MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — The Southeastern Conference is the biggest and baddest bully on the college football block. That is long-established, indisputable fact. And the league’s member schools and fans will reinforce that truth at every chest-beating, “S-E-C!”-chanting opportunity.
So why are the SEC schools now afraid of internal competition? Why is it too hard, too unfair, to add a ninth league game? Why should the SEC remain at eight games when every other power conference is playing nine? Why can’t the conference give the people—and its TV network, ESPN—what they want, which is more SEC football?
Amazingly, we are still asking these questions and having this debate a year after it was supposed to have been resolved. At the 2022 SEC spring meetings, the league was widely expected to vote to increase its schedule from eight games to nine—then walked it back in the 11th hour, with the member schools split roughly in half on the subject. Twelve months later we’re back at the same Florida panhandle locale—waves rolling, sun shining, sugary beaches beckoning … and SEC leaders still dithering over what to do.
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