MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Georgia coach Kirby Smart endorsed the SEC breaking away from college sports’ current structure to make its own rules, and even hold its own football playoff, if national rules are not adopted to the conference’s satisfaction.
Smart was echoing comments made last week by Georgia president Jere Morehead, who called the House v. NCAA settlement a failure and told The Athletic that an SEC-only playoff would be “fantastic.”
That may not be feasible anytime soon, given that the College Football Playoff contract runs through the 2031-32 season. But Smart, whose team won the national championship after the 2021 and 2022 seasons, joined Morehead in thinking the SEC could stand on its own, if it came to that.
“I’ve been a huge advocate that we can’t find rules that everybody played by, then we should play by our own. I’m not afraid of that,” Smart said Tuesday during the first day of SEC spring meetings. “I’m not afraid to break away and say that our conference is strong enough to go out and have and play — I mean, like, if we could actually function and it financially would make our programs more stable, and we could support things financially. I’m talking about all the sports and do by our own rules. I’d be all for that.”
Smart is not alone, especially on the notion of the league making its own rules. Commissioner Greg Sankey has said the conference will discuss that this week, though he has not elaborated on how far that could go.
As for the drastic idea of an SEC-only playoff, that idea was thrown around several years ago and has returned amid frustration on several fronts. The main one is the sense that the House settlement has failed to bring a level playing field to recruiting, that too many NCAA rules are subject to court challenge and that long-sought federal legislation is not coming.
There is a belief that if the SEC broke away it could more easily defend its rules from antitrust challenges because athletes have other options with other conferences.
“I’ve been to this meeting now 10-11 times, and it’s frustrating at times to say, well, we can’t do this because of litigation, we can’t do this because we get sued, we can’t do that,” Smart said. “And we’re just trying to do things for the betterment of the sports and of the student-athletes, and that’s not curtailing what money they make. I’m not advocating that they can’t just fund what student-athletes make, I’m just trying to make it where it’s equal and it’s comparable footing for everybody, and it’s not a race to the bottom, as they say.”
Smart mentioned finances as an important factor on several fronts, including the future of the SEC Championship Game, which the SEC values at around $100 million annually, and the College Football Playoff. He didn’t come down in favor of a specific CFP format or on the future of the SEC championship, only saying financial considerations were key for the health of college sports overall. And an SEC breakaway — such as its own playoff — could mean more money kept within the conference.
“I’m not for cutting sports, I’m not for hurting other college athletic programs and seeing them dwindle,” Smart said. “I think way too many student-athletes get opportunities in college because of the let’s call them Olympic sports or non-revenue sports, and if we have to be the catalyst for (those) finances, then let’s do it.”
In a conversation with reporters last week, Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard expressed his frustration with breakaway threats from the SEC or the Big Ten: “Let them go, but they have to go in all their sports and see how fun it is to play baseball and softball and track when it’s just the 20 of you.”
