Three Ways For The SEC To Fix Its Reputation

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Last Friday, we examined the current dominant state of SEC football and listed for you the three reasons why SEC superiority isn’t about to end anytime soon:


* The Coaching Advantage — Last year, nine of the 24 highest-paid coaches in America worked in the SEC.

* The Money Advantage — Last year, nine of the 21 biggest athletic budgets in the nation belonged to SEC schools.

* The Talent Advantage — Since 1988, right at 30% of all NFL draft picks have played their high school football in the SEC’s nine-state region.

 
Like those facts or dislike them, they cannot be argued.  And they aren’t likely to change, either. 

With that in mind, it’s time for SEC commissioner Mike Slive to add to his legacy.  In the past eight years he has overseen a financial boon with two huge television contracts.  He has watched as his conference has become the unquestioned king of the college football world winning five national titles in a row (with four different schools grabbing the hardware).  Now it’s time for him to do something more long-lasting.

It’s time for Slive to fix the SEC’s reputation.

When Slive took over as the league’s seventh commissioner back in 2002 he made repairing the league’s outlaw reputation a priority.  Just a few short years ago, it looked as though his efforts were paying off.  Across the entire SEC only Arkansas’ track program was on NCAA probation in mid-2000s. 

Then all hell broke loose.

Alabama was put on probation over a textbook scandal.  Another probation at Bama?  That was bad for the league’s rep.

Then Kentucky hired renegade coach John Calipari.  Whether his reputation was fairly earned or not, his hiring was bad for the league’s rep.

And then LSU got into trouble over a juco recruit.  Then Bruce Pearl lied to NCAA investigators.  Then Cecil Newton became a nationally known figure.  Then all manner of accusations began to fly back and forth between Auburn, Florida and Mississippi State fans. 

All were hits on the SEC’s reputation.  Worse — conference commissioners from across the country, national pundits and many SEC fans were left to wonder why the SEC failed to act at all in the case of Cam Newton. 

The time to repair the league’s image has arrived.  With SEC football dominance (and revenue) at an all-time high, Slive should try to build a consensus among SEC presidents to make three changes within the league… changes that would go a long way toward improving the conference’s reputation.


1.  Outlaw oversigning.

2.  Create one uniform drug policy.

3.  Prevent players dismissed from one SEC program from transferring to another SEC school.


Oversigning

Consider oversigning to be “the sun got in my eyes” defense of the modern football era.  Fans of rival conferences are now beating the SEC to a pulp over the practice of oversigning.  Yes the SEC capped signees at 28 just two years ago, but with back-counting, grayshirting, juco transfers and questionable medical hardships being doled out yearly, SEC coaches continue to go above and beyond the SEC- (and now NCAA-) mandated 28-man headcount. 

Now, if oversigning were truly the key to the SEC’s success it stands to reason that Houston Nutt would have won a national title or two by this point as he’s viewed as the King of Oversigning.  But that’s not the point.

The Big Ten has the moral high ground on this one.  They’ve staked it out and owned it since way back in 1956.  Good for them.  If a coach signs signs a player who does not develop into the talent the coach expected, then the coach should pay for that mistake, not the player.  Oversigning allows coaches to chase and sign players who they know will never get into school (as Nutt admitted when he inked a ridiculous 37 players in 2009).  It also allows coaches to give the medical hardship heave-ho to disappointing players. 

College football may indeed be a business, but that does not excuse the fact that such sketchy practices are out of bounds when it comes to the coach-university-student/athlete relationship. 

With the SEC’s talent base, facilities, recruiting budgets and coaching roster, capping signees at 28 — and holding them there — would not cost the SEC a thing.  And if a coach cannot identify talent, sign talent, and develop talent within the confines of a 28-man cap, then that coach probably isn’t good enough to be coaching in the Southeastern Conference in the first place.

With the national clamor growing louder, it’s time for the SEC to disarm the last “yeah, but” defense in opposing fans’ arsenal.  It’s time to give some teeth to the oversigning rule.  Just as the Big Ten has done.  For 55 years.

No SEC fan should have to hear, “But they oversign” when national dominance is discussed. 


Drug Policies

Here’s another area where the SEC can take a stand and earn some attaboys from the national press.  As detailed in this piece, SEC schools currently set and enforce their own drug policies.  At schools like Kentucky and Georgia, that’s a good thing.  It’s three strikes and you’re out when it comes to drug offenses in Lexington and Athens.

But at schools like Ole Miss (no missed playing time until a third offense) and Florida (with a ridiculous five-strikes policy) repeat offenders can keep right on offending.

Obviously, Mike Slive does not want to begin collecting urine samples on the conference’s dime.  The league office has enough to worry about — the Newtons, Pearl, etc — without bringing in new hires to run a mini version of the DEA.  That said, it’s time for the league’s presidents to get together and create a uniform policy that each school can carry out on its own.

Drug tests cost money and not all SEC schools have equal cash in the bank.  So a reasonable number of annual tests would have to be agreed upon.  The same goes for how those tests would be administered.  But once those details were worked out, the league could easily put in place a uniform drug policy that falls somewhere between the stiff policies of UGA and UK and the lax policies of UM and UF.

Say something like…


* First failed drug test – No missed games, mandatory counseling, regular testing

* Second failed drug test – Miss 10% of a season’s games

* Third failed drug test — Miss 50% of a season’s games

* Fourth failed drug test – Automatic dismissal


There.  That wasn’t so hard, was it? 


Disciplinary Transfers

In May of 2007, Florida defensive back Jamar Hornsby was arrested on felony charges of improper use of a credit card after he had made nearly 70 false charges on the gas card of a dead University of Florida student.  He accepted a plea deal and avoided jail time.  Soon after, Nutt was luring him to Ole Miss.

Once Hornsby inked with the Rebels, he was arrested again.  In March of 2009 he was hit with assault charges following the beatdown of another man at a McDonald’s drive-through.  Hornsby was dismissed from the UM team before every suiting up as a Rebel.

Hornsby got his second chance at Ole Miss — the one he blew with the parking lot assault — only because he had top talent.  And that is wrong.  No SEC coach faced with making a disciplinary call on a student/athlete should have to worry about that player coming back to haunt him should he be dismissed.

Urban Meyer lived out this scenario again after Hornsby, of course.  Whether Newton left Florida or Meyer suggested Newton leave is up for debate.  As is Newton’s academic standing at the time of his departure.  What isn’t up for debate is the fact that Newton had been arrested in connection with a stolen laptop while still a Gator.  Newton left Gainesville for a junior college and then — free to go wherever he liked — he put himself on the open market.  Or at least his father did.

Last year as Newton starred for Auburn and led the Tigers to a perfect season and national championship, Meyer faced questions about how/why his old QB left the Sunshine State.  That’s not fair to a coach.  If we truly want upstanding citizens to represent our favorite schools, we should want our coaches to do whatever is necessary on the discipline front to make that so.  But if a coach fears that a rival school might burn him by using a player he has dismissed, it’s possible said coach will keep a miscreant on his team longer than he should.

Anyone who reads this site knows that we’re all for second- and third- and fourth-chances, especially when it comes to the lives of people in their teens and twenties.  But there’s nothing that says a second chance has to come in the same conference.

Last spring, Georgia quarterback Zach Mettenberger from his team after the player was arrested on charges of sexual battery, disorderly conduct, obstruction, providing false ID to a police officer and more.  He also reportedly lied to Mark Richt about the details of his arrest.  Richt dismissed Mettenberger from the UGA team. 

But after a year at a junior college in Kansas, Mettenberger will be back in the SEC at LSU this fall.  Now let’s just suppose that LSU and Georgia wind their way into the SEC Championship Game next year.  And let’s say Mettenberger thoroughly outplays UGA’s Aaron Murray and wins the game in Newton-esque fashion for the Tigers.  Think a few Dawg fans won’t hold it against Richt that he ran off a guy that beat him for an SEC crown?

That would not be fair to Richt (though we’re pretty sure that Richt would be glad to see Mettenberger getting a second chance).

Some will say that such a rule would have cost the SEC a national crown and a Heisman Trophy last year.  Perhaps.  But the league also would have avoided the enormous black eye provided by L’affaire Newton.

The SEC is a partnership between 12 member institutions.  When it comes to discipline, they should act like it.


The Southeastern Conference is clearly dealing from a position of strength these days.  Its football is as good as this country has ever seen.  Truly, the past 13 years of dominance (seven national titles won by five different programs) is unmatched in the history of the sport.

With its coaching advantage, money advantage and talent advantage, the Southeastern Conference schools can now work together to improve the league’s reputation without fear of undermining the conference’s on-field results.  They are so far ahead of the game that addressing the issues of oversigning, drug policies and disciplinary transfers will send the right message without hurting the overall product.

Therefore it’s time for Mike Slive and the SEC presidents to agree to cap each and every class at 28 signess.  It’s time for them to create a standard drug policy, still enforced by the individual schools.  It’s time for the league’s presidents to tell one another, “If you dismiss a player over a disciplinary issue, we’ll respect your decision and stay away from that player.”

Do that and the SEC will not only have a reputation for winning, but for winning the right way.  And here’s betting Slive wouldn’t mind having that for a legacy.