🏈 SEC should dump Mississippi schools, add UCF and USF

[BAMANEWSBOT]

Running off at the typewriter. …

UCF football coach George O'Leary seems to have ruffled some feathers around college football when he had the audacity to challenge powerful SEC Commissioner Mike Slive on his threat to break away from the rest of major college football and start a new division.

"They sound like the South during the Civil War," O'Leary said of the SEC and the other mutineers in the so-called Power 5 conferences. "If they don't get their way, they're going to secede and start their own country. … I think college football is in real trouble."

My thoughts: If the Power 5 leagues truly want to break off into their own division then they first need to jettison the dead weight and add more deserving schools like UCF before setting sail for the brave new world of college football.

Example: The SEC should dump Ole Miss and Mississippi State and invite in UCF and USF to take their place. It's crazy that the Mississippi schools get to be part of the most powerful league in college football in a day and age when the sport is all about cable television subscribers, recruiting base and growth potential.

Why wouldn't the SEC or Big 12 want to dominate the I-4 corridor that runs through the center of one of the most populated, recruiting-rich states in the country? Combined, the Tampa and Orlando TV markets are the fourth-largest in the country whereas the TV markets of Oxford and Starkville don't even show up on the list. Mississippi's largest city – Jackson – is nation's 94th-largest market.

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy: How can you tell if a Mississippi State fan is on vacation in Orlando? He's the one trying to take his fishing pole into Sea World!

Let's face it, the only reason Ole Miss and Mississippi State are part of SEC today is that they happened to be at the right place at the right time 100 years ago when the conference was formed while UCF and USF weren't.

If the big boys of the Power 5 truly want to start their own division then how about first getting rid of the irrelevant schools in their own conferences?

Mike Bianchi- Orlando Sentinel

 

[planomateo]

Seems to me like it would be redundant.

 

[alabama mike]

Personally, I wouldnt want to get rid of the Mississippi schools. I also have no problem adding a couple of the Florida schools.

 

[bama alum]

Personally, I wouldnt want to get rid of the Mississippi schools. I also have no problem adding a couple of the Florida schools.

Wasn't there talk a couple of years ago about the SEC moving to sixteen teams? I don't think these two were in any of the discussions for that, but if the five-power conferences were to secede, I'm sure UCF and USF would love to come aboard. I think they'd probably prefer the ACC to SEC though.

 

[rocknthefreeworld]

Sounds like homer talk there. "SEC should trade two schools I don't care about for two schools I care about but very few others do." Why would we make a trade like that? Adding them does little for the SEC. I guess there is an argument that maybe one of them would be good for the SEC due to the TV market but no way both do much. And as far as strength of schedule, why wouldn't we go for an Oklahoma , Clemson, FSU, VaTech, or Miami instead?

 

[bama alum]

Sounds like homer talk there. "SEC should trade two schools I don't care about for two schools I care about but very few others do." Why would we make a trade like that? Adding them does little for the SEC. I guess there is an argument that maybe one of them would be good for the SEC due to the TV market but no way both do much. And as far as strength of schedule, why wouldn't we go for an Oklahoma , Clemson, FSU, VaTech, or Miami instead?

I agree. What good does that do for the SEC? They're better off in the ACC if they want to make that kind of move.