DALLAS — Basking in his league’s new stomping grounds, Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey stuck with something familiar: talk of leveling the playing field.
Opening the conference’s football media days event Monday morning, Sankey tailored his talking points to the arena of legality of college athletes being paid and legislatures that now house college sports discourse.
It’s a gripe that has popped up before and is, more than a little indirectly, aimed at Missouri — the school and the state.
The name, image and likeness legislation that took effect nearly a year ago in Missouri was one of the more liberal or aggressive — depending on your perception of the new rules — bits of recent college sports policymaking. The law allows Mizzou to begin using institutional funds to compensate athletes and also allows high school recruits to earn endorsement money when they commit to in-state schools.
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Sankey, citing feedback from athletes around the SEC, didn’t seem to be a fan of the perceived advantage it has given the Tigers.
“I’m actually the voice of our student-athletes,†he said, “because they have said, over and over: ‘We deserve better as student-athletes than to have a patchwork of state laws that tell us how to manage our name, imagine and likeness. We deserve better than a race to the bottom for competitive purposes on a state-by-state basis. And we as student-athletes want to know when we line up for a kickoff, tip off in a basketball game, first pitch in a softball or baseball game, that the people occupying the other uniforms are governed by the same set of standards governing us.’â€
Regardless of whether the matchups between state laws are so urgently on the minds of athletes when they’re seconds away from beginning a game, Sankey’s crusade against “outside ideas†of how to redeem or safeguard college sports dominated his address to SEC media.
With the arrival of Oklahoma and Texas expanding league membership to 16 schools serving as another narrative backdrop for the event taking place along the Interstate 35 corridor that delineates the SEC’s new western frontier, Sankey once again sang the praises of the conference’s competitive performances. He rattled off counts of SEC products on NBA postseason participants, MLB rosters and Olympic teams.
And he framed it in the context of what, in his eyes, is orbiting the conference.
“We’re (excelling) at a time when the pressures to recruit, to win, to draw people in are just as high as they’ve ever been,†Sankey said. “But we’ve added a set of external factors: the litigation that presses in, state-level legislation, conversations with Congress and the emergence of the next great idea that is sold or pitched as something that will quickly and fully resolve the issues currently faced in college sports.â€
With the impacts of recent years’ conference realignment flurry on full display, Sankey repeatedly played down the notion that the SEC might expand past 16 teams.
“We’re the one conference at this level where the name still means something, the southeastern part of the United States,†he said.
That, too, was something of a dig at a conference such as the Atlantic Coast, which now includes schools such as Southern Methodist (in Texas), California and Stanford (also in California) that are located a considerable distance from the East Coast.
Sankey’s stance on future realignment seemed staunch, if not slightly ominous toward the future of college sports.
“We’re focused on our 16 (schools), period,†he said. “You’ve seen how we’ve made decisions over the last decade-plus for contiguous states to join. I think that’s incredibly wise and provides remarkable strength. I’m not going to guess about what happens next.â€
Football standings tiebreakers TBA
The SEC has eliminated football divisions for its 16-team era, no longer ranking teams regionally. While those designations were not particularly accurate in a geographic sense — see MU’s assignment to the SEC East — they did keep the league’s standings more manageable.
Now, they’ll fall into a table running from first to 16th, which will undoubtedly lead to a few — or maybe even more — teams tied at various records. A 16-team league and eight-game conference schedule mean head-to-head records or performances against common opponents won’t be enough to break all ties.
Tiebreaker procedures are set to be finalized soon, Sankey said, though he wasn’t overly specific about what each step will be.
“It is a lengthy plan consolidated around, I think, eight principles,†he said.
Former MU coordinator settles in at LSU
A former Mizzou name popped up in Louisiana State’s news conferences at the media event: defensive coordinator Blake Baker, who unexpectedly left MU for the Bayou in January.
His task at LSU is rebuilding a defense whose struggles kept an offense fueled by a Heisman Trophy winner from any sort of title contention.
“Scheme aside, I think everybody has their flavor of what the scheme looks like,†coach Brian Kelly said. “Blake certainly has an established comfort level in a particular scheme. But it’s relationships. It’s getting players excited about stepping on the field. It’s about players truly wanting to be part of those 11 guys running, hitting, being part of that unit. Blake’s ability to orchestrate that, bring that together is what has been the piece that is really evident.â€
Baker’s energetic coaching style made an immediate impression on LSU’s defensive players during spring camp — partly because he met some of them for the first time at a practice in which the new D-coordinator arrived in cleats.
“It made me laugh a little bit because it speaks to the testament of what he’s saying,†linebacker Harold Perkins Jr. said. “He comes out here wanting you to work, but obviously he’s working too. He’s not just telling you what to do, he’s showing us how to do it.â€