In an unforeseen manner, the Big 12 Conference announced last week that has reached an early exit deal with Oklahoma and Texas, allowing the two institutions to bolt for the SEC in 2024, which is a year earlier than expected.
In order to pay for the expected revenue loss that the conference will suffer with the departure of the two programs, both Oklahoma and Texas will pay a combined $100 million in order to depart early.
Now that the move has been announced, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has some planning to do, especially when it comes to football scheduling.
Since the news of Oklahoma and Texas joining the conference broke in 2021, there have been talks of the SEC going to a four-team pod system, while others project a nine-game schedule with no divisions. What ideas does the SEC’s leading man have? He shared them in a recent episode of McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning.
He tells show hosts Greg McElroy and [autotag]Cole Cubelic[/autotag] that he wants to put emphasis on maintaining historical rivalries while building a strong rotation amongst programs to cut down on the gaps between visits. In the latter regard, he referenced last season’s game between Auburn and Missouri, and the strange history between Georgia and Texas A&M as examples of reasons to change the scheduling format.
“We saw games last year, Missouri at Auburn, for example, that hadn’t been played since we added Missouri back in 2012,” Sankey said. “The one that sticks out in most articles is Georgia has not traveled to College Station since Texas A&M has been a member. That shouldn’t happen. We shouldn’t be going 12 years between campus visits.”
Sankey also mentions the importance of rivalry games, but will not have a clear picture of the frequency of rivalry games until the conference decides on whether to play an eight or nine-game model.
“We’ve been intentional about discussing our ability to have annual rivalries played or rivalries played every other year. We haven’t arrived at a destination between eight or nine games,” Sankey said. “The number of games will facilitate the number of annual games that take place.”
Other factors that Sankey is exploring are tiebreakers within a single division and competitive balance. He says that he hopes to have the model ready in time for the SEC Spring Meetings that will take place in Destin, Florida in a few months.
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