorado? The point is that week in, week out the SEC plays a harder schedule because the league is harder and much deeper.

Texas Tech’s best win was BYU, twice.

“There’s a team in our state that plays in another conference that has a schedule that I would argue if I played with our twos and our threes, we could go undefeated, and they’ll probably make the CFP this year,” Sarkisian said.

Poor CFP Communication

It doesn’t help that the committee struggles with communication. That includes communication to the teams and to the fans.

“Everyone talks about NIL. But my biggest gripe is the selection committee,” Sarkisian said last week. “There’s no transparency on what exactly the committee is doing. We have to figure that out.”

After months of zero communication, College Football Playoff officials gave a “show-your-work” explanatory presentation to SEC coaches in Florida on Tuesday. “People were not happy,” one source told Sports Illustrated. Another said, “It was ridiculous,” a second source told SI.

According to SI’s Pat Forde, “One league coach whose team was in the playoff mix, but did not make the field, said he felt worse after hearing the presentation than he did when his team was excluded on Selection Sunday.” There’s a good chance that coach was Sarkisian.

So when the CFP tries to make it better, they make it worse.

Rules Enforcement

Another huge gripe is lack of rules enforcement. Whether the NCAA doesn’t have the power anymore thanks to litigation or it never had it or it doesn’t want it, the governing body doesn’t enforce the rules anymore. The NCAA used to try to enforce the rules. SMU got the death penalty after all. But not anymore.

“I’ve been a huge advocate that if we can’t find rules that everybody plays by, then we should play our own,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said this week. “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.”

“We all signed up to be part of the NCAA, and then we all allegedly make the rules,” Sarkisian said. “Everyone knows the rules, right? Then we go to our attorney general and say we don’t like that rule, let’s just sue. Right now, no one is afraid of the consequences.”

Sarkisian thinks college football is trying to copy the NFL with one big difference: The rules aren’t enforceable because enforcement leads to legal wrangling, which leads to millions in legal fees and lawsuits and traditional college football practices being torn down.

“There’s a reason in the NFL, when you get caught tampering, you get drilled. You lose draft picks,” Sarkisian said. “You don’t practice the right way, you lose practice days, coaches get fined. There are a lot of things in place to protect their rules and guardrails. Right now in college football, there’s no fear. People do whatever they want.”

Sarkisian, and others in the SEC, think a smaller membership pool who all sign up for the same rules would be a better situation.

Playoff Expansion

There’s a lot of debate as to how big the tournament should be. The CFP has expanded from four to 12 in just a few years. Now many want the bracket to have 16 teams. Some, like the Big Ten, are advocating a 24 team bracket.

Most coaches in the SEC want to keep it smaller. Sark would love to go back to a four-team playoff.

“The committee doesn’t have the bandwidth to watch that many games,” Sarkisian said. “They see the media and coaches polls, and they copy them. You’ve got a 12-team playoff, and that means there are at least 30 teams that impact it. Now all of a sudden, you want to go to 24? Now the polls become an even greater factor, because now you’re asking (the committee) to watch 40 teams a week — if not 50. Everyone talks about NIL. But my biggest gripe is the selection committee,” Sarkisian said.

It is Destiny

From the moment Texas and Oklahoma started talking to the SEC about joining, the league going it on its own was probably always going to happen.

Why leave the Big 12 because you think it’s weaker and then complete against the Big 12 for CFP bracket spots. UT wants very little to do with its old conference and you get the feeling there’s sentiment to bury the league if possible.

The Big Ten followed the SEC’s lead and added the four best teams from the old Pac-12.

Two super conferences were created. It will never fully work if you also let smaller, weaker conferences play on the same level. Would FBS teams ever let FCS teams into the CFP? The answer is now.

Bonus question: Will the SEC and Big Ten team up?

The two super conferences rarely agree publicly. The two leagues certainly can’t agree on a CFP plan. But agreeing on a playoff plan with just the two biggest conferences is a very different exercise.

Once super conferences were created, it is actually far fetched to think they would remain in a competition with the other smaller conferences.

This article originally appeared on Longhorns Wire: Will the SEC leave the NCAA? Here’s Five reasons why it will happen

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