Last Friday, the Big 12 and the SEC announced that the two leagues would come together to create their own bowl game featuring the champions of both conferences (in the unlikely event one or both should fail to reach college football’s new four-team playoff).

Almost immediately, emails started to pour in here at MrSEC.com.  The gist was as follows: “If the Pac-12 and Big Ten can partner in the Rose Bowl and in a new round-robin regular-season scheduling agreement, why can’t the SEC and Big 12 do the same?”

Makes sense.  And the press has started getting behind the idea, too.

Yesterday, Cecil Hurt of TideSports.com — a hybrid of Rivals.com and The Tuscaloosa News — wrote the following:

“But with all the talk about the changes in postseason football, and particularly the new SEC-Big 12 ‘champions’ matchup, doesn’t it seem sensible that the conferences – especially what now appear to be the four soon-to-be super conferences (the SEC, the Big 10, the Big 12 and the Pac-12) should take charge of opening weekend as well. With the coming playoff, even a four-team playoff, it makes more sense than ever.

To be honest, a Georgia-Oklahoma game would seem far more compelling to me on Labor Day than New Year’s Day, if those teams are out of the playoff picture. Not every matchup can be Alabama-Michigan, and not every one can sell out an NFL-sized stadium in a neutral city in a matter of hours.”

It’s a good piece.  You should read it.  But there are two things standing between the plan Hurt and many fans support and reality.  And both are already being used by people inside the SEC as reasons to avoid adding a ninth conference game.

* First, if SEC coaches don’t want play a ninth league game, why would they be in favor of playing a ninth game against a team from the second-most successful league of the BCS era?

* Second, if SEC athletic directors don’t want to play a ninth conference game because it would mean giving up a home game every other season, why would they want to give up a home game every other season in order to play a team from the Big 12?

While schools in the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and Pac-12 are fine with playing a minimum of nine BCS-level foes per year, many SEC schools want to cap things at eight for bowl eligibility purposes.  (Southern Cal, for example, will play nine Pac-12 games, one game against a Big Ten foe each year, as well as its yearly tilt with Notre Dame.  That makes 11 BCS-level games per year.)

Additionally, the folks in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina have pointed out often that they already have a built-in BCS-level game as part of their schedules thanks to their in-state rivalries with Florida State, Georgia Tech and Clemson.  (Kentucky fans would argue that Louisville is a major conference team as well, but the Big East is far from a major conference anymore.)

This brings us to what could be a better option altogether for the SEC… if the league actually wants to help tap the brakes on conference expansion.

Last year, the SEC welcomed in Texas A&M and then Missouri from the Big 12.  That move destabilized the Big 12 until ESPN and FOX stepped in to dole out major cash to the league in an effort to hold it together.

Just last week, the SEC aided the Big 12′s rejuvenation process with the aforementioned bowl partnership.  That gave the Big 12 more stability moving forward, but in turn, it made the ACC appear even more vulnerable.  If the ACC is vulnerable, then massive realignment is still a possibility.

We’ve been told repeatedly from sources at just about every SEC school that no one in the league is anxious to become a 15- or 16-team conference.  Just this week, interim Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas told an Austin, Texas radio station that an “SEC colleague” had told him not to expand past 12 because 14 is “unruly.”

So how could the SEC make more money, fend off “strength of schedule” attacks from rival leagues (by guaranteeing nine BCS-level games per year), and help save the ACC?  All the while making sure those folks already playing ACC schools don’t balk?

The answer is pretty clear.

In his column yesterday, Hurt suggested a series of Big 12-SEC games be played on opening weekend each year.  Not bad.  But if the SEC truly wants to slow expansion, we believe it should set up a series of annual games against the 14 ACC schools instead.

SEC coaches would likely be less worried about an ACC game tacked onto the schedule than a game against a Big 12 foe.  Playing most of those games at neutral sites and grabbing a sponsor and an overall television partner would quiet SEC AD’s groans regarding lost income from lost home games every other year, too.

The SEC’s television partners have already asked the league to start scheduling better games toward the end of the season.  For that reason — as well as the fact that USC-CU, UF-FSU, and UGA-GT already play at the end of the season — we would suggest lining up neutral site ACC-SEC rivalry games over the final two weeks of the season.

The ACC and SEC share a major corporate partner in AT&T.   Now let’s say ESPN, AT&T and nine NFL cities/stadiums all cough up dough to create the AT&T SEC-ACC Football Challenge each season?  How much money would that be worth?  How much would that help the SEC in answering cries that its teams only play eight guaranteed BCS-level foes per season?  How much would such income — and a partnership with the SEC — help stabilize the ACC.

Answer to all: A bunch.

As a hypothetical, let’s imagine that Carolina-Clemson, Florida-FSU, and Georgia-Georgia Tech continue to play each other on a home-and-home basis.  Ditto Vanderbilt and Wake Forest which are winding down a seven-year home-and-home contract themselves.  If Kentucky squawked over having to play both Louisville and an ACC foe, give them a permanent home-and-home rivalry with the ACC’s traditional cellar-dweller, Duke.  There’s already a hoops rivalry there between the fanbases.

That leaves nine schools from each league to pair with one another each season.  Those schools could rotate foes on a regular basis, always meeting on neutral sites.  Here’s an example of what might be possible in a single season:

Alabama vs Pittsburgh at LP Field in Nashville, TN

Arkansas vs North Carolina at The Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA

Auburn vs Syracuse at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ

Clemson at South Carolina (permanent foe, home and home)

Kentucky at Duke (permanent foe, home and home)

Florida State at Florida (permanent foe, home and home)

Georgia at Georgia Tech (permanent foe, home and home)

Kentucky at Duke (permanent foe, home and home)

LSU vs Virginia Tech at FedEx Field in Washington, DC

Missouri vs Virginia at The Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, MO

Mississippi State vs North Carolina State at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC

Ole Miss vs Maryland at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, MD

Tennessee vs Boston College at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA

Texas A&M vs Miami at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX

Wake Forest at Vanderbilt (permanent foe, home and home)

Other stadiums and cities could be used based upon a bidding process and availability — Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, the Superdome in New Orleans, Reliant Stadium in Houston, Yankee Stadium in New York, etc, etc.  Those sites could rotate in and out, too.  The above is just an example of what’s possible.

Lining up a year-in, year-out sponsored series of late-season football games against the ACC would accomplish three things:

1.  It would bring in more dollars for both leagues (which should be enough to get the ACC on board with such a plan).

2.  Those dollars and the credibility of partnering with the SEC could help hold the ACC together (and prevent the SEC from having to expand again so soon after going two new teams).

3.  It would guarantee each SEC foe at least nine BCS-level contests per season, which would aid the league in the polls and computer rankings.

We at MrSEC.com understand the thinking behind a Big 12-SEC regular-season partnership to rival the Big Ten’s new deal with the Pac-12.  But we believe the better play would be in setting up an annual SEC-ACC partnership.  Better for the ACC.  Better for the SEC.  Better for the stability of the college football landscape.

Defensive back Nick Glass from St. Pius X Catholic High School became Georgia’s second commitment for the 2014 class on Wednesday.

“It felt like home … why not help out the home school?” Glass said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Glass chose Georgia over an impressive offer list, which includes Auburn, Tennessee, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Ohio State and others. Alabama, which signed St. Pius cornerback Geno Smith in February, was close to offering Glass, he said.

Of course, there will be plenty of time for other schools to recruit Glass and try to persuade him to look elsewhere. But for now, Georgia will be happy to hold the lead for his services.

I appreciate all the the support from everyone. This blessing won’t be waisted.

— Nick Glass (@Nick_Glass24) April 5, 2012

Glass joins running back Stanley Williams from Bethleham, Ga., on Georgia’s commitment list for 2013.

Louisville and Purdue are the latest schools to offer a scholarship to athlete Jalen Reeves-Maybin from Northeast High School in Clarksville, Tenn.

The offer from Louisville could have a more significant meaning. Reeves-Maybin’s father, Marques Maybin, was a standout basketball player at Louisville from 1997-01.

“It’s great to have that offer on board,” Reeves-Maybin told MrSEC.

Reeves-Maybin said his father has a strong connection to his alma mater but hasn’t tried to influence his son to follow in his footsteps.

“He doesn’t pressure me to go anywhere,” Reeves-Maybin said. “It would be good to follow a legacy but I have to make sure I find the right situation for me and my family.”

Reeves-Maybin has nine offers, including Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Tennessee and Vanderbilt. He said he plans to visit Georgia Tech in March and will make a return trip to Tennessee in the near future.

Reeves-Maybin, who visited Tennessee in January, has developed a strong relationship with the Vols’ coaching staff.

“I talk to them quite a bit,” Reeves-Maybin said. “I like Tennessee a lot. I like all the coaches there.”

Georgia has received a commitment from defensive tackle DeAndre “Moose” Johnson from Northgate High School in Newnan, Ga.

Johnson told Georgia coach Mark Richt of his decision on Tuesday.

“Coach Richt was really excited when I told him that,” Johnson said. “He said he couldn’t wait for me to get back up there so he could give me a hug. It made me think that he really wanted me and everything.”

Johnson is Georgia’s seventh commitment for the class of 2013.

Johnson received offers from such schools as Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest. Georgia Tech was Johnson’s second choice behind Georgia.

Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity opened up yesterday regarding the SEC’s soon-to-be sorted out football scheduling format.  Unfortunately, he offered nothing new.

First, don’t expect the SEC to go to nine games in 2013:

“The general feeling is we want to stay with eight.  But we have not sat down as a group of ADs to talk about 2012 and beyond.  We just had to get 2012 solved to move forward.  So who knows what 2013 through either a two-year or six-year rotation.  But that’s what we’re going to meet to (talk about) and dedicate a whole day to (during the SEC’s women’s basketball tournament).”

The fears of a nine-game slate are the same — you can’t schedule as many patsies:

“Nine games, and Georgia Tech, that makes 10 games.   If you ever wanted to schedule Clemson or Ohio State, like we have, then that only leaves one guarantee game.  That’s a pretty tough schedule.  Fans would love it.  But I don’t know if your coaches or players (would).  That’s strapping it up 11 of 12 weeks there.  You have to have some time where some players play who never get a chance to be on the field.”

The ACC has announced that it will go to a nine-game conference slate when Pittsburgh and Syracuse begin league play.  The Big Ten and Pac-12 will engage in a yearly conference-versus-conference agreement that will guarantee that both leagues’ teams will face at least nine BCS opponents per year.  In addition, the ADs at Iowa and Michigan have already stated that facing nine BCS teams per season won’t lead them to end their annual series with Iowa State and Notre Dame, respectively.

In other words, only the SEC is scared of guaranteeing nine to 10 games per year against BCS competition.

Clearly, the goal of most SEC athletic directors is to keep more teams bowl eligible via laughable non-conference schedules.  We find that to be embarrassing and we believe it will eventually bit the league right in the polls.  But then again, it’s you the fan who gets to pay 50+ bucks a seat to watch Jackson State come to town… just so you can then travel to Memphis to watch your 6-6 SEC squad play in the Liberty Bowl against a Conference USA team.  Fun, no?

Additionally, McGarity makes it clear that some of the league’s oldest, most-stories, most-important rivalries could still go away:

“I think if you ask Alabama and Tennessee, like us and Auburn, we’d like to retain the (permanent cross-divisional) games.  But does that work?  What do the other 10 schools think?  Those four schools like having those games but there’s no other East-West match-up that has that piece of history to it.  So I don’t (know) where that fits in.”

A history lesson for Mr. McGarity: Ole Miss and Vanderbilt have played 86 times.  That’s one of the 10 most played rivalries in SEC history.  If the SEC is about everyone being equal, then that rivalry means something, too.

Also, you can bet Missouri likes keeping its toes dipped in the deep recruiting waters of Texas thanks to its cross-divisional partnership with Texas A&M.

But in the end, Georgia’s AD is right about one thing:

“With 14 teams, not everybody will be happy.  Some will have a problem with everything.  But we’ll make decisions based on the best situation of the league.”

Well, there’s nothing better for the league than protecting the very thing that made it great — long-time, heated, tradition-rich rivalries.

The best way to do that is to go to a nine-game conference slate or somehow convince the NCAA to dump its requirements for conference championship games.

Signing day is coming up on Wednesday and we’ll be prepping for our coverage of that event today.  We’ll also be putting together a special schedule-related piece for your viewing this week.

With less time on our hands, we jam the day’s headlines into a single post.  As usual, there will be a number of additional stories over on our Recruiting Page.  Here goes…


1.  SEC schools are learning to live with the league’s new soft 25-man signing cap.

2.  The SEC has named its basketball Players of the Week.

3.  Auburn got outhustled at Tennessee over the weekend.

4.  Gene Chizik’s seen a lot of attrition from two of his Tiger signing classes.

5.  ESPN will premier it’s documentary “40 Minutes of Hell” on February 11th after Arkansas plays South Carolina.

6.  Following a report yesterday that Renardo Sidney might leave MSU at the end of the season, Rick Stansbury says he’s not talked about the future with his controversial big man.

7.  Florida got an RPI boost by sweeping Ole Miss and Mississippi State last week.

8.  Is Georgia’s hoops team a bigger disappointment than Georgia Tech?

9.  Kentucky is still a clear-cut #1, but their RPI is hurt by the Cats’ strength of schedule.

10.  Cuonzo Martin says Tennessee is “a better team” as it prepares to face Kentucky for the second time.

Defensive end Alex McCalister from Clemmons, N.C., has committed to Florida over North Carolina and Georgia Tech.

McCalister the fourth prospect from North Carolina to commit to Florida for the class of 2012. Florida has 18 commitments for 2012.

Georgia at Georgia Tech

1. Biggest difference between the two teams is defense.

2. When it comes to Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Murray, the biggest issue isn’t ability, it’s consistency.

3. Lot more at stake in this game than just in-state bragging rights.

4. It’s one of these five bowl games for the Bulldogs.

Tennessee at Kentucky

5. Kentucky official: ”There’s no imminent change in Joker Phillips’ status.”

6. Can the Wildcats seniors do something no other Kentucky class has done in their lifetimes?

7. Vols defense would look differently without Malik Jackson.

8. Tennessee defensive lineman Ben Martin wants another month of practice.

Alabama at Auburn

9. Alabama has two things in mind today – redemption and a chance at a national title.

10. Underdog Auburn can play the role of spoiler today.

11. Jon Solomon: “How ironic. The SEC Championship Game celebrates its 20th edition next week, yet this year’s game has been rendered meaningless in the national title picture even with the SEC dominating the national conversation.”

12. Alabama safety Mark Barron was probably headed to the NFL a year ago - until an injury against Auburn changed his plans.

Vanderbilt at Wake Forest

13. Coach James Franklin may be in his first year at Vanderbilt, but he’s very familiar with Wake Forest.

14. A bowl bid and a possible 1,000 yard season for Zac Stacy are on the line  today against the Demon Deacons.

Admit it.  You’re as tired of reading about conference expansion and realignment as we are of writing about it.

It’s a confusing topic.  Half the sports fans and media members out there don’t seem to get it.  They reach for their atlas, look at last year’s bowl results, and trumpet schools that don’t add a dadgum thing to the SEC from a business perspective.  You can’t really blame them, of course.  When you’re sitting on a barstool next to your buddy talking football, do you spend more time talking about wins and losses or cable households and “geographic footprints?”  I know when I’m talking about the AAU with my pals, we’re not discussing the top research schools in North America.

But for those of you who in the last 18 months have come to understand that business factors really are driving this boat, it’s frustrating to hear people say it’s all about wins.  It’s confusing to hear someone on the radio push for 18- or 20-team leagues when the SEC has no desire to take on more than 14 schools.  It’s irritating for someone to claim academics have nothing to do with expansion, when the college presidents who’ll do the final voting in these matters are increasing entrance requirements and cutting down on oversigning, all for the sake of academic reputation.

So we’re going to try and put some hard and fast data together to help explain why School A is probably more attractive to SEC presidents than School B… even though School B might be able to whip School A’s rump on a football field.  We want to take all of those variables that are floating around out there and condense them into one, simple, quick series of posts.  A series of posts that you can use to draw your own conclusions.

Our “Expansion By The Numbers” series is based on some of the same information we used in May 2010′s “Expounding on Expansion” series.  You can go back and read that long piece in full right here.

At the time, the Big Ten had announced that it was looking to expand.  Many felt Jim Delany’s league would get to 16 teams.  As a result, the vast majority of writers put forth Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Virginia Tech as the most likely SEC partners in mega-expansion.  We crunched some numbers — much like the numbers we’ll be crunching this year — for 18 different schools and found that Texas and Texas A&M were far and away the most valuable from a cash perspective, not the four nearby schools that were viewed as “naturals.”  In May 2010, A&M was viewed as a tag-along that the SEC would take if it meant landing Texas.  Our numbers showed that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Eighteen months ago, Missouri wasn’t being mentioned as a potential SEC partner by the mainstream media at all.  But our review suggested they might be an excellent fit.  Turns out, the things we mentioned last year have now turned into key arguments for Mizzou’s potential acceptance into the conference.

And while most still thought the AAU was a summer basketball league, we showed that academics do matter in expansion… even from a financial perspective.

Were we right at every turn?  Nope.  (And we certainly didn’t spend enough time weeding out our typos.)  But our series did put forth some fresh views that have turned out to be right on the mark 18 months later.  That’s thanks to the good sources we spoke to, not our own ability as seers and futurists.  We were told to look here, consider this, investigate that.  We did.  And it turns out the response to our research piece was very positive from other people who have worked inside BCS-level athletic departments.  The categories we broke down were the areas that they say college administrators do consider when deciding on expansion.

This time around, we’ve spoken to more people — ’cause we’ve got more than a year’s worth of new sources — and we’ve decided to add some categories to the mix.  Are these criteria meant to definitively show you which schools the SEC should pursue?  I’m sorry, did I say pursue?  I meant “hope apply for membership.”  (You never know when Kenneth Starr is listening.)  No, this is not meant to say School A should be and will be the SEC’s 14th school.  It’s just meant to provide you with some information.  We’ll draw our own conclusions, but you can blow them off if you like.  We’re not trying to jam anything down anyone’s throat.  While Slive sits on his porch with a glass of whiskey and a cigar, he’s most likely not making notes off our website.

But from the people we’ve spoken to at the television network executive level, the senior management level of a leading media rights group, administrators at SEC institutions, former athletic department officials at BCS-level schools, and a couple of contacts inside the SEC offices… the categories we cover would’ve likely run across Slive’s mind at some point.

Here are the categories we’ll examine and why:

1.  Top 40 television markets within 200 miles of a campus — the more new TV households the better

2.  Total state population — the bigger a school’s footprint, the more potential viewers, fans, t-shirt buyers, future students, future alums, and future donors

3.  Proximity to Birmingham — the idea is to grow the league’s footprint when possible, but unlike some leagues, the SEC has shown no desire to go completely cross-country

4.  Fertile recruiting ground — this isn’t a deal-deciding issue, but it’s certainly a supplementary topic that deserves mentioning

5.  Athletic budget — let’s face it, if a school’s not serious about athletics, it doesn’t belong in the SEC

6.  Director’s Cup standings / Bowl and NCAA Tourney bids — it helps for said school to also be competitive in athletics

7.  Football stadium size — this provides a glimpse into a school’s overall quality of facilities as well as to its dedication to the SEC’s #1 sport

8.  Academic Fit / Cultural Fit / Powerhouse Brand — we’ll finish up with bonus points awarded to those schools that best fit the SEC’s existing profile

We’ve compared 35 different schools across these categories.  That’s twice as many schools as we examined last year, and frankly, we have no idea what the final tally will show.  You’ll be discovering right along with us.

And if there’s anyone out there — and we know there will be — who thinks we’ve either fixed the numbers to hurt your school’s score or finagled them to help some other school’s mark, think again.  We’ve barely had time to crunch the numbers period.  We certainly haven’t compiled them, ranked them and then tossed a few out for kicks.  We weren’t going to waste our time doing that.

So why 35 schools?  Because we wanted to cover every possible base.  In the last few weeks, we’ve been hounded by East Carolina fans — yes, we’ve all seen the “Undaunted” video by now.  We had to field questions because someone got the wild notion that Navy would be a good fit for the SEC.  Heck, last week even Joe Paterno mentioned rumors/thoughts that Penn State might want to turn east and leave the Big Ten.  So they’re all on our list.

All the schools from the ACC — including Pitt and Syracuse — are included.  All the Big 12 schools are counted (we’ve left Texas A&M in that group just to see how they would’ve stacked up against everyone else).  The six remaining Big East schools are tossed in for good measure.  We’ve also kicked in some oddball choices like Notre Dame and TCU just for kicks.

Will the SEC expand to Connecticut or Navy or Baylor?  No.  But it might be fun to see how they’d measure up against the Texas A&M’s, Missouris, and Florida States of the world.

Finally, it’s important to remember that while we believe that these categories are very important (because people in the business of expansion have told us so), this whole situation is fluid.  One league’s focus on academics might be stronger than another’s.  One league’s concern about television households might be huge today, not so huge tomorrow.

Let me give you an example.  In 1980, George Bush referred to Ronald Reagan’s economic plan as “Voodoo Economics” during the Republican primary campaign.  Bush lost.  But Reagan’s people knew he could provide the state of Texas and some much-needed foreign policy expertise to Reagan’s ticket.  Suddenly, that “Voodoo Economics” thing wasn’t real important anymore.

So how could that apply to the SEC’s situation?  We wrote weeks ago that West Virginia University was unlikely to be a top pick of the SEC because of its so-so academic reputation and the small number of residents and television households inside its state’s borders.  After getting blasted by a few WVU fans for disparaging their school — something we weren’t trying to do — word then leaked out that WVU had approached the SEC (and the ACC) and had been rebuffed.

But things can change.  Let’s say Missouri stays in the Big 12, the ACC remains stable, and next summer the SEC is staring a second-straight 13-team season in the face.  Suddenly, WVU’s #164 ranking among universities and its population of less than two million might not look so bad.

The lesson?  The categories we’re about to discuss matter.  All things being equal, some matter more than others.  But all things are seldom equal.  So instead of saying, “This is all about televisions; count those up and go with the biggest number,” it’s best to take a broader view.  It’s best to look at the whole picture.

We’ve tried to take our biases out of this.  That’s why it’s all about the numbers.  I personally would like to see the league stop at 14 schools and happily that’s what I’ve been told Slive wants to do.  But if the SEC went to 16, I’d like to see the following brought in: Texas A&M (it really was a perfect fit), Notre Dame (biggest brand in the country and who wouldn’t want to see the Irish come to town), Georgia Tech (an old school pick because I love the SEC history, Buckhead and The Varsity), and Virginia Tech (it’s Texas A&M to the east).

But Notre Dame’s a non-starter and Georgia Tech brings nothing new to the table (I suspect).  What I would like to see has no bearing on this series.  It’s all about the business.  And the business of television is a key force in expansionpalooza.  That’s where Part 2 will pick up next.