By Will Miles
Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC?
Texas A&M sure stirred up a hornet’s nest, didn’t they?
It’s pretty clear that the Aggies leaked the news that the SEC was in negotiations with Texas and Oklahoma to join the conference as they were taking the stage at SEC Media Days. What exactly the motivation of the leak was, and what it eventually accomplished, is debatable. What isn’t debatable is that the college football landscape was shifted off of its moorings.
Adding the Longhorns and the Sooners to the already vaunted SEC truly does establish a 16-team super conference. There have already been guesses about dividing up the conference into four, four-team divisions and scrapping the SEC East and West format altogether. Perhaps this is why Dan Mullen alluded to eliminating the permanent cross-over games during his time at the podium.
We all knew that the name, image and likeness allowances were going to change college football. And the addition of the Supreme Court ruling against the NCAA recently and opening the door for athletes to be treated as employees is another reason for these changes to take place.
But the biggest reason for this to take place is money. The Florida/Oklahoma bowl game last season pointed out what has been obvious to fans for a long time: nobody cares about bowl games anymore. That means they’re not a marketable (and valuable) commodity, and if fans are going to shell out money for a Florida/Oklahoma game, that amount is much higher for a regular season tilt than a postseason one where the players have either opted-out or just don’t care.
Why not go a step further?
At this point though, College Football and the SEC should just take one more step. Annex in any program that has won a national championship in its history since 1960 (sorry, not you UCF), programs in major TV markets (Rutgers survives!) and then create a true league with a true playoff.
This will hurt my other alma mater (sorry, Virginia Tech) and perhaps you get some riff raff you don’t want (Georgia Tech and Colorado), but at the end of the day, you wouldn’t really include Vanderbilt and Kentucky either if you could start from scratch.
So an SEC that not only adds Texas and Oklahoma, but also adds Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Nebraska, Southern Cal, Washington, Colorado, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, BYU, and Pitt from the championship side and then Rutgers, Northwestern, UCLA, Temple, TCU, Stanford, Maryland and Houston from the market side is a 38-team super conference that maximizes eyeballs on the TV and also preserves the history of the game.
Perhaps you don’t keep this structure for basketball because programs like Indiana and Michigan State would miss out. But let’s be honest, football drives the revenue. Football is going to drive realignment. And perhaps like never before, there is no longer really much of an incentive for schools to keep the university directly tied to the football program.
How does this impact that Gators?
Let’s assume that Texas and Oklahoma are the only changes that happen. How does that affect Florida?
Well, over the past four seasons, the national recruiting ranking for Oklahoma has averaged 9.25 and for Texas has averaged 7.25. That compares to 6.75 for LSU, 11 for Florida and 12.25 for Auburn.
So basically the conference is adding teams as talented as LSU and Florida to the fold. In some ways, this is good news for the Gators. After all, this is not adding another Alabama or Georgia to the fold. But it would be wise to remember that Dan Mullen is just 1-2 against LSU in his time at Florida and that typically teams ranked 11-20 in recruiting rankings only beat more talented teams 34% of the time.
That means that we shouldn’t be made at Mullen for going 1-2 against the Tigers. That exactly what the numbers say he should do.
But adding Texas and Oklahoma to the mix gives Florida another set of teams they are more likely to go 1-2 against rather than 2-1. That makes it harder to win the conference, which makes it harder to make the playoff. Factor in that joining the SEC is likely to put a charge into recruiting for Texas and OU as well and it may widen the divide even further.
There’s something to be said for being able to recruit Texas a little bit better because of them joining, but Mullen’s having enough trouble with Florida right now. Even in down years and with Alabama shining under Saban, Florida was clearly the second most established SEC program. I can’t really say that with Texas and Oklahoma joining the fold.
Does Sark make things different?
The other thing that needs to be considered when it comes to recruiting is that Steve Sarkisian is now the head coach at Texas.
He currently has the Longhorns rated 10th overall, with an average player rating of under 90. That’s after finishing last season with his transition recruiting class at 15th nationally and an average player rating of 89.0. That should worry Texas fans, as those rankings are worse than Dan Mullen’s transition class and would be worse than his second year “bump” class were this year’s class to end up where it is at.
Sarkisian didn’t bring in multiple fantastic, highly-ranked classes at USC (13th, 10th and 2nd) before being fired for alcohol-related incidents. He did have that 2nd ranked class which says there is hope, but I don’t have a lot of confidence that was all him considering the reason for his departure.
I guess the point is that Sarkisian is viewed as an upgrade over Tom Herman by many, but I’m not sure that’s true. I think Texas may find that they are going to end up much more like Auburn than Alabama in a new conference.
That’s good for the Gators as they try to establish themselves as the class of the SEC, even with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma.
Drinkwitz
SEC Media Day wasn’t just for the big boys. Eliah Drinkwitz (that’s Missouri’s head coach for those of you who don’t know) decided to take a shot at Dan Mullen when talking about Florida coming to Columbia.
“I’m praying for snow. Dan (Mullen) is going to complain about everything anyway.”
I guess Drinkwitz didn’t appreciate Mullen rushing out onto the field to encourage/incite his players in last year’s game. Or perhaps he didn’t like that Mullen showed up during his post-game press conference dressed as Darth Vader, indicating that he had come to work that day anticipating a win against the Tiger.
But perhaps though, Drinkwitz should take a look at the film of that game and understand that it was a cheap shot by his player that started the brawl. If anybody should be taking verbal shots in the Mizzou/Florida “rivalry”, it should probably be Mullen.
Drinkwitz may end up getting the last laugh though. Currently his 2022 recruiting class is ranked higher than Florida’s, both overall and by average player ranking.
Second in the SEC East
Not that it really matters all that much, but SEC writers chose Florida to finish second in the SEC East behind Georgia.
Writers have gotten the SEC East right a bunch of times, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that they value Georgia. The sample size of J.T. Daniels is larger than the sample size of Emory Jones. And while Jones is a highly decorated recruit in his own right, he does not have the recruiting pedigree of Daniels. Add in that Daniels played pretty well in his one full season as starting QB at USC, and it becomes pretty clear why Georgia would be favored.
That’s all before you get to the defense. You can say a lot about Kirby Smart’s limitations as an on-field coach (and I have), but his defenses have ranked 35th, 7th, 29th, 2nd, and 9th in opponent’s yards per play allowed in his five seasons at the helm. Just like we trust Dan Mullen to have an offense humming, Kirby Smart’s defenses are going to be good as well.
That means that even if Daniels vs. Jones is a dead heat, Georgia probably still has the advantage. That’s doubly true considering that Mullen decided to retain Todd Grantham, a decision that undoubtedly is going to be mocked by Bulldog fans if the Florida defense can’t stop Daniels.
Second in the east is the correct place for Florida. There are too many question marks and too many areas where things can go wrong to pick them to win. Those are the consequences when you don’t recruit at the same level as your opponents: everything has to right for you to win.
Marco Wilson and Diwun Black
Most of you probably didn’t see what took place on Twitter earlier this week, so let me recap.
Marco Wilson made a joke about shoe tossing after someone threw a shoe at Dababy while he was on stage. New Gator Diwun Black then took the opportunity to take a shot at Wilson asking whether he was crying in the locker room last year after the LSU game. The two went back-and-forth for a little bit, in a funny, albeit sad, exchange.
This worries me. It worries me because either the entire team was against Wilson by the end of last season and Black is representing that (certainly possible). Or it worries me because Wilson has some support in the locker room and Black may have just upset those people (more likely).
Here’s the deal with Twitter. I try to adhere to a policy of not tweeting anything that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face. That’s hard because it’s easy to be snarky online when there are no consequences for that sort of thing. But it’s a bad look for two players so closely tied to the program to be hashing out their differences online for everyone to see.
You have a problem with Wilson? It’s not as if Black can’t get his cell. Instead, this seems like just piling on for no real reason other than it probably endears Black to a certain subset of the fan base that enjoys Wilson getting criticized.
He’s not above criticism. His play last year was not good. Some of his statements and those of his family have made the situation more incendiary. But Wilson tried to make a joke (one that was funny, btw) and got called out by a guy who knows what went on in the locker room in a way that should make him keep those things in the locker room.
Bryce Young and his “7-figure NIL salary”
I don’t believe that Bryce Young is going to make a million dollars this year, but that doesn’t matter if everyone else does.
That was my thought after Nick Saban said that Young was close to 7-figures in NIL deals already at SEC Media Days. If true, Young would be, by far, the highest paid college athlete and it isn’t even close. At a time when you have defensive linemen promoting t-shirt lines, for Young to be making that kind of bank would be a significant outlier.
But it doesn’t matter if it’s true. What matters is that every 5-star QB heard that they can be millionaires by going to Alabama. Saban knew what he was doing when he made the statement. He knew that with all of the uncertainty surrounding NIL and players wondering how they’ll be able to cobble together enough of a social media presence to take advantage that assuring them that it’ll take care of itself at Alabama was a wise move.
The guy is a great recruiter because he knows what will hit home with recruits and he showed it once again.
Florida and the NIL learning curve
Conversely, Dan Mullen talked about taking things slowly and how the NIL is new and there are risks associated with it that they want to make sure players understand.
That may be true. That may be a fine goal. It may even be the prudent thing to do when advising players. But man, it doesn’t move the needle anywhere close to what Saban said about Young.
I’m not advocating for lying. What I’m advocating for is that Florida has the resources to eliminate the NIL uncertainty quickly if they want to. The Gators could set the standard when it comes to licensing deals, jersey sales, autograph sessions, etc. Instead, they’re going to take things slow and basically be a “me too” when it comes to NIL.
I don’t doubt that there will still be plenty of players who choose Florida. But this was an opportunity to establish that Florida was THE place to go if you wanted to maximize your revenue and to sell Florida as a leader in the space. For whatever reason, Florida has not chosen that path.
In a sport where recruiting (essentially sales) is a huge part of the puzzle, the delay to sell something new when it’s available could be a critical flaw.
Gators in the Olympics
The ratings for the Olympics are way down.
Part of that is because there aren’t any fans in the stands in Tokyo and that makes things weird. Part of that is because of the time difference and things happen either overnight or while we’re at work. Part of it is that there just isn’t the same national pride associated with the U.S. as there was back in the ‘80s.
But if you’re looking for something to root for or gain your interest, there are 31 Gators who qualified to compete in the games, 15 for the U.S. Prior to this Olympics, Gators have brought home 60 gold, 33 silver and 33 bronze medals in 9 different sports.
This is part of the legacy that’s been built in Gainesville. I think we oftentimes overlook the systemic excellence within the Florida athletic programs unless a particular program is willing a championship, but year-in, year-out Florida enables really talented athletes to hone their skills and put them on display for the world.
Whether that’s Caeleb Dressel carrying on the legacies of Ryan Lochte and Dara Torres in the pool, or Grant Holloway and Marquis Dendy on the track, there’s plenty to watch and be proud about this year for the Gators.