How the SEC Became Goliath: The Making of College Football's Most Dominant Conference Paperback - 2013

Summary

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

The national championship trophy has been in the South so long it has a sunburn. It is as much a fixture as the red, blue, and orange Solo cups that hold the tailgate drink and the $9.95 canvas-backed chair that holds the Southeastern Conference fan, who has no greater wish than to hold a winning lottery ticket and for his or her team to win on Saturday. The crystal CoachesâÈç Trophy has bivouacked here since January 2007, and the folks who populate these rattlesnake-mean message boards in the South claim success comes from playing something called Big Boy Football.

Well, they might have a point. It is big-boy football, as in really big players playing the game. Big people beat up little people. ThatâÈçs what the SEC believes in; football that is played from the inside out, tackle to tackle, and coveting the defensive lineman over the wide receiver all day, every day. The Southeastern Conference has won six straight national championships in college football because it has size to go with speed.

Alabama and LSU of the SEC slugged it out for the national championship last January because they had 265-pound thumpers on defense that could scoot and 225-pound running backs that could plow. The 7-on-7 teams in the Big 12, ACC, Big East, and Pac-10âÈ'the programs in those leagues that highlight skill players, not brawlersâÈ'sat home. Big people have become the prerequisite in the SEC, particularly at Alabama, which will not recruit runts for anything but kicker, and even then those specialists are ordered to muscle up. The success of the Crimson Tide, which won national titles in 2009 and 2011, and LSU, which has won 24 games the last two seasons and a title in 2007, should have spread-offense gurus rethinking their approach. Big and fast beats small and fast. ItâÈçs why the SEC has not shared the road the last six seasons. It has big players who are fast, which is like a tractor trailer that rides down the middle of the highway stripe going 75 mph.

Bama uses an NFL-inspired formula to recruit. It wins from the inside out, which is with offensive and defensive linemen valued higher than wide receivers and quarterbacks. It builds muscle with a strenuous off-season program and finds high school recruits who can take tough coaching. Alabama takes the best athletes and puts them on defense, and NFL scouts have dubbed the Tide the thirty-third NFL franchise. LSU has the same rock-âÈçem, sock-âÈçem philosophy with Les Miles, the head coach; John Chavis, the defensive coordinator; and Greg Studrawa, the offensive coordinator. The Tigers hit you high where you live game after game after game and then run over you with cats such as the Honey Badger.

Now look at Auburn and Florida. Sure, they won national championships with some speed guys, and the SEC is known for fast players, but look closer. Who was really doing the heavy lifting for Auburn in 2010 and Florida in 2008? It was the TigersâÈç senior-laden offensive line making a path for the son of a preacher man, Cam Newton, who is 6-foot-6, 250 pounds. The other son of a preacher man, Tim Tebow, is 6-foot-3, 245 pounds, and built like a wishbone fullback, and he buckled defenses for important yards for the Gators in 2008 when they won the championship. Five players from that Florida offensive line that made the path easier for JesusâÈ'thatâÈçs what the O-line called TebowâÈ'are playing or have played in the NFL. So take note of these numbers: Florida rushed for 231.1 yards per game in 2008. Auburn went for 284.8 yards a game in 2010. That is nice work in a defense-first establishment such as the SEC.

People always talk about the speed of the SEC. ItâÈçs not just the speed. ItâÈçs the size and the speed and the versatility of the offense and defense. ThatâÈçs why the SEC is Goliath. It has taken an imprint of the NFL and laid it over the top of its programs with NFL-type roster maestros called exactly what the NFL calls them: player personnel directors. Other conferences have personnel guys, but the SEC has personnel guys so skilled the NFL is hiring them. The Philadelphia Eagles plucked Ed Marynowitz off AlabamaâÈçs staff in May 2012.

The SEC led the NFL draft with the most players selected for the sixth straight year, so maybe it is no coincidence it has won six straight championships. It was the only conference with a player selected from every one of its teams in 2012. Ohio State coach Urban Meyer, the former Florida coach, would tell people over and over when he was in Gainesville, âÈêThere are twelve teams in this league and ten of them think they can be big winners, so they pay their coaches and recruit like they are going to win the conference championship.âÈë

So for six straight years the SEC has walked off with the big crystal prize, and they will not give it back. The talk of Big Boy Football grinds on the Buckeyes, or Sooners, or Longhorns, or Ducks, and all they can come back with is âÈêWait until next year,âÈë and then next year comes and the SEC tribe is chanting in the closing minutes of the National Championship Game, âÈêSEC, SEC, SEC,âÈë even if they are the only ones in the building.

Goliath gets the biggest prize and some of the biggest checks, too. In the last six seasons of the Bowl Championship Series, the SEC has cashed more than $150 million worth of checks from appearing in eleven BCS games. The BCS games and the revenue from its CBS/ESPN deals helped the conference pay out $20.1 million to each of its schools in 2012. Now that Missouri and Texas A&M have joined the conference, the deals with CBS and ESPN will be renegotiated to push distribution to each school probably toward $23 million. When the SEC finally gets around to launching its own network to provide content from its marquee hoops team, Kentucky, and its cavalcade of top ten baseball teams, the payout per school could reach $25 to $28 million, which means more money for coachesâÈç salaries and recruiting and everything else that goes into keeping Goliath fed. Just add up the revenues pulled in by SEC schools. ItâÈçs more than a billion dollars in receipts, more than any conference in the country.

The median athletics spending per athlete in the SEC in 2009 was $156,833. Per student in the SEC the median spending was $13,471, according to a study by the Delta Cost Project at the American Institutes for Research in Washington, DC. The median athletics spending per athlete in the Big 12 was $131,440 per athlete and $14,021 per student. In the ACC it was $106,238 for the athlete to $15,638 for the student. You look at those financials and wonder if the SEC has been a little too aggressive with the money grab. WeâÈçll examine GoliathâÈçs wallet in this book, too, right along with its Xs and Os.

Steve Berkowitz, who expertly investigates the finances of college athletics with a team of reporters for USA Today, simply says when explaining the SEC game of Monopoly with the national championship trophy, âÈêJust follow the money.âÈë

Here is a snapshot of the money.

The vault for assistant coaches in college football, the area where many people thought the SEC lost all self-control, was opened up in 2009 by former Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton, who paid new head coach Lane Kiffin $2 million and paid KiffinâÈçs father, defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, $1.2 million. Recruiting coordinator and offensive line coach Ed Orgeron was knocking down $650,000, and offensive coordinator and line coach Jim Chaney received $380,000. The arms race in college football had entered a new era with these assistantsâÈç salaries, and the SEC was out in front.

The former Florida offensive coordinator Charlie Weis signed a three-year contract that paid him $765,000 in 2011 and would have paid him $865,000 in 2012 and 2013 if he had not accepted the head coaching job at Kansas. WeisâÈçs salary at the time was higher than that of forty-one Division I head coaches, according to data compiled by USA Today.

It was a pittance compared to the deal offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn had at Auburn before he left to become the head coach at Arkansas State. He was drawing $1.3 million per year to coach one side of the ball in 2010. John Chavis, the LSU defensive coordinator, will eventually make $1.1 million a season as his deal matures. Kirby Smart, the defensive coordinator at Alabama, is making $950,000.

Some strength and conditioning coaches in the SEC are making $300,000 and more. SEC schools do not talk about all the personnel they have hired in the last five years in football, but some staffs have as many as twelve people devoted to strength and conditioning. It really is an armsâÈ'and legsâÈ'race in the SEC.

âÈêTwo significant areas of spending escalation have been in salaries paid to football personnel, head and assistant football coaches, and an increasing number of noncoaching staff, such as strength and conditioning personnel and directors of recruiting, video services, player development, etc.,âÈë said Amy Perko, the executive director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. âÈêSEC teams have been pacesetters in each of these areas. Big-time college football is like a high-stakes poker game, with the SEC upping the ante every year.

âÈêThe impact of the escalation is of great concern to presidents, who are also pessimistic about their ability to control these costs on their own campuses.âÈë

So the SEC wins with big people who can run, but it also wins with an aggressive hunting of cash. Perko is correct. No conference is more responsible for escalating the arms race in college athletics in facilities and coachesâÈç contracts than the SEC. The presidents of the schools in the SEC have been pushed and pushed to win in football by millions of fans in the South, and now the rest of college football has taken up the chase with expansion, their own megaâÈ'TV deals, and coachesâÈç contracts. IowaâÈçs Kirk Ferentz, once the lone $3-million-a-year coach in the Big Ten, finally has some companions in the vault in Ohio State coach Urban Meyer ($4 million) and Michigan coach Brady Hoke ($3.2 million average over six years). The man the SEC has to worry about is the Pac-12 commissioner, Larry Scott, whose aggressive business deals are tripling the cash payouts to Pac-12 schools, which means more money to sign the best assistant coaches and build out facilities.

The SEC cash also provides for recruiting budgets. When the select SEC head coach says he is going recruiting for a week, it does not mean he is packing a suitcase and will be on the road enduring bedbugs and punch-drunk hotel clerks. Alabama, for instance, has a jet at the disposal of its head coach, just like a lot of other SEC coaches have. It takes the coach from town to town in the South. Most of the time he is back at night sleeping in his own bed.

The assistants, on the other hand, will drive miles and miles after spring practice in late April, from north Alabama to Florida. They can get on a jet, too, and be dropped off one by one in different locales, then be picked up one by one, but they also endure plenty of windshield time with the sixteen-hour days by car as they roll from school to school to school in their recruiting area.

AuburnâÈçs head coach, Gene Chizik, and his assistant coaches traveled the state of Alabama in limousines to recruit. The former Tennessee coach Kiffin hopped around Atlanta one Friday night in a helicopter watching several high school games his prospects were playing in. Presidents are not the only luminaries skipping over traffic jams in copters.

The zeal and competitiveness in the South is why college football is thick with the acrimony, SEC vs. Everyone Else. The other conferences cannot match the fervor for football in the South. It is why the SEC fought the four-team play-off format that allowed only conference champions into the postseason. The rest of college football dreads the idea of another all-SEC National Championship Game because the second-place SEC team can be better than the other guyâÈçs first-place team. So when will the rest of college football chase down the SEC?

Lane Kiffin, who coached a season at Tennessee, is making his way up the rankings at Southern Cal and has already proved he is more than a brash kid with a whistle; that he can call plays and rebuild a brand. Urban Meyer, the former Florida coach, is off to a great start at Ohio State. He is making enemies with his recruiting style. Now, thatâÈçs more like the SEC, which is the king of aggressive recruiting.

Jimbo Fisher, who comes off the Saban coaching tree, is refilling the tank at Florida State. He understands he is not competing with the ACC. He is competing with the SEC and pouring himself into the job like an SEC coach. Clemson is paying its offensive coordinator, Chad Morris, $1.3 million, which is in the style of the SEC.

The SEC should fear Kiffin, Meyer, and Fisher because they have seen the SEC up close. They are ardent recruiters and have sharp-minded staffs. All three can dominate their conferences and get into the National Championship Game, but their schools still donâÈçt have quite enough loot, like the SEC, to sign up the top assistant coaches. Clemson chased LSUâÈçs Chavis to be defensive coordinator, but could not outbid the Tigers in money or prestige or access to top players.

How did it all become so galvanized for the SEC?

Well, this book is not a celebration of the Southeastern ConferenceâÈçs golden era and six milestones. It is about the passage to those titles. IâÈçm not rooting for anybody in this book, just trying to explain a few things, from the SECâÈçs perspective, of course. Losers donâÈçt write the history books.

The story does not start with FloridaâÈçs bludgeoning of Ohio State, 41âÈ'14, on January 8, 2007, which was the first title in the SEC six-pack. It has to start with the population quake in certain southern statesâÈ'Georgia, South Carolina, FloridaâÈ'which helps account for a deep pool of high school talent for SEC teams to choose from. Texas A&M and Missouri joined the SEC on July 1, 2012, which adds another ripple of muscle to the SEC footprint.

The story has to include the migration of black athletes from baseball to football in the 1970s and 1980s. The eighty-five scholarships offered by a Division I program and the allure of adoring crowds on Saturday sure beat a bus ride to Bristol, Tennessee, or a frosty college baseball game played in late February. The SEC story includes the bold move to include a conference championship game twenty years ago, which has given the SEC champion a boost toward the BCS title game.

The SEC success story has to talk about Mobile, Alabama, the baseball home of Hank Aaron, Satchel Paige, Billy Williams, Willie McCovey, and Ozzie Smith, among others, and how that southern city has turned into a stronghold of football with first-round picks such as Auburn defensive lineman Nick Fairley, LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell, Alabama safety Mark Barron, and on and on.

This book offers a good dose of Nick Saban, but it does not start with SabanâÈçs first contribution to the title streak, his 2009 championship team at Alabama. It starts with his 2001 recruiting class at LSU, which awakened an on-again, off-again program and led to the 2003 LSU title and then the 2007 championship. The Tigers have been on an eleven-year roll. The deliberate Saban then did for Alabama (2009, 2011) what he did for LSU.

The dominance of the SEC has a lot more to do with the SouthâÈçs culture than just the rock-âÈçem, sock-âÈçem of football played one day a week. The South lost the Civil War, and sociologists will tell you that there is still a regional angst and an âÈêus against them,âÈë a spirit of âÈêthose damn Yankees,âÈë 147 years following the end of the war.

While white players are more wrapped up in the mythological aspectâÈ'win one for the SouthâÈ'black players see opportunity in the game, and a chance to shine in their communities. The cult of SEC football gets at the consciousness of the South, and that has to be part of this book. What it means to be a man and tough.

So, do you write this book and have to hold your nose at the same time? Did the SEC get here by kicking the dog, being home wreckers, crashing their motorcycles, behaving as general badasses, and cheating? I thought about that. According to the NCAA Major Infractions database, the SEC has had eight major infractions in football since 2002, which was just before it started building rosters for this six-year run. There were many other secondary violations, which the conference office and schools do their best to keep from public view. It sounded as if the SEC should not be in jail, but under it.

I looked at the recent college football scandal sheet: North Carolina, Miami, Ohio State, Boise State, Oregon, and Penn State. A couple of years ago it was Michigan and Southern California.

Also, since 2002, the Pac-12 has had eight major infractions. The Atlantic Coast Conference had five. The Big 12 and Big Ten have had four each. The NCAA bill has not come due for Oregon and its relationship with player broker Willie Lyles, but when it does, the Pac-12 will be the clubhouse leader with nine major infractions since 2002.

When Yahoo! or the New York Times look under rocks, do they find just the SEC slithering away? Hardly. Many schools have loopholes and shortcuts written in the margins of their NCAA manual. LetâÈçs get that squared away right now. The SEC has not won six titles by outcheating people. The other conferences canâÈçt run that rap on the SEC.

But they try.

Right after Alabama defeated LSU in the all-SEC National Championship Game, John Cooper, the former Ohio State football coach (1988âÈ'2000), told a Cleveland radio station, according to the Birmingham News:

I see some of these teams, the Auburns. IâÈçm told, I donâÈçt know and I havenâÈçt coached in that league, but IâÈçm told that down South the Alabamas and LSUs and some of these teams that have these great players, that maybe the NCAA needs to look into their situation. Those teams have been on probation. As you know, AlabamaâÈçs certainly one of the most penalized teams in college football, as is the Southeastern Conference. We say the SECâÈçs the best and they are the best, but theyâÈçve also had more NCAA violations than probably all the other leagues put together the last ten years.

That is not true, but it is part of the perception of the SEC. Since 2002, the SEC has had eight major violations. The Big 12, Pac-12, Big Ten, and ACC had twenty-one combined, soon to be twenty-two with OregonâÈçs mess. Do the math, Coop.

In March, after the NCAA sentenced North CarolinaâÈçs football program to a one-year bowl ban and other sanctions for nine violations, former Carolina safety Deunta Williams told the Raleigh (NC) News & Observer, âÈêWhat happened at Carolina is childâÈçs play compared to what happens at the SEC. The SEC pays for players. IâÈçm not afraid to say it, but the NCAA doesnâÈçt go after them.âÈë

He offered no examples of infractions to chase down. I tried to contact him. In August 2011, I was in Chapel Hill, and athletes in other sports talked about a glistening SUV driven by a Carolina defensive lineman who was bumping to the machineâÈçs music while cruising through campus. ThatâÈçs childâÈçs play? How about the academic cheating at Carolina and Florida State? More childâÈçs play, I suppose.

Consider the two southern schools that prevented the SEC from a greater haul of titles ten to fifteen years ago. They cheated. Florida State and Miami have been pushed into the margins of the game by scandals, and they have had to deal with the fallout, which was to lose a few games and push aside an icon (Bobby Bowden).

âÈêItâÈçs stupid to say everyone is doing it, and itâÈçs stupid to say only the SEC is doing it,âÈë said Mike Oriard, former player at Notre Dame, retired professor at Oregon State, and author of Bowled Over, a book on the culture of college football.

It is true that when Alabama and LSU played the National Championship Game in January 2012, both schools were still on probation for NCAA violations in football. That had to be a first. You know the old taunt: SEC stands for Surely EveryoneâÈçs Cheating. The SEC has its issues, no question about it. Alabama banned a clothing salesman from its sidelines because memorabilia signed by players was showing up in his store with price tags. LSU fired an assistant coach for improper recruiting. And you know about Cam NewtonâÈçs father, Cecil, who was shopping AuburnâÈçs former quarterback down the SEC aisle at Mississippi State.

Fans of rival conferences want to read about the dark secrets of the SEC. The business of the SEC does look shameless with the coaching contracts, the stadiums stuffed with blind, obedient revelers, the decaying classroom across the street from the modern locker room, the polished steel in the weight rooms, the manipulation of academics, and the oversigning and the managing of rosters, as if the NFL had been transplanted to the SEC. The resources that go into the cultivation of an SEC football program are mind-bending, and rival conferences claim overindulgence 24-7.

But if you look at the bank account of an Ohio State, can you really accuse the SEC of buying titles? If all it took was money, the Buckeyes ($131 million athletic department budget) would have interrupted this SEC run by now. What about Texas, the last non-SEC team to win the national championship ($150 million in revenue)?

That has not stopped the sniping. Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema told the Sporting News, âÈêWe at the Big Ten donâÈçt want to be like the SEC in any way, shape, or form.âÈë

The Big Ten is not like the SEC in any way, shape, or form. The crystal trophies on SEC campuses attest to that. More proof is the Big TenâÈçs 1-10 record versus the SEC in bowl games. The Big Ten was also the conference that rode Maurice Clarett to its last national championship. Everyone remembers the Ohio State running back. Jailed for armed robbery. Given preferential treatment by a professor at Ohio State, and on and on. How does Bielema claim overindulgence by the SEC when the other quarterbacks in his program, slaving through off-season workouts, were pushed aside by the one-year hire of quarterback Russell Wilson? Sure, Auburn hired a quarterback (Cam Newton) for a season, but the Tigers did not turn around and act sanctimonious toward other programs. They also thought they would have Newton two years.

So what donâÈçt we see? WhatâÈçs in this book that also speaks to the essence of the SEC?

âÈò Nick Saban walking across the hot coals of mistrust in south Baton Rouge to recruit a star to help awaken LSU.

âÈò The SEC schools that petition the conference office to allow the school to remove a player from the roster and its scholarship count for medical reasons and the conference office saying, âÈêNo, you canâÈçt do this. Kids are not disposable. You have to prove it.âÈë

âÈò The Tennessee athletic department members e-mailing athletic director Mike Hamilton pleading for him to corral Lane Kiffin, who was trying to cut in line in the SECâÈçs championship parade with questionable tactics. Kiffin was tearing down some traditions at Tennessee, and it was good for him that he made a quick exit because former players were about fed up.

âÈò The private eyes on the SEC looking for rule-bending or rule-breaking so they could shake down the league and slow down the SECâÈçs dominance. For example, it was a booster from a Big 12 school who called the NCAA and said a former NFL star was recruiting Foley, Alabama, star Julio Jones for his alma mater, which is Alabama. The former star explained it as innocent contact and the NCAA dismissed it.

What else about the SEC do we have to see to explain this six-year run?

âÈò Urban Meyer walking with his head down in the darkened tunnel at Bryant-Denny Stadium, his spread offense humiliated by Alabama on October 1, 2005, 31âÈ'3, while reporters trashed his scheme up in the press box. The determined Meyer didnâÈçt punt; he won a title in 2006 with big-back adjustments to the spreadâÈ'and a ferocious defense. Meyer then recruited the ultimate spread quarterback, Tim Tebow, and won another championship in 2008 with one of the best teams in the history of college football.

âÈò How two missed field goals by an NFL-caliber kicker in a non-SEC gameâÈ'Pitt vs. West VirginiaâÈ'helped determine the SECâÈçs fate in 2007. Pitt stunned West Virginia 13âÈ'9 in that game to open the door for LSU to win the 2007 title. The season before, UCLA stunned Southern California 13âÈ'9 to open the door for Florida. Luck happens even for the mighty SEC.

âÈò The coach who turned down LSU and its head coaching offer in November 1999, which opened the door for the Tigers to hire Nick Saban. The hiring of Saban helped the SEC achieve the status it enjoys today in college football.

Sure, there are excesses in SEC football. You canâÈçt alibi those away. You cannot cover your eyes to the oversigning of recruits, which the SEC office and decent athletic directors such as GeorgiaâÈçs Greg McGarity finally had to step in and stop. Some coaches fought against the oversigning legislation and lost. The official vote by schools to put in some checks against oversigning was reported as 12âÈ'0, but that was polish at the end of contentious meetings, which did not start with a 12âÈ'0 vote. One reason SEC coaches were signing more than twenty-five high school players per year to scholarships was because they were handing out scholarships to kids with risky academic backgrounds. The coaches didnâÈçt know if the high school senior was going to qualify academically, and the coaches wanted to be covered with an extra recruit, or two, or five. The second reason is they wanted some extra players ready to step in when they ran off players who were underperforming or not holding up their end of the scholarship bargain by skipping class or getting busted for marijuana use.

The SEC office has lately been active in policing the integrity of the conference, but that has not stopped some from outside the SEC from wondering how certain players get on the field for SEC teams. A coach from the Southwestern Athletic Conference, which includes schools such as Grambling State and Alcorn State, once lamented to an NFL scout about a player at an SEC school, âÈêWe couldnâÈçt get him in here. How did they get him in there?âÈë

To be clear, the SEC follows the minimum NCAA academic guidelines for admitting athletes. Besides, if it was so automatic to get into SEC schools, would there be so many prospects tucked away in prep school or junior college?

Plenty of barbs have been heaved at the SEC during this six-year stretch of championships, but it is important to consider one statistic. In the second annual âÈêAdjusted Graduation Gap ReportâÈë done by the College Sport Research Institute (CCRI) at the University of North Carolina, SEC schools graduated football players 18 percent less than the general full-time student body (2000âÈ'03 four-class cohort). ThatâÈçs nothing to be proud of, except when it is put side by side with other conferences, the conferences that claim the SEC is a den of cheaters. The Big Ten, which has created the biggest stink about SEC football and academics, graduated football players 21 percent less than the general full-time student body. The Atlantic Coast Conference graduated athletes 20 percent less. The Pac-12 was last among Division I conferences, graduating players at 26 percent less than the full-time student body. The SEC has more restraint when it comes to athletics vis-à -vis academics than other conferences would want you to believe.

Perhaps we should consider the background of some of the football players who are signed into the SEC. The city of Atlanta, Georgia, public schools are dealing with one of the worst cases of standardized-test cheating in the history of US education. Put your kid in one of these deplorable public school systems in the South and see how he turns out. Why not give a kid free access to tutors, paid for by the athletic department, and see what he does with the opportunity? The players pour money into the pockets of the professional sports managers in the conferences, but SEC schools do put a significant amount of money back into tutoring programs in the SEC, and thatâÈçs a good thing.

There is a trend in Division I athletics for schools to hire learning specialists to work with the low-functioning football/basketball players when they get on campus. My contention is that this is exactly what universities should be expected to do. That football money is being used for learning specialists is more than appropriate. Cynics might say it is merely to keep kids eligible for the next game, and that certainly has something to do with it. But legitimate students are on the two-deep, more than you think, who take advantage of the extra help and thrive. Maybe these bloggers should walk on campus, stop a player, and ask about the tutoring and its value. Dig a little. Sniping is easy.

Most of the schools in the SEC are land-grant institutions. They were established to educate the masses, not the elite. They are not supposed to be overly selective, and, yes, SEC schools have academic entrance requirements so that high school players who can only fog a piece of glass are not routinely given scholarships.

You can count on one hand the BCS schools who have remained 100 percent true to the mission of academics first. Northwestern, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt. The back door to the admissions office is usually locked at those schools. They pay the most attention to the twenty-hour rule for athletes, which is a joke in the SEC. Football is a full-time job in the SECâÈ'forty hours a weekâÈ'but itâÈçs that way at a lot of schools in other conferences, and itâÈçs that way in baseball, swimming, volleyball, soccer, and some country-club sports, too.

Mark Emmert, the president of the NCAA, who is spearheading new academic guidelines for athletics, toasts the SEC and its run of titles. The man who hired Nick Saban at LSU did not swipe at Goliath over academics versus football.

âÈêI think itâÈçs a pretty remarkable run,âÈë he said. âÈêIf the universities are using that success to advance their academic agenda, then itâÈçs a great thing. WhatâÈçs to be unhappy about that? From our experience at LSU, we were able to elevate academics and athletics simultaneously.âÈë

But the reporterâÈçs task is to get as close to the truth as possible and ask, âÈêIs there more?âÈë

There is more. It is not just about buying championships. The SEC is about culture, climate, and competitiveness.

It is about players.

Six of the top ten states with the most players in the NFL, per capita, are within the SEC footprint, according to former Dallas Cowboys executive and NFL.com analyst Gil Brandt. You wonâÈçt believe which state ranks first in players per capita in the SEC. You wonâÈçt believe which state ranks second. The SEC states not only have more players, they have better players where it counts in todayâÈçs game of the quarterback-centric spread offense: defensive linemen.

The SEC produces more NFL defensive linemen than any other BCS league, and that is a big deal as the game, in other conferences and the NFL, shifts more and more into the hands of the quarterback. Defenses win by affecting the quarterback, not just with sacks, but with pressures, and SEC defenses are good at sending marauders, such as AlabamaâÈçs Marcell Dareus, LSUâÈçs Glenn Dorsey, and FloridaâÈçs Derrick Harvey, at the quarterback. Ask Ohio State, Oregon, and Texas, all losers to the SEC in the National Championship Game, about the pressure created by the SEC defensive fronts.

It is about coaches.

In six seasons at Florida, Urban Meyer was 65-15. In five seasons at Alabama, Nick Saban is 50-12. In seven seasons at LSU, Les Miles is 75-17. In eleven seasons at Georgia, Mark Richt is 106-38. In seven seasons at South Carolina, Steve Spurrier is 55-35. No other BCS conference could roll out more accomplished coaches in the six-year title streak.

We might not hit every note in this book, but at least we are going to give you something else to consider besides the SECâÈçs fat wallet.

Once upon a time, Johnny Majors, the Tennessee football coach and former Vols all-American, shook his head from side to side in despair and declared in his raspy voice that the SEC was too good for its own good. It was 1989 and Auburn had defensive linemen of freakish size and speed, Tennessee was stamping out NFL-caliber receivers and running backs, Alabama was about to flex its muscle again with Gene Stallings in 1990, and Florida had just hired an inventive coach named Steve Spurrier. The SEC was in the middle of an eleven-season run (1981 to 1991) without winning a national title, and Majors said it had to do with the fierceness of conference play.

âÈêWe beat each other up too much now,âÈë Majors said. âÈêAn SEC team canâÈçt win a national championship.âÈë

He was wrong, of course. Six times wrong in the last six years.

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