Pac-12 media days: Leaders suggest responding with impending SEC reorganization

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HOLLYWOOD – A college football playoff seemed destined to expand and expand rapidly.

For two years, a group of CFP executives worked to create a model that they presented to decision makers and disseminated across College Football. Their 12-team proposal, widely celebrated across America, was on the fast track to gaining approval at a September meeting, possibly within two years of replacing the current four-team model.

And then, in a stunning and astounding turnaround, the two biggest brands of the Big 12, Texas and Oklahoma, began the process of joining the SEC this week. Pac-12 leaders here at the conference’s annual media day say the move jeopardizes the expansion model and will almost certainly delay approval, even potentially leading to wholesale changes to its structure.

Indeed, league administrators believe that the SEC’s chess move, while calculated and cunning, will initiate a responsive series of significant changes across the US college sports landscape.

Someone says it’s the tip of the iceberg. Another says: There will be more.

The 2021 reorganization war has begun, and this time, there’s a particularly precious battlefield: the expanded match model.

Conferences are scrambling and schools are racing, all thrown into confusion by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s daring play – stocking more of the country’s richest college football program.

It’s clear who these villains are: Commissioner Greg Sankey and the Southeast Conference, described by some here as the person and entity that helped destroy a Conference, thrust college football into a turmoil of turmoil and endanger the expansion model.

Sankey was a member of the four-person working group that developed a 12-team proposal, leading some around college athletics to question his motives as one of the few who knew his league could expand soon.

Someone says, “It’s fishy.”

Another says: “It’s internal trade.”

While some say the SEC wisely and secretly jumped ahead of anyone else in the next wave of reorganization, others call the move unnecessary and harmful to college sports. They say the Securities and Exchange Commission burned already charred bridges, and even destroyed personal relationships.

As a result, high-ranking decision-makers are considering a retaliatory move. Will Pac-12, Big Ten, and others form an alliance against a bad big SEC?

“We’ll have a response,” says a Pac-12 official.

Kirby Lee / USA Today Sports

For now, the league’s new commissioner, George Klyavkov, is trying to maintain its membership at a time of uncertainty, while preserving the group and its golden goose, USC, while evaluating the possibility of adding more. Klyavkov told reporters here on Tuesday that PAC 12 had received great interest from suitors about the expansion. And while listening, conference leaders are happy to stay on the 12 teams, he says.

Some officials believe that none of the remaining top eight teams are providing value to the conference – they will not increase the league’s distribution. Others say programs like TCU, in the center of the Dallas area, are attractive, as is the basketball program in Kansas.

But how does this war of reorganization really end? Some here believe that the final chapter is a 30-plus-year-old superior team, an exclusive club of grandparents’ programs and blue college football that govern themselves in a structure that may even feature their own collective bargaining and post-season, completely separate from the NCAA system and operating according to its agreement. Special. The whispers are starting to grow louder, and SEC expansion is the beginning toward such an event, many college officials believe.

Someone says, “This is where we’re headed.”

And then what? Many refuse to speculate on such a move. But they know someone is coming.

Here is the realignment war. The battles have just begun. The dominoes have begun to collapse.

“Two teams go from conference to conference, that’s fine,” says Stanford coach David Shaw. Now, what does that inspire other conferences? If it’s only two teams, that’s good for them and let’s move on. But I don’t think it will be just two teams.”

More college football coverage:

Where are the rest of the Big 12 members going from here? • Even at the SEC, Texas A&M Can’t Escape Long Centuries • Texas and Oklahoma Inquiries at SEC Stuns Conference Media • Texas, Oklahoma and Reorganization Talks That Could Reshape College Sports

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