This week, SEC meetings are being conducted in Destin, FL. One of the biggest topics that people have been focused on is the tension between head coaches Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher.
Earlier this month, Saban made a statement and said that Texas A&M “bought all of its players.” This is what caused all of the uproars.
While this may be true, according to Paul Finebaum, the two head coaches were never really fans of each other.
The seating chart was much anticipated by viewers. Once it came out, it showed that all of the coaches were seated in alphabetical order. However, Saban and Fisher were the exceptions to this. Fisher was seated between all of the SEC officials, far from Saban. Many people speculated that this was done in order to keep the peace during the meeting. The real reason for this is that Fisher is the chair of the football coaches group.
Even though people believe that these two coaches are often butting heads, Saban stated that he has no problem with Fisher.
Focus of This Year’s Meetings
For the coaches, the main focus of this year’s SEC meeting is figuring out if the conference will stick with the eight-game season or switch to nine. While this might seem like an easy switch, it is much more complicated than that.
If the SEC coaches decide to do this, they will have to change to a 3-6 model. Three permanent games and the other six will rotate over the course of a player’s career.
Some teams want to keep the eight-game model because nine games raise their chances of losing another game and not making it to a bowl game.
What Will the Future Possibly Look Like?
Oklahoma and Texas are getting added to the SEC soon. There will eventually be 16 teams in the SEC. How will the divisions look? Oklahoma and Texas could join the West and then one team would move to the SEC East. As of now, all parties are not on board with the division. In order for anything to change, everyone has to be on the same page.
There is also a discussion about the SEC breaking off from the rest of college sports. If this happens, football will have its own playoff and a lot of things will change for the rest of the conferences and possibly for the rest of the SEC.