Clapbacks, Cupcakes and Chaos: 5 Things We Learned From SEC Spring Meetings

Three straight national championships. A 4-0 record against the SEC in the College Football Playoff over the last three seasons. Two of the three largest CFP victories against a Power 4 team during that span. Those are just some of the reasons why the conversation around college football’s top conference has shifted toward the Big Ten. But despite the Big Ten’s recent dominance, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey isn’t ready to surrender the crown. “If you look at the entirety of our league, we are by far the most competitive, the strongest football league by far,” Sankey told reporters during SEC spring meetings last week in Destin, Florida. “But you’re going to lose games when it’s close and competitive like that. So why have they surpassed us? It’s an oddball, it’s bounced a couple times the wrong way.” FOX Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt was on the ground at the SEC spring meetings and addressed Sankey’s comments, and much more, during a recent episode of “The Joel Klatt Show.” Here’s Klatt’s breakdown of what he learned from SEC spring meetings: The recent results on the football field paint a different picture than the one Sankey described at last week’s SEC spring meetings. Since the 2023 College Football Playoff, Big Ten teams are 4-0 against SEC opponents. That stretch includes Michigan’s 27-20 Rose Bowl victory over Alabama following the 2023 season, Ohio State’s 42-17 win over Tennessee in the first round of the 2024 CFP, the Buckeyes’ 28-14 semifinal victory over Texas that same year, and Indiana’s CFP win over Alabama last season. “[Going] 4-0 [against the SEC] is not a small thing now,” Klatt said. “I’m sorry, but Nick Saban is no longer there with his big ol’ coattails for you to ride as a conference. It’s not that way anymore.” For much of the last decade, Alabama served as the standard for SEC dominance under Saban, winning six national championships between 2009 and 2020. Georgia followed with back-to-back national titles in 2021 and 2022 under Kirby Smart. Since then, however, the Big Ten has seized control of the sport’s biggest prize, winning each of the last three national championships. Klatt argued that the SEC’s recent struggles extend beyond those matchups. Over the last three CFPs, SEC teams are just 2-5 against Power 4 opponents and Notre Dame, with both victories belonging to Texas during its 2024 playoff run. “I’m sorry, Greg, but it wasn’t just a bounce,” Klatt said. “Again, [it’s all] narrative. What do you want to believe, and who are you getting your news from?” Klatt also pointed to the SEC’s 1-5 record against Power 4 opponents in non-CFP bowl games last season as further evidence that the conference’s claim to dominance is no longer. “The SEC has dominated the sport for a long time, and it’s been hard for them to admit the truth,” Klatt said. “You are not ‘by far’ the best conference. You’re not even the best conference, and the data backs that up.” The biggest question entering last week’s SEC spring meetings was simple: Would Greg Sankey finally reveal where the conference stands on the proposed 24-team College Football Playoff? Instead, the meetings came and went without any meaningful answers. Sankey previously voiced support for a 16-team format, while momentum has continued to build around a 24-team proposal that would eliminate automatic qualifiers in favor of a selection-based format featuring the 23 highest-ranked teams and one Group of 6 representative. With every Power 4 conference already showing support for the model, all eyes turned to Sankey and the SEC, where multiple coaches and athletic directors have reportedly shown growing support for the 24-team model. But, according to both Klatt and other reporters at the meetings, there was no sign of support, at least not right now. According to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, Sankey said, “The SEC’s timeline on a decision on a 24-team CFP expansion will likely come in the fall.” The belief was that Sankey’s skepticism of the format could be tested against his fellow coaches and athletic directors, who appeared to be supportive of the 24-team proposed model. Instead, there was next to no clarity from Sankey. “We didn’t get anything, and that leaves us to this conclusion: I don’t think they have any unification or any consensus of what they want,” Klatt said. “They don’t have a cohesive message right now. If they had a cohesive message, we would have heard it. “I think they have dissension, and the evidence is that there was nothing that came out of the meetings.” Regardless of what emerged from the SEC’s meetings, the future of the CFP still hinges on the sport’s two most powerful conferences — the SEC and Big Ten — and whether the former eventually softens its resistance to a larger field. “The longer they can just drag this out, then nothing is going to change,” Klatt added, “because the Big Ten and the SEC have to agree.” As conversations surrounding CFP expansion continue to dominate headlines across college football, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart dropped perhaps the biggest bombshell to come out of SEC spring meetings. Smart, a two-time national champion and three-time SEC Coach of the Year, suggested that if college football cannot establish uniform rules regarding issues such as NIL, the SEC could eventually consider operating independently. “I’ve said this for a long time to our president,” Smart said. “I’ve been a huge advocate that if we can’t find rules that everybody plays by, then we should play our own. I’m not afraid of that. I’m not afraid to break away and say that our conference is strong enough to go out and play.” While Joel Klatt agreed with Smart’s underlying concern, he certainly did not endorse the idea of schools breaking away from the rest of college football. Smart’s argument centers on the lack of a unified governing structure. Schools in different states currently operate under different NIL laws and regulations, creating what many coaches rightfully view as an uneven playing field. “While his sentiment is absolutely right in that we need rules that everybody can play by and that we’re all under the same umbrella, I totally support and get that,” Klatt said. What Klatt did not support was the notion that breaking away is the answer. “A breakaway from college football would be tragic,” Klatt said. “It would be unbelievably terrible for the sport we all love. It would be the worst thing that happened in this sport.” Smart’s comments come as debate continues over a proposed 24-team CFP model, which has drawn criticism from some fans and media members who believe continued expansion could ultimately harm the sport. “It’s certainly not there,” Klatt said. “I think there would be pluses and minuses and unintended consequences and unintended gains, just like we saw from going from 4 to 12 in the CFP.” For Klatt, it comes down to finding a system that creates consistency across college football, not fracturing the sport even more. “The answer can’t be go home,” Klatt said. “It can’t be that because then college football, as we know it, is over.” There is never a lack of entertaining back-and-forth banter in college football, and SEC spring meetings delivered another example of that when Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian took a shot at Texas Tech’s schedule. Without mentioning the program he was referencing, Sarkisian said: “There’s a team in our state that plays in another conference and has a schedule that I would argue that if I played with our 2s and our 3s, we could go undefeated. They’ll probably make the CFP this year.” Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire quickly responded by saying he’d love to play Texas, while prominent booster Cody Campbell said Texas Tech would pay the buyouts necessary to replace both ACU and Texas State on the team’s schedule. Simply put, Texas Tech is calling Sarkisian’s bluff. “I think this is hilarious,” Klatt said. “If Texas wanted to play this game and Sark wanted to take this challenge on, they could absolutely play Week 1. Texas Tech, I believe, would absolutely do this, and I believe they would absolutely pay for it. The question is: would Texas do this? The answer is: absolutely not.” Texas is slated to face one of the nation’s toughest schedules in 2026, including a Week 2 showdown against Ohio State, which would come one week after this proposed matchup. “Sark, in his sentiment, is not wrong,” Klatt said. “But the hyperbole he uses that our 2s and 3s could go win every game on Texas Tech’s schedule … come on. “That’s a real slap in the face, so, of course, Joey McGuire is going to step up and defend his fraternity and his program, and obviously Cody Campbell is going to do the same.” Could the game happen? Sure. Will it happen? Probably not. Goodbye, Mercer. Farewell, Chattanooga.SEC athletic directors have voted to play conference games in the next to last week of the regular season, a move that effectively eliminates the November non-conference “cupcake games” that have drawn criticism from fans and media alike. “I think this is fantastic,” Klatt said. “We want to see better games more often in college football. This is one of the reasons that I support expansion because I believe we will get better, more valuable non-conference games.” The decision comes as the SEC prepares to move to a nine-game conference schedule beginning this year, ending a run of eight-game league schedules that dates back to the conference’s expansion in 1992. The SEC did play 10 conference games during the 2020 COVID season, but that was after not playing any non-conference games. “This is a very good revelation moving forward so that we can all start to play similar schedule formats,” Klatt said. “I think everyone is going to argue about the difficulty of their week-in and week-out basis — and let’s face it, that goes back to what Greg Sankey said — they feel their schedule is a grind, and they’re not wrong. They are a very good conference.” Klatt acknowledged the SEC’s talent, noting the conference produced more NFL Draft picks than any other league this past year. But he argued that many of the metrics the SEC pointed to as evidence of its dominance no longer favor the conference. “There is a reason the SEC had more players drafted than any other conference,” Klatt said. “It just so happens that every other data point, except for the total number of draft picks, favors other conferences. “All these things that they hung their hat on for so long: championships, record on the field, bowl games, first-round draft picks. That’s gone away, and all they have is this total number of draft picks and a narrative.”