ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low

SEC commissioner Mike Slive had no choice. The conference had no choice.

The penalties for violations of SEC Bylaw 10.5.4 have been strengthened. In other words, from now on, coaches who rip the officiating publicly will be fined or suspended. Clearly, reprimands weren't much of a deterent.

In the last few weeks, Arkansas' Bobby Petrino, Mississippi State's Dan Mullen and Tennessee's Lane Kiffin had gone after the officiating publicly and been reprimanded.

Big deal, right?

That type of mentality led to a unanimous vote by the SEC's athletic directors, and with the full support of the 12 presidents and chancellors, that all violations of SEC Bylaw 10.5.4 will be enforced by suspensions and fines, effective immediately. The length of the suspension and the amount of the fine will be at the discretion of Slive.

The SEC had to do something before this whole thing got completely out of hand. The perception nationally (which is silly) is that the league is maneuvering to make sure Alabama and Florida meet in the SEC championship game unbeaten. Therefore, those two teams are protected by the officials.

That perception is only fostered when one of the league's own coaches (Kiffin) comes out and publicly suggests as much, talking about "magical flags" and so forth.

Nobody's defending some of the mistakes that have been made by officials these last few weeks in the SEC, and that's why one crew remains suspended.

But there had to be some teeth to the punishment Slive doles out, or the woofing by coaches would have only continued, which doesn't do a lot for the league's integrity.

Anybody taking bets on who will be the first coach fined and/or suspended?

Something tells me Slive won't be slow to pull the trigger.