FORT WORTH, Texas — According the annual grift that is the U.S. News “Best National University Rankings,” the strength of the SEC is, surprisingly, not in academics.
Once Texas and Oklahoma join, the SEC will feature 16 of some of the finest academic institutions this land offers; 10 of them are ranked 100 or below according to U.S. News.
Tip of the cap to Auburn, which is ranked 99th. Take that, Alabama (No. 148).
FWIW: The “top” schools in the future SEC, according to this annual report, are Florida (28), Texas (38) and Georgia (48). Vanderbilt, the non-scholarship backup punter who is in the SEC for its GPA, is ranked 14th.
(Texas A&M is 68th, but that should go up once American patriot/superhero Kyle Rittenhouse graduates from Blinn and becomes an Aggie.)
In the last 10 years, nothing has used sports to elevate its stature more effectively than the SEC. Even SEC teams that routinely lose still win (looking at you, Arkansas).
High school seniors want to attend an SEC school not because of the education, but because they look fun. At all but about 30 universities “A fun four years” is the No. 1 point of sale in higher education.
The SEC becoming Thanos is great for the SEC, and a quiet disaster for college sports in the United States.
The future of college sports is on full display this week in Omaha, Neb., at the 2022 College World Series; six of the eight teams will be members of the $EC in the next two years.
This is after another College Football Playoff that has basically become an SEC Invitational where Georgia defeated SEC-buddy Alabama for the title.
The SEC has turned the rest of the United States into college’s minor leagues. The holdout remains men’s basketball, a sport that the SEC really can’t bring itself to care enough about to win.
The leaders of college sports have more problems than they do hair follicles, and the increased consolidation of wealth and power of college sports in America’s southeast is the quiet killer that may not have any solution.
The presidents and chancellors of the major schools outside of the SEC’s 16, with the exception of Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan and a few others, all know the financial ramifications of this devaluation of their precious brands.
They know the value of being a “minor league” college sports brand.
Collectively, they have more power and influence than they exert.
Individually, the only one with any weight is Notre Dame, a university that has never acted on the interests of anything other than itself.
Historically, Notre Dame’s priority is money, money, money, Notre Dame, and, maybe, the Catholic church.
What no college sports fan should want is the de facto relegation of athletics the SEC has created.
From a TV and marketing standpoint, you want a product that has appeal across the entire United States. That has a presence and value.
North of State College, Pennsylvania, the interest in college sports has never looked worse. Out west, USC is praying that paying Lincoln Riley LIV Golf tour-like money will restore its stature to the days when Trojan football mattered.
The dividing line in college sports remains Norman, Oklahoma.
Since there is no secret that college sports is a product, the leaders who run the S.S. Hypocrite will eventually act.
All of the money flowing in the SEC to the coaches, the players, the support staffs and facilities has created an upper tier that organically happened. There was no plan.
All of this money will eventually lead to regulation, most likely authored by the NCAA. Those people need jobs, and something to do other than run another tournament that loses money.
This is not about protecting the “sanctity” of college athletics.
This is not about the evil SEC.
This is about a lot of other schools also not ranked in the U.S. News “Best National University Rankings” Top 50 that need to be able to tell prospective customers (sorry — students) that theirs is not the minor leagues of college sports.
Will regulation work? No.
Doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try.
After all, they want in on the fun, too.
