Frank Cagle's
latest Metro Pulse column lays out why expansion has to be done right, if the SEC is going to do it.
The consensus among the smartest and most influential sports writers around the South is that conference expansion is coming. And it likely will include four teams instead of two. It is unfortunate that the conversation has now shifted into a parlor game—who would you pick to join? In addition to A&M, the names mentioned are Oklahoma St., Virginia Tech, Florida State, and Georgia Tech.
If Georgia Tech, a school that used to be in the SEC, and Florida State, in the region, came asking to join the league, it would probably work out. Arkansas and South Carolina joined in recent years. But this isn’t what the latest talk about expansion is about. It’s about stretching the SEC into a national powerhouse. Where does it stop? You want to start going to Arizona for games? Oregon? Twenty teams? A Super Conference outside the control of the NCAA?
If you lose your regionalism, lose your cultural ties, and dilute traditional conference rivalries, you haven’t expanded your conference. You have destroyed it and morphed into something else.
It's interesting that a week that began with headlines about possibly expanding the conference and moving college football toward a playoff system has now suddenly derailed with the conversation of what's been going on at Miami. It's an interesting story, though I did note when ESPN brought it up and listed other schools under investigation recently that they conveniently left out Ohio State. (No, they don't have an agenda...of course not!)
The best take on the Miami situation and revelations I've heard so far is that people in Miami are questioning if they were cheating as much as alleged, why were they not winning more games?
Labels: football
posted by Michael Hickerson at 8/17/2011 07:50:00 PM |
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