🏈 SEC fatigue still plagues many

[Bamabww]

May 27, 2015

Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist

How long will it take the nation to get over its serious, lingering case of SEC fatigue?

No one knows, but two years obviously is not enough. Two years without an SEC football team winning the national championship has done nothing to ease fears that the SEC won't start winning again. Furthermore, two years haven't done anything to ease the rhetoric.

A case in point, Nick Saban answered questions about several prominent topics in the college game on Tuesday. He didn't walk up to a podium and start pontificating. His introductory statement was about sport fishing and his daughter's upcoming wedding. Then he fielded questions, as he should, from the media. There is nothing wrong with reporters asking about topics. Saban then did what he usually does - gave direct, quotable answers. He talked about the need for a "level playing field" which, in some cases, was directed more at his SEC brethren than at anyone else. That was especially true when discussing "cost of attendance," where Saban (and Mark Richt and others) are more concerned with Auburn and Tennessee than they are with Arizona and Texas Tech.

On a secondary topic, Saban also talked about satellite camps, which all SEC coaches recognize as recruiting tools designed to increase visibility in the talent-rich South for schools in less promising recruiting areas.

So how did the national media react?

"Saban whining," said a USA Today headline. "Saban whining," ESPN said on its Wednesday edition of PTI.
Here is a news flash for everyone. All coaches are competitive. The ultra-successful ones are especially so. They all react badly to rules which put them at a perceived disadvantage. This has been going on forever, and has been largely directed at the SEC over most of the past decade. Big Ten coaches complained loudly about "oversigning," although that apparently isn't such a grave moral issue now that Urban Meyer has Ohio State doing the same thing (although the Buckeyes use the hilarious euphemism "creative roster management").

The same thing goes for Bob Stoops' years of griping about the SEC having an eight-game schedule (plus a championship game) as opposed to the Big XII having a nine-game schedule with no championship game, or the constant refrain from the Big Ten that it was "unfair" to play bowl games in warm weather. Were those coaches whining?

Satellite camps aren't really a make-or-break issue. Their impact on recruiting may be a factor here and there but may not be profound. But on Wednesday, Mike Slive announced that the SEC will either pass a national restriction or do what you have to do in 2016, which is, if you can't beat them (in a legislative sense), join them. Thus we'll be left with a recruiting landscape where a head coach can't participate in spring evaluations (that rule passed, as you would guess, because other coaches felt that Nick Saban had an advantage), but he can pack up his entire staff to travel around and hold satellite camps, at far more expense. Does that make sense? No, but we're in the world of perception here, not the world of logic. Does it make sense to have different standards for fifth-year transfers at Vanderbilt than you have at Virginia. Of course not. But don't say so - or someone might accuse you of whining.

https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1769786

 

[TerryP]

Imagine the reaction if Bama was giving $2300 more than Tennessee, or Auburn.

If any coach has a right to complain, it's Richt.

___________

From SDS recently.

Now that the Power Five conference schools have been granted autonomy, much of the debate surrounds covering a player’s full cost of attendance per school.

But while it may seem like an easy subject, it’s not at all, especially when you break down the differing costs by conference, and more specifically, by school.

John Infante of AthleticScholarships.net broke down the full cost of attendance for every SEC school, and you can read about his methodology here. The following are Infante’s estimates of every school’s annual personal and travel allowance (pocket money):

• Alabama: $3,298
• Arkansas: $4,002
• Auburn: $5,586
• Florida: $3,320
• Georgia: $1,798
• Kentucky: $3,536
• LSU: $3,680
• Mississippi: $4,500
• Mississippi State: $5,126
• Missouri: $3,664
• South Carolina: $4,151
• Tennessee: $5,666
• Texas A&M: $3,100
• Vanderbilt: $2,730

Infante lays out whether or not he thinks this will pass, and it’s really interesting:

The takeaway is obvious here. There is no way this will fly. Not only do some schools offer more than others, but there is no rhyme or reason to why one is greater than the other. Why are travel, clothing, entertainment, and other personal expenses more than twice as expensive in Knoxville, TN as in Los Angeles, CA? Why an over $600 difference between the two Los Angeles schools.

But at the same time, the options for doing so are very limited. The power conferences have one way to normalize cost of attendance across all 65 schools: let every school go up to the highest cost of attendance figure, which in this case is Tennessee’s $5,666.

But that has its own set of problems. First, many schools would then be permitted to exceed cost of attendance, some by thousands of dollars. Not only is that philosophically troubling for the NCAA, it also complicates matters with financial aid offices. If a portion of an athletic scholarship exceeds cost of attendance and is not paid through the financial aid office, what is but payment for services rendered?

Second, this would be massively more expensive than some schools were likely planning for. Tennessee’s number is almost twice as much as the Pac–12’s average. A school like Iowa State, already worried about paying for COA scholarships would see the cost go up by more than $3,000 per full scholarship equivalency. At that point, the divide between the haves, the have-mores, and the real elite would begin to show quickly and clearly.

And finally, it does not solve the perceived imbalance of giving athletes the same living allowance across the country when the cost of living varies wildly among the cities where these 65 schools are located.​

Infante ends with either schools will come up with their own numbers or let everyone go to the maximum. My gut says schools will come up with their own ‘full cost of attendance’ numbers.