This week, the presidents of the FBS unveiled a good portion of the plan for the new College Football Playoff that will launch after the 2014 regular season.  Those changes — coupled with the end of all existing bowl contracts — provide the SEC with an opportunity to branch out and expand it’s bowl lineup into new areas.

Just don’t expect said branching to be easy on the ol’ noodle.

The SEC has made no secret about its desire to send a team to at least one bowl in Texas.  With the Cotton Bowl’s inclusion in the playoff rotation, the SEC has lost the one Texas bowl with which had been partnered.  In addition, the Chick-fil-A Bowl — which will once again become the Peach Bowl — is a part of the new playoff rotation as well.  For SEC fans, that means this year will be the final year that a league squad will be contracted to spend New Year’s Eve in Atlanta.

There will be other changes to the SEC lineup as well.  Gone is the old two-teams-per-season BCS rule that capped the number of squads from once conference.  With six bowls now part of college football’s New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day party, any number of highly-ranked SEC teams could be invited to take part in the two-bowl playoff or in the overall six-bowl plan in a given year.  The number of invitees will be determined by the yet-to-be-determined football selection committee and their yet-to-be-determined criteria.

In past seasons, the SEC has had 10 bowl tie-ins (including the BCS’ Sugar Bowl) with the opportunity to land an 11th squad in the BCS Championship Game.  When that happened, the last bowl or two in the SEC pecking order — depending on the number of bowl-eligible teams from within the league — would lose their “guaranteed” SEC partner.  Moving forward without a cap, an even greater number of lower-end bowl partners could lose out on SEC teams that are picked for the “big bowls.”

Under the new plan, the SEC champion will now be partnered with the Big XII champion in the new and improved Sugar Bowl.  That is when the SEC and/or Big XII champion are not in the playoffs and when the Sugar Bowl is not hosting a playing game.  So long as the Sugar isn’t a semifinal site, it will always host teams from the SEC and the Big XII, though it might not — and probably won’t be — the two leagues’ champions.

If the SEC champion is not part of the playoff and the Sugar Bowl is in the semifinal rotation — an unlikely scenario — then the SEC champion will be sent to either the Peach, Orange, Fiesta or Cotton bowls.  (The Sugar Bowl is partnered with the Rose Bowl throughout the 12-year rotation.)  With geography a component of the new system, expect an SEC champion not in the playoffs to be sent to Atlanta, Miami or Arlington when the Sugar Bowl is a semifinal site.

Speaking of the Orange Bowl, the SEC has already locked in a slot in that bowl, too.  As is the case with the SEC and Sugar Bowl, the ACC champion is contracted to play in Miami each year… so long as that champ is not in the playoffs and the Orange is not serving as a semifinal site.  In those years that the Orange is not part of the playoff, the bowl will be slotted either an SEC team, a Big Ten team, or Notre Dame.

Follow all that?  Of course not.  It’s ridiculous.

But for the SEC, just know that the new bowl lineup probably won’t look like the old bowl lineup:

Sugar Bowl (New Orleans):  SEC vs BCS at-large

Capital One Bowl (Orlando):  SEC vs Big Ten

Cotton Bowl (Arlington):  SEC vs Big XII

Outback Bowl (Tampa):  SEC vs Big Ten

Chick-fil-A Bowl (Atlanta):  SEC vs ACC

Gator Bowl (Jacksonville):  SEC vs Big Ten

Music City Bowl (Nashville):  SEC vs ACC

Liberty Bowl (Memphis):  SEC vs C-USA

BBVA Compass Bowl (Birmingham):  SEC vs Big East

AdvoCare V100 Bowl (Shreveport):  SEC vs ACC

Before you start trying to figure out if the SEC will say goodbye to any of the above locations — aside from the already out-the-window Arlington and Atlanta, of course — keep in mind that it’s been reported that the SEC, Big XII, ACC and Big Ten have already discussed a scheduling rotation that would land schools from those leagues in the Music City (Nashville), Belk (Charlotte), and Alamo (San Antonio) bowls over a period of time (probably 12 years to match the new playoff contract).  The goal: Lock in and guarantee as many bowl bids as possible for each league, leaving the smaller conferences to duke it out for lesser bowl invites and chump change.

In all honesty, at MrSEC.com we’re for a system that sends SEC teams to new sites to face new, fresh, different opponents.  There are only so many times you can watch the SEC battle the Big Ten or ACC before those games all just run together in a “Didn’t they play last year, too?” mish-mash.

So what exactly is coming next for Mike Slive’s league?

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Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com catches up with Bobby Petrino in Bowling Green, Kentucky where the former Arkansas coach is now in charge of the Western Kentucky program.  It’s a long piece that you can see here.  As you undoubtedly know by now, Petrino was forced out at Arkansas after having an affair with a 25-year old staffer and crashing his motorcycle with her onboard.  As Dodd frames it, Petrino went from “an SEC program with a top-five national ranking to a fifth-place program in the Sun Belt.”

Here were a few of the quotes that caught our eye.

What if he had immediately confessed the affair to Arkansas A.D. Jeff Long?

“There were a lot of things going on that didn’t allow me to do that. I was in the hospital, medicated.”

On son Nick, a student coach at Arkansas last year.  

“I thought it was the hardest thing for him more than anything else. I took something away from him.”

On communicating with his replacement at Arkansas – John L. Smith

“I tried to stay away. I’d send him a text.”

On the kind of program he can create at Western Kentucky

““We can be Boise State. Why not?. We beat them all the time when I was at Idaho.” (That was 1989-91 when Petrino was an assistant)

“My vision for the program is to go to a bowl game every year. I figure I’ve got 14 more years left to go.”

Western Kentucky AD Todd Stewart on Petrino

“We’ve got a guy in the prime of his career. He’s 51 years old and has been to the Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Sugar Bowl in the last six years. Sometimes a school will get somebody like that, but they are 20 years removed.”

Stewart had a binder prepared with 75 candidates when former coach Willie Taggart left for South Florida.  But Petrino was his first choice.  ”He called back in five minutes.”

Petrino’s Hilltoppers are scheduled to open against Kentucky and then face Tennessee the following week this fall.

First, a hat tip to the ever-excellent Jon Solomon of The Birmingham News who drove across Jefferson County to take in a Mike Slive speaking engagement in Trussville, Alabama yesterday.  After the event, Solomon was able to collect some quotes from the SEC commissioner on a wide range of topics.

Slive’s comments — and our thoughts on those quotations — are below…

Slive On conference realignment:

“One thing I can’t do is speak for anybody else.  I can only speak for us.  As I look ahead and prepare agendas for some of our meetings in the future, that is not an agenda item, at least for us, at the moment.”

Our take:  “At the moment” is the standout phrase, obviously.  You’d better believe there is back-channel communication going on between multiple schools and multiple conferences these days.  The SEC is involved in some of that, too.  Slive is way too shrewd to sit back and watch without preparing for future shake-ups.

Asked if any schools had contacted the SEC about joining, Slive said, “You know, I’m not going to tell you… all due respect.”

Slive on the SEC’s television plans:

“We think we’re getting closer and closer to doing what we want to do in the long-term future of our television package.  Hopefully, within the relatively near future, we’ll be able to tell you something publicly.”

Our take:  It’s kind of hard to finalize television deals when no one knows what schools will be in which conferences moving forward.  The SEC itself could expand which would likely change the league’s geographic footprint, its sphere of media influence, and the amount of money its content is worth (depending on the brands added and the locations involved).  There’s also the matter of what other leagues will look like and how much their media rights will be worth… which could/should impact SEC negotiations.  If the SEC announces new TV deals anytime soon, it will likely be announcing what are in fact place-holder deals.

Slive on the number of conference games his league will play:

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Looking at Wednesday’s signees — including junior college and prep school athletes — here’s a snapshot of the talent produced by the state of Kentucky in 2013 (as graded by Rivals.com):

5-stars = 0

4-stars = 3

3- stars = 6

Total 3+ stars = 9

Here’s where the state’s 10 highest-ranked players are headed:

Kentucky = 3

Louisville = 2

Kansas = 1

Notre Dame = 1

Purdue = 1

Toledo = 1

Vanderbilt = 1

Loyalty:  Five of the state’s thoroughbreds are staying at home to play football.  Mark Stoops even landed more of the top in-state players than Sugar Bowl-winning Charlie Strong.  That’s a nice start, but with so few high-caliber prospects in the Bluegrass State, Stoops will need to start luring even more of the top 10 to Lexington in years to come.

Once ex-Arkansas assistants Bobby Petrino, Paul Haynes, and ex-interim head coach John L. Smith suggested to The Sporting News that some members on the 2012 Razorbacks quit, it was only a matter of time before one of those players responded.  Ex-Razorback running back Knile Davis — a player named as a potential quitter by the story’s author – took to Twitter with these comments:

“The same guys who sacrificed their time and freedom.  The same guys who gave their blood sweat and tears for that hog on the side of that helmet.  The same guys who skipped an opportunity of a life time by not entering the draft and came back knowing the risk.  The same guys that battled to get a win in the liberty bowl in the freezing cold.  The same guys that battled to get the schools first BCS birth in the Sugar Bowl.  The same guys that fought and won the Cotton Bowl.  These same guys quit on one of the most anticipated seasons in Arkansas history?!  I don’t think so.  Not these guys.  Not my guys.  #HAWG 4 LIFE”

For guys like Davis who are working to improve their draft stock, the ex-coaches’ comments couldn’t have come at a worse time.  Davis won’t just be asked by NFL scouts about his rehabbed foot.  He’ll also be asked about his heart.

On Monday, a two-day meeting of the Big XII’s athletic directors got under way.  At the time, there was much discussion of a potential Big XII-ACC scheduling alliance.  Such a deal could conceivably delay further conference realignment for the short-term.  Bob Bowlsby had said leading up to the meetings that his league had already held exploratory conversations with three different conferences.  He mentioned the ACC specifically.

As for the other two leagues with which the Big XII had chatted, the vast majority of national pundits assumed the Pac-12 and the Big Ten were the other potential partners.  We thought otherwise:

“We suspect, however, that Bowlsby and (Mike) Slive might have had some chats.  The SEC takes a beating for its nonconference scheduling and when we move from the current BCS system to a playoff selection committee — complete with regional biases — any perceived soft scheduling could hurt the league’s chances of getting multiple teams into a four-team playoff.

Bowlsby and Slive captain the two most successful ships of the BCS era.  They’ve just worked out a groundbreaking deal to partner up and split the cash from a new Sugar Bowl that’s basically owned by the leagues and run by the folks in New Orleans.  What better way to further consolidate power than to reach a scheduling agreement, especially in football?”

One day into the Big XII’s meetings, the media began to focus even more closely on the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 as potential partners due to a Monday afternoon tweet put out by Kirk Bohls of The Austin-American Statesman.  It stated that Slive had said that the SEC “is not involved in those (Big XII) alliance discussions at all.”

We remained a bit skeptical as that didn’t sound very much like Slive’s MO.  Perhaps wires were crossed somewhere.   So we wrote on Tuesday morning:

“Mike Slive has said the SEC has had no alliance discussions with the Big XII ‘at all,’ which is surprising considering he almost always keeps his options open.”

Yesterday afternoon, the story changed.  Jon Solomon of The Birmingham News called across town to the SEC office and was told by SEC associate commissioner Mark Womack that the league “has engaged in limited dialogue” (Solomon’s words) with the Big XII.

Thought so.

Further, Womack said: “That’s a situation we would keep an open mind on, but we haven’t had a lot of significant discussions at this point.  There’s a lot of different ways that could work.  At this point, we’re continuing to move forward with scheduling the conference we’ve planned.”  Womack pointed out that any scheduling arrangement with another league would face its share of hurdles, namely most schools’ desire to play seven home games each season.

(Sidenote — Womach also told The News that there is no timetable to finish the 2014 football schedule, that the possibility of expanding to nine league games “is probably something that will always be out there to look at,” and that it’s likely the league will only schedule the next four-to-six years rather than the usual 10-to-12-year cycle.  “Given the state of everything, we’d probably look at a shorter term.”)

As we stated Monday and quoted above, it would only make sense for the SEC to consider some form of partnership with the Big XII.  Those two conferences have been the lead dogs in college football for the past decade and together they control the fertile recruiting zone from the Carolinas to Texas and on up into Oklahoma.

The ACC is looking for survival.  The Pac-12 wants some way to promote its product east of the Rocky Mountains.  The Big Ten is looking to reach into the growing Southern states for athletes, future students, and future donors.  In other words, all of those leagues want something that a partnership with the Big XII or SEC could provide.  The Big XII, being the smallest of the power conferences, is the most likely to strike a deal because Bowlsby’s group doesn’t want to end up being the runt of the power conference litter.

But if you were running the Big XII or SEC, why would you aid one of those other leagues?  The Big Ten and Pac-12 have their own Rose Bowl relationship.  They tried to work out a scheduling agreement but failed.  Let them deal with the slow growth of the Midwest and the three-hour difference between Pacific time and Eastern time.

Meanwhile, the ACC is working feverishly to protect itself from further raids.  You can be certain John Swofford is putting in more calls to Bowlsby than vice versa.  But if you’re the SEC or Big XII, why throw his conference a life vest?  Especially if the Big XII has its eyes on Florida State and Notre Dame (it does) and if the SEC has been wooing North Carolina and Duke for years (an ACC source told The Sporting News that it has).

Our SEC sources have told us since the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M that the league does not want to expand further.  But if the league feels it must expand further, well, that change things.  If the Big XII feels it must grow, too, then that’s two leagues with one goal.  Might they work in concert — and we’re talking about more than a scheduling alliance here — to topple a rival conference and then pick its bones clean?

First, it’s hard to imagine Slive and the SEC’s presidents taking part in such a nefarious plot.  Second, even if the SEC did engage in such a plan, the Big XII would have to sign on as well.

So let’s be clear, we’re stating that an SEC-Big XII alliance makes sense for both leagues in terms of improving their current schedules and consolidating their power.

We’re suggesting that it’s theoretically possible an SEC-Big XII alliance could bring down the Atlantic Coast Conference altogether.

See the difference there?  If so, put on your tin foil hat and allow us to toss a conspiracy theory at you (one we don’t subscribe to, but one we have thought about).

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Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive shouldn’t have any trouble keeping his humidor filled with fine smokes and his liquor cabinet stocked with Blanton’s bourbon.  According to the SEC’s federal tax return for 2011-12, Slive raked in more than $1.5 million during the league’s last fiscal year.

Slive made $940,000 in base salary and received on top of that a $550,000 bonus.  He also made $22,128 in “other reported compensation” and $36,750 in retirement funds.  Toss in $14,934 in nontaxable benefits and you reach the full figure of $1,563,812.

Not a bad gig if you can get it.

Under Slive, the SEC has become the preeminent football conference in college athletics as well as one of the richest.  His work in 2008 on the league’s dual television contracts with CBS and ESPN ushered in a new era of mega-money for the Southeastern Conference (and for all the other big football conferences who’ve cut deals since).  Slive has orchestrated the league’s first expansion in two decades.  He and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby have changed the bowl-conference relationship forever by taking control of their own postseason affair and simply hiring the Sugar Bowl folks to run it (meaning more cash for the leagues).  On top of that, Slive’s dream of a four-team college football playoff is soon to be realized.  The NCAA rule book is being reworked in such a way that the biggest schools will benefit most, just as he’s pushed for.  And we at MrSEC.com have no doubt that his desire for student-athletes to receive full-cost-of-tuition scholarships will soon be sated as well, once again giving big conferences like the SEC an advantage over smaller leagues and smaller schools.

According to a USA Today study of each major conference’s most recent tax returns, Slive’s pay is still middle of the pack money for BCS-level commissioners.  Considering the success the league has had under its current commissioner’s watch, that represents a pretty good bargain for the SEC.

But there’s still work we believe Slive needs to do.

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Northwestern defeated Mississippi State 34-20 in the Gator Bowl on Tuesday
South Carolina defeated Michigan 33-28 in the Outback Bowl on Tuesday
Georgia defeated Nebraska 45-31 in the Capital One Bowl on Tuesday
Louisville defeated Florida 33-23 in the Sugar Bowl Wednesday
Georgia LB Alec Ogletree will turn pro early after a 13-tackle performance in the Bulldogs’ bowl game
Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin says he’s in no rush to hire a new offensive coordinator
New Arkansas linebackers coach Randy Shannon says the staff Bret Bielema has assembled “is going to be unbelievable.”
Florida receivers coach Bush Hamdan is leaving for a spot on Arkansas State’s staff
Tennessee DL Daniel McCullers will stay in Knoxville for his senior season
Alabama C Barrett Jones was back from an injury at practice on Tuesday
Memphis basketball coach Josh Pastner says he will no longer schedule Tennessee
Follow the Southeastern Conference every day on MrSEC.com

There are lots of different ways to buy tickets to games these days.  From brokers on the internet.  Via eBay.  Outside the stadium doors by way of scalpers.

But the tried and true method of gauging a fanbase’s interest in a bowl game is still a simple check of the number of tickets sold through their favorite school’s box office.  And by that measure, Florida fans have not been gobbling up tickets for tonight’s Sugar Bowl game with Louisville.

Not surprisingly, Mike Bianchi of The Orlando Sentinel takes Gator fans to task for that:

“Florida coach Will Muschamp says the nation’s economic downturn has played a significant factor in the number of UF tickets sold, but personally I think it’s more of an enthusiasm downturn among Florida fans. How else do you explain Florida selling less tickets than any other bowl team in the SEC? How else do you explain upstart Louisville selling twice as many tickets from its allotment as Florida?

Louisville head coach Charlie Strong, a longtime defensive coordinator at UF, witnessed first-hand the evolution of the UF program. He remembers when the Gators getting invited to the Sugar Bowl constituted a special season. Now, though, a trip to New Orleans is treated like a trip to the bathroom.

‘Florida is a program that has had so much tradition over the last few years,’ Strong says. ‘At Louisville, this is just our second BCS bowl game, so our fans are excited.’

Translation: Florida fans have become spoiled and blasé.”

Bianchi goes on to say that the reputation of “Gator Nation” is bigger than it should be and that Florida fans are “a bit overrated when compared to those at traditional powerhouses like Alabama, Ohio State, Nebraska and Texas.”

There are multiple factors involved in this situation that need to be mentioned.  One is the economic downturn that Muschamp has mentioned.  But the economy hasn’t slowed the ticket-buyers from Louisville.  Also, while fans across the nation are staying home and watching games on television more often, Florida had more trouble selling tickets for so-so games this year than most 11-win, top 10-ranked teams would have.  (If you looked at the stands in the Swamp during some of UF’s 2012 nonconference games you know what we’re talking about.)

The spoiled factor certainly plays a role as Bianchi suggests.  But that happens at a lot of other places, too.

There is one issue, however, that is unique to a handful of big-time football programs of which Florida is one.  That’s weather, climate.  And, yes, we believe Florida’s place on the US map may exacerbate the school’s problem with ticket sales.

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South Carolina RB Shon Carson is back from a wrist injury and will play in the Outback Bowl versus Michigan
Georgia is arriving in Orlando today for next week’s Capital One Bowl versus Nebraska
LSU is arriving in Atlanta today for next week’s Chick-fil-A Bowl versus Clemson
Florida expects to lose money on its Sugar Bowl trip this year
Vanderbilt coach James Franklin on playing in Nashville’s Music City Bowl: “The only bad bowl is the one you’re not playing in.”
Auburn has hired cornerbacks coach Melvin Smith from Mississippi State
Follow the SEC all year long at MrSEC.com