The nicest thing to say about the Big Ten and SEC dictating the terms of college football’s future is the two conferences want only what’s best for the sport and its athletes.
The next nicest thing to say is that both conferences need to call the shots because that’s the best way to increase income for all parties.
After that, the next sort of nice thing to say is that upcoming revenue sharing and the increasing demands of name, image and likeness mean the Big Ten and SEC should speak for the “little man,” i.e. every other conference. Because, well, everyone knows the Big Ten and SEC are smarter and more popular than the rest.
The not-so-nice thing to say is the Big Ten and SEC are looking out for No. 1, or 1 and 1a, whichever way you choose to see it. The two conferences are flexing for the cameras, Ahnold style, to show everyone who’s the boss. Or bosses.
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commish Greg Sankey expect the rest of college football to get in line behind them. Petitti and Sankey each want four automatic qualifiers into the College Football Playoff, beginning as early as next season. Any such guarantee likely would not happen until at least 2026, if at all, but that is not stopping the twin towers from pushing their agenda to make it happen ASAP.
Finally, the ugly yet most accurate thing to say is that with unbridled power comes increased corruption, not necessarily in the legal sense – no one is accusing the Big Ten and SEC of nefarious action … yet – but in the debasement and decay of the common good, that which is best for the sport as a whole.
Abuse of power is not unique to college football. The NCAA bullied its benefactors for decades, strong-arming college athletes and their schools into trembling at the mere mention of NCAA bylaws. Politicians use power like Thor’s hammer, and agenda-driven media increasingly plays the power game by presenting “managed” messages meant to persuade more than objectively inform.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely
But what all power-hungry participants share is the unquenchable thirst for more. A sip of power satisfies only for a while before a full glass must be gulped. Then a bucket. Then a fire hose. Until finally the imbibers become drunk on power. When that happens, hell breaks loose.
You may be saying, “Oh, come on. The Big Ten and SEC are not creating a dictatorship.” My retort: Not yet, but give it a minute, because the push for power seldom moves in reverse. No U.S. President has run for governor after leaving the Oval Office. CEOs don’t return to the mail room. True, coaches leave top jobs to become assistants, but usually to stay one step ahead of the pink slip posse. (See: Chip Kelly, UCLA to Ohio State, and Jeff Hafley, Boston College to the NFL, among others.)
As a refresher, the Big Ten and SEC met last week to compare notes regarding where they stand on the pending restructuring of the 12-team College Football Playoff. After much nodding as they dipped chilled shrimp into cocktail sauce, the conference titans agreed they stand taller than the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12 and any other collection of schools you want to throw in there. The only league higher on the pecking order plays on Sundays.
The Big Ten and SEC not only want to expand the CFP to 14 or 16 teams, but want as many as four automatic qualifiers apiece. They figure they have the power, so why not use it to create a playoff blueprint beneficial to “us?” As for “them?” Well, that’s not “our” problem. The first shall be last is fine for Sunday sermons, but don’t expect the Big Ten and SEC to move to the back of anyone else’s line.
Essentially, the two conferences want, no, think they deserve, preferential treatment before the football season even begins, which goes against the sanctity of the college game in that every game is supposed to matter. Playoff expansion already has chiseled away at the competitive culture of the regular season; adding extra automatic qualifiers takes a sledgehammer to it.
Even SEC apologist Paul Finebaum sounds outraged by the two conference’s power move.
“Doing our show yesterday, even SEC fans are calling in saying they don’t like it,” Finebaum said on ESPN’s Get Up. “There’s something inherently wrong about stacking the deck before the season.”
Big Ten and SEC should pause before lording over college football
Preach. My concern isn’t only that a stacked playoff deck silences college football’s weekly win-or-else mantra or even that it feeds a sense of Big Ten and SEC entitlement. The bigger concern is that the two power conferences hold so much sway over the sport that they become uncontrollable, which is no good for anyone but them. Or, ultimately, not even them.
In the early days of North American fur trading, trappers sometimes would capture wolves not by sharp-toothed, spring-loaded steel but by the animal’s own appetite run amok.
Trappers would dip knives in elk blood and bury them blade side up in the ground. The famished wolf would attack the blade, licking the frozen blood until its own blood mixed with the elk’s, eventually bleeding itself to death, a victim of its unrestrained thirst for more.
That could be the Big Ten and SEC some day. Obsessed with their own power and blinded by greed, they may bleed college football to death, consuming themselves in the process.
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