SEC capitulation on 24-team CFP is another unforced humiliation | Opinion
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Mike Slive has much better things to do while watching another impeccable sunset from the beautiful back porch in the sky, cigar in hand and glass of whiskey in the other.
Look what they’ve done to your beloved SEC, my man.
Look how those 16 presidents and chancellors of the SEC — not to mention commissioner Greg Sankey and the coaches and athletic directors — have turned the once bulletproof, king of kings product former commissioner Slive built into a capitulating, sniveling, sorry excuse for what once was.
All because they can’t square a flippin’ budget.
The SEC, with its veto power, could’ve ended all discussion of this 24-team College Football Playoff abomination. Could’ve told everyone — ESPN, Fox, the Big Ten — to go scratch, we’re staying at 12.
We know what’s best for college football, we’re going to tighten our financial belt and we’re not budging. No matter how many millions you throw at us.
But instead of taking a stand and actually leading, the SEC said we’re going to take the one thing that has separated us from all others for more than three decades — the very DNA of the conference — and flush it down the toilet.
To add eight first-round games that are glorified Pop-Tarts Bowls.
Think about this lunacy: the SEC sponsors 23 men’s and women’s sports. Every single sport determines its champion by a playoff or championship event.
Except one, beginning in 2027. That would be football.
The SEC presidents and chancellors just took a television product that dwarfed all others in college football — by a country mile — and haphazardly decided to fold it into the rest of the college football season. And for what?
So we can all watch Minnesota play North Carolina State in the first round of the CFP?
If you still haven’t comprehended the utter lunacy of what’s going down, let me explain it in words and numbers that are irrefutable. The Alabama-Georgia game last week — which very easily could be the last SEC championship game in December — had a better television rating than Monday Night Football’s 20-year Hurricane Katrina anniversary game between the Saints and Falcons.
The MNF game drew 11.9 million viewers. The Alabama-Georgia game drew 12.2.
The SEC presidents and chancellors can’t really think a product with less on the line on a weekly basis — where four losses can get you a ticket the big show — will magically pull greater television numbers during the regular season.
They can’t possibly think those eight first-round CFP games littered with at least 10 nobodies, are going magically pull greater television numbers than the SEC championship game.
Why is this important, you ask?
Because when the next media rights deal arrives for the SEC, and the ratings have dropped because the postseason has been watered down, and the regular season has lost its significance, who do those 16 presidents and chancellors think pays for it in the end?
They do.
Yet there they are, forging ahead into the stupidity of it all, willingly damaging a near flawless product. The conference’s once gold standard reputation is in shambles.
The Big Ten is playing chess, the SEC is fumbling around with Chutes and Ladders.
This all began when the Big Ten hoodwinked the SEC into a nine-game conference schedule with the idea that the CFP would move to 16. It didn’t, and worse, the Big Ten moved the bar to 24 teams — knowing the SEC would realize 16 more SEC games means 8 more losses, and more damage to resumes in a 12-team format.
I don’t know if anyone at the SEC knows this, but the Big Ten has a recent history of screwing over partners. Just ask the ACC and Pac-12.
But here we are, and the Big Ten has the momentum of winning the last three national championships — and has now ripped the heart and soul of the sport from the rest of college football.
Meanwhile, there stands the SEC in the middle of the road with its pants down, lost in the enormity of being played.
Maybe Mike Slive is better off on that spectacular porch in the heavens, anyway.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB. Listen to him daily, from 12-2 p.m., on 1010XL-Jacksonville.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: SEC capitulation on 24-team CFP is another unforced humiliation | Opinion
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