Tramel's ScissorTales: Why Greg Sankey prefers nine-game league schedule for SEC football
Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey makes it clear he prefers a nine-game league football schedule once OU and Texas join in 2024. And he uses baseball as an example.
The SEC Spring Meetings began Tuesday in Destin, Florida, and members are expected to vote this week on a football scheduling format. The debate centers around an eight- or nine-game format. The SEC long has used an eight-game format, but Sankey (and ESPN) prefers nine.
The argument for the eight-game format is to soften schedules and give lower-rung SEC teams a better chance at six wins total and bowl eligibility.
“A league at the forefront of college athletics does not stand still,” Sankey told reporters Monday. “This is a league at the forefront of college athletics. Now, whether change happens immediately is part of a careful consideration and a deep consideration.
“You can make arguments around both (models), but I'm watching a different reality – a baseball league that may be more challenging than our football. The content of our games and the opportunities created is not minimized by playing each other with greater frequency. We maximize that because of the strength of schedule. Football is the same.”
More: Nick Saban shrinks into shadows on SEC schedule, as new voice of reason emerges | Toppmeyer
SEC baseball is loaded. The NCAA on Sunday handed out 16 regional host sites – eight are in the SEC. And 10 of the 14 SEC teams were included in the 64-team NCAA baseball championships.
The SEC plays a 30-game conference schedule, which means 10 series against league foes for each member.
Sankey’s point: More quality competition enhances the résumés and hones the abilities of SEC teams.
“Is the bowl-eligibility issue absolute?” Sankey asked. “We've done predictive analytics (on football). It's actually a marginal change. Maybe practically on the frontline it feels like a significant change, but when we've run the numbers, it's not as if we have massive bowl ineligibility appearing from a nine-game schedule."
Of course, some coaches support the eight-game format not because of bowls, but because of job security. Scheduling can go a long way to establishing the difference between a 6-6 season and a 7-5 season, and that distinction can be the difference between keeping your job or getting fired.
But even some of the SEC schools that originally supported more conference games have waffled. Alabama, for example.
More: 'Bring your A-game.' Are Oklahoma, Texas ready for the SEC? Let Mizzou tell the story | Toppmeyer
The nine-game model means three permanent opponents for each school, with the rest on a rotating basis. But Bama’s three permanent foes reportedly are Louisiana State, Auburn and Tennessee, which would be a most rugged trio.
OU and Texas will not vote. The 14 legacy members will vote, with eight needed for approval of any model.
Sankey said he has “made clear what I think eventually should happen … I would prefer to not continue to circle the airport with the airplane.”
OU and Texas will be represented at the meetings, as SEC decision-makers discuss television money and the upcoming 12-team College Football Playoff.
Sankey pointed out that in the pandemic season of 2020, when the SEC played 10 conference games each, “the viewership on our network that year was at a record level because we weren't playing the same kind of games that don't draw the passion that a conference game does. I also know that when you look at economics — the ticket pricing around high-level conference games is very different … so those are elements that to me are front and center.”
Sankey has been an extraordinary leader for the SEC. Will his preferences win out during the spring meetings? We’ll know soon enough.
More: Tramel's ScissorTales: How OU could have helped Big Ten out of its primetime dilemma
Why San Diego State is a tough sell for Power Five
San Diego State has been prominently mentioned as an expansion candidate for the Pac-12, and even the Big 12 has been mentioned as a San Diego State partner.
But the Aztecs don’t seem like a plum addition for the Big 12, and even in the Pac-12, there are problems.
Like this. A night game in San Diego usually means travel nightmares for visiting teams.
Before 9/11, civilian charters could get permission to land at the Naval Air Station on North Island, adjacent to San Diego. But that’s no longer an option.
But San Diego International Airport has its own issues. The airport is just off downtown, right on the waterfront, and the city imposes flight curfews of 11:30 p.m.
Playing a night game at San Diego State means a charter would need to take off well after 11:30. And the next-nearest civilian airport is John Wayne in Orange County, which also has a curfew.
That requires football teams must bus to LAX – Los Angeles International Airport is 125 miles from San Diego State University.
Think about that. Play a game with a 7 p.m. kickoff (California time). Game ends around 10:30. Get showered and loaded up, somewhere between 11:30 and midnight. Bus to LAX, arrive around 1:45 a.m. Get unloaded, load the plane, best-case scenario, a 2:30 a.m. takeoff.
That’s 4:30 a.m. in the Central Time Zone, 5:30 a.m. for Cincinnati, Central Florida or West Virginia. With a five- to six-hour flight. That’s a brutal schedule.
It’s bad enough for West Coast schools playing in San Diego. Untenable for the Big 12.
More: Tramel: Big 12 basketball coaches ready to follow commissioner Brett Yormark's bold ideas
Mailbag: Softball vs. Baseball
College baseball once was quite popular in this state, but softball has overtaken baseball with the average sports fan. Some want to know why.
Joe: “Why are there certain areas covered more favorably (and unfavorably) in The Oklahoman? So much of the paper – not just the sports section, but all of it – seems to have gone bonkers over softball. I know there are some very good teams in the area, and they are popular, but it seems to me that the coverage is at the expense of baseball, especially OU & OSU baseball. Their softball teams have done extremely well but so have the baseballers, and I don't think there has been fair recognition of this.”
Tramel: The answer is clear. It’s in the numbers. We now are capable of monitoring what draws our readers, and they much prefer softball. We get the digital metrics on what people are reading, and softball far outshines baseball, even when a baseball team excels, such as OU’s drive to the national championship series a year ago.
In Oklahoma, softball now dwarfs everything else in college sports except football, and that includes men’s basketball. We get far more readers on softball.
Anecdotally, when I am out and about, no one ever talks college baseball. They talk about softball incessantly.
More: Tramel: OU softball coach Patty Gasso catches Bud Wilkinson with Sooners' magic number, 47
Heat shows what culture means
You hear a lot about culture in the NBA. Here in Oklahoma, we hear it a lot, with the Thunder, which prides itself on organizational cornerstones.
The Thunder culture morphed over the years – with the culture becoming whatever Russell Westbrook said it was, from summer 2016 to summer 2019. It seems back on track, but that’s the key, maintaining a culture year after year, regardless of personnel.
And Miami is the ultimate example.
The Heat routed the Celtics 103-84 Monday night in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The stunning verdict made Miami the second 8-seed ever to reach the NBA Finals, joining the 1999 Knickerbockers.
On April 14, the Heat, playing at home in a play-in game against Chicago, trailed the Bulls 82-76 with 7½ minutes left in the game.
Miami’s season was on the precipice of disaster. A loss would have dropped the Heat from the playoffs.
But Miami rallied, Jimmy Butler put the Heat ahead 91-90 with 2:17 left on a driving layup, and Miami went on to win 102-91.
Six weeks later, the Heat still is playing. It’s a credit to Erik Spoelstra; this is the crowning achievement of his coaching career, even though he’s won two NBA titles. It’s a credit to team president Pat Riley, who arrived in Miami as coach in 1995 and instilled the culture you see now.
And it’s a credit to a good, not great, roster that includes four undrafted players in the eight-man rotation.
Boston had the much better roster. But the Celtics played without purpose at times, lacking focus, discipline and/or organization.
Miami played to its strengths and its gameplan. Boston? Not always.
That’s culture.
Even after losing three straight that allowed Boston to the brink of making history, the Heat didn’t crumble. No team ever lost a series after leading three games to zero, and it still hasn’t happened.
Boston had all the momentum, homecourt advantage and a far better rotation. But Miami had its culture. The Heat played tough (and varying) defense. The Heat sought and took open shots. Miami outplayed Boston. No dispute.
The Heat trusted their coaching and relied upon their culture. Boston did not. And Miami was rewarded.
Most teams say they have a good culture. Easy to say. Difficult to manage.
Can the Thunder duplicate the Miami success, of relying on culture even when the odds are stacked against you? Most NBA people salute the Thunder culture.
But we’ll see. It’s easy to declare. It’s much more difficult to deliver.
More: Who are the OKC Thunder-types in NBA Draft? Meet Anthony Black, Jarace Walker and more
The List: College nickname changes
Last week, I produced a list of the 10 best college sports nickname changes. There are many more good nickname changes than bad nickname changes, for obvious reasons.
But you still can find a few schools that never should have changed their names. Here are 10:
1. Texas Tech Matadors: From 1925-32, Tech’s teams were known as the Matadors. You know them well as the Red Raiders, and that’s a fine name. But Matadors is glorious.
2. Cal State-Los Angeles Diablos: in 1981, CS-LA switched from Diablos to Golden Eagles. Why. Oh why? I’m asking as a friend.
3. New Mexico State Roadrunners: When the Aggies formed a women’s athletic department in the 1970s, the female teams were known as the Roadrunners. In 2000, they all became Aggies. I’m in favor of consolidation, but they should have gone the other way.
4. Washington Sun Dodgers: In 1920, when UW joined what now is known as the Pac-12, the school didn’t have a nickname. It settled on Sun Dodgers, the name of the school’s humor magazine. Some said the name was a Montana term for unbroken horse and East Coast slang for night owl, but everyone knew Seattle’s notoriously crowded weather was the tie that binds. Sun Dodgers quickly became controversial, and it was ditched after two years in favor of Huskies.
5. Virginia Tech Fighting Gobblers: VPI has gradually transitioned from Fighting Gobblers to Hokies, which is a derivative of Gobblers. And much, much worse.
6. Brooklyn Bridges: Division III Brooklyn College was the Kingsmen from 1932 until 1994, then adopted Bridges. Alas, Bridges was scrapped in 2010, in favor of Bulldogs. People don’t appreciate wordplay anymore.
7. Florida International Sunblazers: FIU went to Golden Panthers in 1987 and Panthers in 2010. But why would you ever drop Sunblazers? Great name for a Floridian team.
8. Oklahoma City Goldbugs: OCU became the Chiefs in 1946 and switched to the Stars in 1998. I’ve always argued that OCU could have kept the Chiefs nickname and just eliminated the American Indian imagery. But OCU should have just stuck with Goldbugs, its name from 1921-46.
9. Lehigh Engineers: Lehigh adopted Mountain Hawks in 1995. But Lehigh graduates invented the escalator, founded Packard Motor Company and formed the companies that built the locks and lockgates of the Panama Canal. Embrace your brilliance.
10. Long Island Blackbirds: In 2019, LIU merged the athletic departments at its historic two campuses – LIU-Brooklyn and C.W. Post. Ditched were the LIU Blackbirds and the C.W. Post Pioneers, in favor of the LIU Sharks. Bummer. Blackbirds is a cool name.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: SEC football schedule: Greg Sankey makes case for nine-game model
