From SEC football schedule to realignment, what to expect at spring meetings | Toppmeyer

If SEC officials meet for four days at a beach resort and no 2024 football schedule is approved, did it really even happen?

That question could become relevant after the SEC’s spring meetings next week in Miramar Beach, Florida.

For the second straight year, the SEC’s schedule format for ’24 and beyond will be a central topic of debate. No football schedule is approved after this season, the final year before the SEC expands to 16 teams.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told me in early March that he expected a vote on the schedule to occur within 90 days. In other words, by the end of spring meetings.

By April, he’d eased on that timeline.

“Could be,” Sankey said then, when asked if the schedule would be decided at the meetings. “But, I said that last year, too.”

Indeed, coaches and administrators debated eight- and nine-game schedule formats a year ago. No vote occurred.

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Eventually, a vote must occur.

Next week?

Maybe.

Along with a potential scheduling verdict, here are topics that will garner my attention, in between my trips to the Panhandle’s white sands. 

Time to vote on SEC schedule format?

Let’s review what we know about scheduling: This is the final year for SEC divisions. After OU and Texas join, teams will compete within an undivided 16-team conference.

The schedule debate centers on whether to stick with an eight-game conference schedule or increase to nine. In either schedule format, teams will play every other SEC member at a minimum of once every two years.

In the eight-game format, each team will have one affixed rival, plus seven rotating opponents. With nine games, each team will have three earmarked rivals, plus six rotating opponents.

Kentucky and South Carolina are among the schools on record favoring staying with eight SEC games. Florida, LSU and Texas A&M are among those favoring nine.

But the divide is not neatly divided among the SEC’s haves and have-nots. Sports Illustrated reported that Nick Saban told the publication Alabama favors sticking with eight conference games, a pivot from his years-long pandering for a ninth conference game. Saban’s stated hang-up with the nine-game format revolved around Alabama’s earmarked rivals being Auburn, LSU and Tennessee.

One downside of sticking with eight conference games would be the sacrifice of some longstanding annual secondary rivalries, like Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia.

Realignment debate

Oklahoma and Texas will have representatives at the meetings, but they cannot vote on the schedule format or other issues. I’ll also keep a lookout for Clemson and Florida State representatives. Just kidding, ACC members won’t be there, although some might like to be.

Several ACC schools reportedly have examined the bonds of the media rights deal that handcuffs schools to the conference through 2036. That long-term contract has kept the ACC free from raid in this latest realignment carousel, but dialogue about ACC members’ media rights displeasure and possible exit interest dominated the ACC’s spring meetings.

With the ACC’s brotherhood exhibiting fissures, expect reporters to ask Sankey about his conference’s interest in further expansion.

Sankey seems content at 16, but he hasn’t shut the door to more expansion. The ACC’s media rights deal remains a firewall, though.

Curtailing field rushing or court storming

Sankey organized a committee last fall to explore ways to curtail fan storming of football fields and basketball courts. The SEC’s current fine system is an ineffective deterrent.

Sports Illustrated reported last month that one option under review would have a field-storming result in the abdication of a future home game.

In other words, if fans of State U. stormed the field after beating Stinky State U., the next time State U. was scheduled to host Stinky State, the game would flip, and Stinky State would get to host.

Such a stiff punishment strikes me as unlikely to gain the necessary approval.

Football coaches are control freaks. Fans storming the field remains beyond their control. I’d think many coaches would shudder at the thought of being forced to drop a future home game because some, drunk joyous revelers rushed past security. Likewise, school officials don’t want to see anyone hurt celebrating a victory, but many also probably won’t like the thought of risking home-game revenue.

This issue seems earmarked for the lot-of-talk, little-action, category.

Howdy, Hugh Freeze

This will be Auburn coach Hugh Freeze’s first opportunity in front of SEC-wide media since his 2016 resignation from Ole Miss amid twin scandals involving calls to an escort service and an unrelated NCAA investigation into his football program.

I wouldn’t anticipate drama next week. Freeze’s Ole Miss incineration is old news. Unlike SEC media days in July, the spring meetings are not a made-for-TV event full of goofy or “Gotcha!” questions.

I’d expect Freeze to effectively chum it up with SEC scribes, as he pedals Auburn away from the miserable Bryan Harsin era.

Ever the affable showman, Freeze is a prime candidate to do a cannonball during Tuesday’s poolside reception.

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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