ESPN College Football

The rich got much richer last Friday when No. 1 pocket-passing quarterback David Cornwell (Norman, Okla./Norman North) committed to Alabama.

The No. 24 player in the ESPN 150 had a laundry list of offers to pick from, but after meeting with Alabama coach Nick Saban, he decided that Tuscaloosa was the place for him.

"I had a lot of contemplation and the meeting with Coach Saban went 10 times better than I thought it would," Cornwell said. "We were in his office and talked about everything. I told him, 'I'm ready to wrap this up if you are.'

"We went down the hall and the other coaches were dancing and were happy. I was really happy."

And they should have been very happy. If Cornwell is anything like he's been in high school, Alabama should have a lot of fun with him under center. He's big (6-foot-5, 235 pounds), has quite the arm and can evade defenders with his feet. As a junior, he threw for more than 2,700 yards and 27 touchdowns to six interceptions.

As long as Saban is in charge at Alabama, the Crimson Tide will be known as a pound-the-ground machine, but he's certainly smart enough to know that it helps having a substantial quarterback to make things work in a league like the SEC.

AJ McCarron is easily the most talented and gifted quarterback he's worked with at the college level since he had JaMarcus Russell at LSU. While McCarron hasn't been asked to do a ton, he's helped Alabama slowly shift toward a more downfield passing game at times. He has the arm to do it and the smarts not to force the bad pass anymore. He had an issue with forcing passes early in his career, but really improved in that area last year, throwing 30 touchdowns to three interceptions. McCarron has turned into more than just a game manager for Saban.

ESPN recruiting analyst Tom Luginbill says that Cornwell, who became Alabama's 11th verbal commit in its 2014 recruiting class, will immediately give the Tide an upgrade at the quarterback position when he arrives. Luginbill writes that Cornwell's "deceptive athleticism" is what sets him apart from any of the quarterbacks currently on Alabama's roster. His scrambling ability should help him extend plays unlike any of Saban's Alabama quarterbacks before.

Sure, Alabama will continue to be a running back-first kind of team, but if Cornwell gets on campus with the same mindset has he's had during his high school days, he could really make this offense go.

GEORGIA GETS ITS MAN

Not to be outdone when it came to all this quarterback fun was Georgia. The Bulldogs' staff got its man on Friday as well when Elite 11 member Jacob Park (Goose Creek, S.C./Stratford) committed just before Cornwell went public.

Park put on a show for both Alabama's and Georgia's staffs and picked the Bulldogs over the Tide. Park, who is the No. 8 dual-threat quarterback by ESPN's RecruitingNation, threw for 2,700 yards, ran for another 500 yards and totaled 29 touchdowns as a junior.

He'll arrive in Athens to face a very crowded backfield, and he'll likely really get his best shot at seeing the field in 2015 when Hutson Mason is gone. He'll likely still have Christian LeMay, Faton Bauta and Brice Ramsey to compete with, but Georgia's staff wouldn't have taken his commitment if it didn't think he could hold his own against those guys.

If you aren't putting avocado on pretty much everything, then you're doing it wrong.

Also, “College Football Live” will be discussing Alabama-Texas A&M today at 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2, so make sure you tune in!

• Georgia's young defense takes another hit, as freshman cornerback Reggie Wilkerson suffers a knee injury.
• Kentucky gets a commitment from four-star running back Stanley "Boom" Williams.
• LSU coach Les Miles enjoys the quiet love that comes with Father's Day.
• Texas A&M athletic director Eric Hyman kids that coach Kevin Sumlin "controls the Tide."
• Danny Sheridan gives Nick Saban a D-minus for backup quarterback management.
• Virginia Tech has limited tickets available for the season opener against Alabama.
• Lee's Summit, Mo., cornerback Logan Cheadle packs on the pounds and commits to Missouri.
• Can Tennessee turn its APR dilemma into a winning number?
• Butch Jones and Erik Spoelstra built a friendship on coaching values.
• Auburn linebackers and special teams coach Scott Fountain is enjoying his return "home" as an on-field coach.

Checking on what's making news in the SEC:

• Kentucky will pour an additional $3 million into its football program during the next year.
• Georgia lands the state's top running back prospect in Nick Chubb.
• Fans from near and far converge on enemy territory to hear Alabama coach Nick Saban speak.
• Former Alabama linebacker Rolando McClain is back in school.
• Florida quarterback Jeff Driskel was surprised to be drafted by the Boston Red Sox.
• Projecting LSU's 2014 defensive line signing class.
• Looking at the NCAA Football 2014 ratings for the SEC teams.
• Mike Slive: The man behind the powerful SEC.
• One of Ed Orgeron's former players says he was berated by Orgeron for missing practice to go to class.

GatorNation
From Derek Tyson: Florida added a commitment from defensive end Taven Bryan.

GeauxTigerNation
From Gary Laney : While there are four Louisiana wide receivers in the ESPN 150, LSU took a commitment from unranked D.J. Chark in large part because of the positional versatility he offers.

GigEmNation
From Sam Khan Jr. : OT Zachary Ledwik talks about receiving a Texas A&M offer and says he could decide soon.
More from Khan : There are several suitors for 2015 DB James Locke.

TideNation
From Alex Scarborough: South Alabama and the Mobile area have been good to Alabama recruiting, and now Auburn, Florida State and other top programs are making it a hotly contested recruiting area.

From Greg Ostendorf : Here is the Mobile-area’s top 10 recruits since 2007.

Hitting the SEC links on a Tuesday:

• The Iron Bowl rivalry is all about respect and understanding for Nick Saban and Gus Malzahn.
• Running back Jabo Lee is Tennessee's only 2013 signee unlikely to qualify.
• LSU's proximity to home was a key to landing receiver D.J. Chark.
• Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity doesn't expect the school's stringent punishment for a positive drug test to be lessened any time soon.
• Joe Tereshinski Sr., a Georgia football patriarch, passes away at 89.
• Athlon Sports ranks the top stadiums in the SEC, and LSU's Tiger Stadium checks in at No. 1.
• Top running back prospect Nick Chubb will choose Tuesday night among Auburn, Georgia and South Carolina.
• South Carolina's Jadeveon Clowney enters the 2013 season squarely in the Heisman Trophy talk.
• Picking the ideal Florida football team.
• Harvey Updyke is freed in the Auburn tree poisoning case.
• Texas A&M will face UTSA in 2016 and 2019.

With Steve Spurrier speaking out recently concerning SEC scheduling, we decided to go back and look at the SEC championship game participants over the last decade and who they played out of division.

One thing to keep in mind is that until last season everybody in the league played three games outside their division. With Missouri and Texas A&M joining the league, that number dwindled to two.

Over the last decade, only one team has made the SEC championship game after playing three cross-divisional opponents with winning SEC records.

Wouldn’t you know it. That team was Spurrier’s 2010 South Carolina club. The Gamecocks beat Alabama (5-3), but lost to Arkansas (6-2) and Auburn (8-0). South Carolina was the only team in the East that season with a winning league record. In fact, four of the six teams that year in the East finished with losing SEC records.

During the last two seasons, the SEC championship game participants didn’t play a single team from the other division that finished with a winning SEC record. In fact, seven of their 10 combined opponents out of division won two or fewer league games.

In the last six years, only one time has a team making the SEC championship game had to face more than one cross-divisional opponent with a winning league record. Once again, that team was South Carolina in 2010.

Alabama has played in the SEC championship game three times under Nick Saban (2008, 2009 and 2012). Only one of the eight cross-divisional foes the Crimson Tide played in those three years had a winning conference record. Georgia finished 6-2 in 2008.

Likewise, LSU has also played in the SEC championship game three times under Les Miles (2005, 2007 and 2011). Of the Tigers' nine cross-divisional opponents in those three years, seven finished with losing conference records.

What’s all this mean?

Make up your own mind, but below is a look at the participants in the last 10 SEC championship games and a rundown of who they played out of division and the combined league records of those opponents:

2012

• Alabama: 3-13 (Missouri 2-6 and Tennessee 1-7)
• Georgia: 3-13 (Auburn 0-8 and Ole Miss 3-5)

2011

• LSU: 6-18 (Florida 3-5, Kentucky 2-6 and Tennessee 1-7)
• Georgia: 6-18 (Auburn 4-4, Mississippi State 2-6 and Ole Miss 0-8)

2010

• Auburn: 10-14 (Georgia 3-5, Kentucky 2-6 and South Carolina 5-3)
• South Carolina: 19-5 (Alabama 5-3, Arkansas 6-2 and Auburn 8-0)

2009

• Alabama: 10-14 (Kentucky 3-5, South Carolina 3-5 and Tennessee 4-4)
• Florida: 11-13 (Arkansas 3-5, LSU 5-3 and Mississippi State 3-5)

2008

• Alabama: 11-13 (Georgia 6-2, Kentucky 2-6 and Tennessee 3-5)
• Florida: 10-14 (Arkansas 2-6, LSU 3-5 and Ole Miss 5-3)

2007

• LSU: 11-13 (Florida 5-3, Kentucky 3-5 and South Carolina 3-5)
• Tennessee: 12-12 (Alabama 4-4, Arkansas 4-4 and Mississippi State 4-4)

2006

• Arkansas: 9-15 (South Carolina 3-5, Tennessee 5-3 and Vanderbilt 1-7)
• Florida: 14-10 (Alabama 2-6, Auburn 6-2 and LSU 6-2)

2005

• LSU: 11-13 (Florida 5-3, Tennessee 3-5 and Vanderbilt 3-5)
• Georgia: 10-14 (Arkansas 2-6, Auburn 7-1 and Mississippi State 1-7)

2004

• Auburn: 14-10 (Georgia 6-2, Kentucky 1-7 and Tennessee 7-1)
• Tennessee: 14-10 (Alabama 3-5, Auburn 8-0 and Ole Miss 3-5)

2003

• LSU: 14-10 (Florida 6-2, Georgia 6-2 and South Carolina 2-6)
• Georgia: 14-10 (Alabama 2-6, Auburn 5-3 and LSU 7-1)

Hitting the links on a Friday, and be sure to watch the debut of Granger Smith’s music video “Silverado Bench Seat”, which features Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, on College Football Live today (ESPNU, 3:30 p.m. ET):

• Some more on Mississippi State's NCAA sanctions.
• The SEC has its sixth NCAA major violations case since 2009, but avoids a postseason ban.
• Running back Marlin Lane is reportedly on his way back to Tennessee's football team.
• John Adams of The Knoxville News-Sentinel outlines the blueprint for the Vols rising to the top of the East.
• Is this the year that Mark Richt gets Georgia over the hump in the SEC?
• Early commitments have been a valuable fixture of the Nick Saban era at Alabama.
• Alabama coach Nick Saban says leadership must be maintained.
• Looking at some early point spreads for the 2013 season.

LSU’s Les Miles has some support on doing away with permanent cross-divisional foes in the SEC, and his ally is starting to speak up … loudly.

Steve Spurrier says the scheduling mess in the SEC is just that -- a mess -- and he agrees with Miles that the league schedule has been imbalanced.

“I think we’ve all seen how much it pays off when you don’t have to play the top teams from the other division,” said Spurrier, who has voiced his concerns to several in the media this week.

The Head Ball Coach also talked to Matt Hayes of The Sporting News and said he “should have spoken up a while ago.”

Spurrier said it’s no coincidence that Alabama and Georgia were the two teams playing in the SEC championship game last season, and that the combined league records of their cross-divisional opponents was 6-26.

The league schedule a year ago and the 2013 league schedule were both “bridge” schedules and not part of any regular rotation. They were put into place to accommodate the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M.

The hot debate now is whether to go to nine conference games in 2016, as well as what to do with permanent cross-divisional games such as Florida-LSU, Auburn-Georgia and Alabama-Tennessee.

SEC commissioner Mike Slive said last week at the SEC spring meetings that figuring out what to do with those rivalry games had been one of the “knots” in trying to sort out the scheduling format going forward. The SEC will continue to play eight conference games with a 6-1-1 format through 2015, then reassess the scheduling format beginning with the 2016 season. Most in and around the league think it's inevitable that the SEC will go to nine conference games.

“We try one, and there’s a knot, then try another one and there’s a big knot, whether it’s permanents, whether it’s traditional games or whether it’s too many games,” Slive said. “At some point in time, we’re going to have to unravel one of those knots and just make a decision.”

Spurrier has a solution if Slive and others are dead-set on maintaining the Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia rivalries on an annual basis.

“They can still play every year. Just let it be a nonconference game in those years when it’s not in the rotation,” said Spurrier, who wants to keep it at eight conference games with a 6-0-2 format (a straight rotation of cross-divisional foes and no permanent foes).

“That way, Alabama and Tennessee can keep on playing every year. They don’t have big in-state rivals out of conference like some of us do. If the commissioner or anybody else doesn’t think Clemson-South Carolina and FSU-Florida are big games, they ought to come watch them.

“I’m all for Alabama and Tennessee playing every year. We can still play eight, and that would be their ninth game every year. It just won’t count in their conference records unless that’s the year they’re supposed to play in the league. I’m sure Tennessee would love that.”

Alabama has won six in a row against Tennessee and has yet to lose to the Vols since Nick Saban arrived in 2007.

Saban is the only SEC coach advocating that the league go to nine conference games, and he would also like to see all teams play 10 BCS games.

Spurrier points out that’s exactly what the Gamecocks are doing in 2013. In addition to their eight league games, they’re playing North Carolina to open the season and then their annual season-ending contest with Clemson.

“Coach Saban doesn’t have a big rival out of conference he plays every year, and I understand it’s hard for them to get (nonconference) games,” Spurrier said. “So let them and Tennessee play every year. That’s what we ought to do.

“Maybe Alabama can pick a fight with Texas. Texas doesn’t play Texas A&M anymore, and they need somebody to play out of conference.”

Alabama has gone out and played a marquee nonconference game every year since Saban’s been there. The Crimson Tide open the 2013 season against Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game in Atlanta, and they also have West Virginia, Wisconsin and Michigan State coming up on the schedule in future years.

The overriding argument for keeping the Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia rivalries on an annual basis is that they’re such a part of the SEC’s fabric. Auburn-Georgia is the Deep South’s oldest rivalry, and Alabama and Tennessee first met in 1901.

Spurrier concedes that tradition is important, but that it’s not the end-all in today’s world of college football.

“College football’s changing, and it’s going to keep changing,” Spurrier said. “Missouri’s in the SEC now. West Virginia’s in the Big 12. Heck, we’ve got 14 teams now in the SEC. I guess everybody’s definition of tradition is a little different.”

South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier looked around the room recently at a meeting of SEC head football coaches and couldn't help but notice he was in the minority.

No, it had nothing to do with his customary visor, and he wasn't drawing up ball plays on a napkin or looking at his watch and wondering if he'd make his tee time.

"I got to thinking, 'Where are all the guys who played football in this league over the last 30-some years?'" Spurrier recounted. "You don't see many former players from the league coming back [to the SEC] to be head coaches anymore."

Over the past decade, there have been a few such as former Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom (Alabama), former Kentucky coach Joker Phillips (Kentucky) and former Auburn coach Gene Chizik (Florida). And before Nick Saban took over at Alabama, former Alabama quarterback Mike Shula headed up the Crimson Tide's program.

Currently, though, Spurrier and Florida's Will Muschamp are the only two. Matter of fact, more of the current SEC head coaches played their football in the Big Ten -- Arkansas' Bret Bielema and Kentucky's Mark Stoops at Iowa, LSU's Les Miles at Michigan and Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin at Purdue.

An SEC pedigree was once a must for becoming a head coach in the SEC, but times have changed.

Click here to read my entire column on the changing guard in the SEC.

Alex Scarborough writes on TideNation about Alabama's national search to find a replacement for Mike Shula, an Alabama grad, and how the school's willingness to branch out delivered the wildly successful run of Nick Saban.

Georgia broke the mold when it hired Mark Richt, DawgNation's David Ching writes, a coach with no SEC ties when he came on board. But Richt was quick to hire plenty of former SEC players as assistants, and they helped him navigate the new terrain.

Florida is the exception to this new trend, according to GatorNation's Michael DiRocco. Will Muschamp played at Georgia before coaching at LSU and Auburn. Now the head man at Florida, he's using his conference connections to help on the field and on the recruiting trail.

LSU, meanwhile, has always been willing to buck the conference's trend of hiring local coaches. GeauxTigerNation's Gary Laney writes that only one Tigers coach in the past 30 years graduated from an SEC school.

Making the rounds on a Thursday in the SEC:

• The Mississippi State showdown could be the early defining moment for first-year Auburn coach Gus Malzahn.
• Malzahn says Jay Prosch has a chance to be one of the better H-backs he's ever had.
• Why are some SEC fans attending fewer games?
• There's a place for mobile quarterbacks at Alabama.
• Alabama coach Nick Saban would like to see teams play 10 BCS games as a route to nine SEC games.
• Alabama opens as an early 6-point favorite over Texas A&M.
• Sophomore receivers DeMarcus Sweat and Brookie Cobbins are transferring from Kentucky.
• Kentucky lands a commitment from junior college linebacker Ryan Flannigan.
• Unheralded LSU recruits pounce on the opportunity to impress coaches at camp.
• Most of Georgia's freshmen signees have arrived on campus this week.
• Talks are in the works to revive the Missouri-Illinois series.

Alabama's prowess on the football field under Nick Saban speaks for itself. The Crimson Tide have won three of the last four national championships, including the last two.

Saban also talks frequently about the total development of his players, and it's something he obviously believes in.

On Wednesday, Alabama was the only SEC football program to be recognized with an NCAA Division I Public Recognition Award, which is part of the overall Division I academic reform effort and intended to highlight teams that demonstrate a commitment to academic progress and retention of student-athletes by achieving the top APRs (Academic Progress Rates) within their respective sports. Specifically, these teams posted multiyear APRs in the top 10 percent of all squads in each sport during the 2011-12 academic year.

"To have five of our programs honored in this way, especially considering the success they all enjoyed on the field, is a true testament to the excellence the University of Alabama strives for both athletically and academically," Alabama athletic director Bill Battle said.

The overall APR report covering all sports will be released next week. Schools that were honored Wednesday had numbers that ranged from a 978 to a perfect 1,000.

The Alabama football team's multiyear APR score has increased each year under Saban. Last year, Alabama tied for third in the SEC with a 970.

I already miss the sea breeze down in Destin ...

• The new College Football Playoff will shake up the SEC's bowl tie-ins.
• Nick Saban, Steve Spurrier and Les Miles rank within the top 10 of The Sporting News' coach rankings.
• Missouri's top recruit in the 2013 class, running back Chase Abbington, is heading the junior college route instead of enrolling at Mizzou.
• Kentucky safety Ashely Lowery is healing and should return to UK in June after his horrific car accident.
• Florida Gov. Rick Scott calls South Carolina coach -- and former Florida coach -- Steve Spurrier "an inspiration."
• Alabama athletic director Bill Battle isn't necessarily opposed to paying college players, but questions how to do it.
• The key to Auburn coach Gus Malzahn's early recruiting success is all about developing relationships.
• Quarterback Aaron Murray was named Georgia's most important player by The Macon Telegraph.
• Financial responsibility -- not new facilities -- is what's important to Georgia right now.
• Texas A&M and South Carolina will become permanent crossover opponents starting in 2014.
• Three-star defensive end Joe Henderson committed to Tennessee Thursday.

DESTIN, Fla. -- Former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer still gets a kick out of reminding coaches, and even media members, of all of the gloom and doom they were spreading when the league made the bold move in 1992 of going to a conference championship game, and expanding and splitting into two divisions.

The fear was that having to play an extra game after making it through the eight-game grind of the league schedule would put the SEC at a huge disadvantage in terms of winning national championships.

A few coaches even suggested that the SEC could forget about having much of a say in the national championship equation going forward.

Well, Alabama went 13-0 that first year of the conference championship game and won its first national title in 13 years.

In fact, 11 of the past 21 national champions have come from the SEC, including the past seven.

Suffice it to say that the changing landscape of the SEC two decades ago didn’t send the league into football oblivion, and something says it will continue to prosper in this current climate of change.

Even so, the unknown is always a little scary.

“There are a lot of question marks out there that are really hard to answer right now, kind of like the nine-game [conference] schedule,” Florida coach Will Muschamp said. “Is that best for our league? We really don’t know right now.

“At the end of the day, it’s going to be great for the fans. It’s going to be great for TV. But is that what’s best for the Southeastern Conference? I don’t know right now.”

Even though the coaches voted 13-1 to keep it at eight conference games, which will be the way the league goes in 2014 and probably in 2015, the overriding feeling this week at the spring meetings was that nine conference games are coming.

Alabama’s Nick Saban has been the one coach pushing for nine games. Everybody wants to know his rationale.

For starters, he understands as well as anybody that when the College Football Playoff gets here in 2014 that strength of schedule (and who you beat and where you beat them) will be the most important component in making it into the “final four,” as Steve Spurrier calls it.

“If we’re going to get more than one team from the SEC [in the playoff], we’re going to have to play more than eight games,” Saban said. “So we’re going to have to play nine. Some of us already do, and even 10 of what I’m going to say are BCS-quality opponents.

“It’s hard to schedule those people, and it’s difficult to do home-and-homes and make it work. So why not play nine conference games and make it work and then play one other [marquee nonconference] game?”

But at some point, the SEC’s national championship streak is going to end.

And Muschamp is right. Nobody knows for sure what the landscape will look like once the selection committee is picked and a four-team playoff becomes a reality.

It could be a few years into the playoff before we have a true read.

One of the other hot debates this week in Destin was permanent opponents. LSU has been leading the charge to do away with permanent cross-divisional opponents. Les Miles would like to see a format (in an eight-game schedule) where teams play their six divisional foes and then two rotating foes from the other division.

Of course, Auburn and Georgia, as well as Alabama and Tennessee, are dead set on keeping their annual rivalries.

For the time being, it’s going to stay at eight conference games, and a 6-1-1 rotation already has been approved through 2026. Obviously, the presidents will have the final say, and nothing says that can’t become a 6-1-2 format in a couple of years if (when) the league goes to nine conference games.

Alabama, which has avoided the best teams from the East Division each of the past two regular seasons, would get Georgia in 2014 as its cross-divisional foe and Florida in 2015. Again, this is assuming the rotation approved through 2026 sticks.

There are sure to be a few twists and turns, and it’s only natural that adding a ninth SEC game would be unnerving for coaches and athletic directors.

Keep in mind that in the past six years, Alabama, Florida and Georgia all have gone to bowl games with six regular-season wins.

One thing we know about this league is that it changes fast. But it’s also a league that has proved it can handle change with the best of them.

Does anybody really expect that to change?

DESTIN, Fla. -- SEC coaches might have voted 13-1 to keep an eight-game conference schedule, but they could be getting more than they bargained for down the road.

For now, the eight games are safe and so is the 6-1-1 scheduling format, but with the College Football Playoff and the SEC Network looming, it's hard to believe that both of these models will stay after the 2015 season for college football's top conference.

Florida coach Will Muschamp might have said it best on Wednesday. He prefers an eight-game conference schedule -- which certainly benefits the Gators, considering they already have Florida State on the schedule -- but he understands that with all the change coming, nine games appears inevitable, even if it might not be what he thinks is best for the conference.

"There's a lot of question marks out there that are really hard to really answer right now, kind of like the nine-game schedule," Muschamp said. "Is that best for our league? We really don't know right now. At the end of the day, it's going to be great for the fans, it's going to be great for TV, but is that what's best for the Southeastern Conference? I don't know, right now."

Nick Saban began the week with the idea of SEC teams playing 10 BCS games every year -- during the regular season. That could be nine league games and then a bigger nonconference game or it could be eight league games with two bigger nonconference games.

Alabama athletic director Bill Battle echoed those same thoughts Wednesday.

"I don't know if nine (SEC) games is the answer. What I think is that we really need to play at least 10 good games," Battle said. "My personal feeling is we shouldn't be playing three or four games with, I guess, Football Championship (Subdivision) teams. Whether we play more conference games or just more FBS games, I think we need to play 10 (quality) games because our fans are going to get tired (of going to games with lesser opponents)."

He certainly has a point. Fans don't show up for the cupcakes like they show up for the creme brulee or even the carrot cake. Those games don't do well with ratings and they just aren't very exciting to watch in person or otherwise.

SEC commissioner Mike Slive even hinted earlier this week that he'd like to see teams beef up their nonconference schedules, which could be sort of a tradeoff for teams if the league stays at eight conference games. Regardless, he wants to see more meat on teams' schedules going forward.

So while SEC coaches left Destin Wednesday with an almost unanimous vote on keeping eight league games, their votes might not mean too much in the end. This means a more difficult road to the playoff and the national championship for the league that has won seven straight BCS titles.

Think about it, if the the SEC moves to nine conference games the SEC champion will have to play 10 SEC games and another BCS game before even starting the playoff.

Personally, I'm in favor of all the SEC teams beefing up their schedules. It's just a better product to watch. And the league's new network probably won't want a lull during the season with a weekend of, well, weak opponents littering its lineup.

Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin suggests you can spread conference games throughout the season to ensure that an SEC matchup occurs every weekend.

"I know with television and with everything that becomes important there's a way to maintain that and maybe reconstruct the schedule so that it serves the national need of fans and our television needs and still gives us an opportunity to play in the toughest league in America," Sumlin said.

Makes sense, but if there's a chance to bring in more fans and money by toughening up the schedule, the league will do it. And this is a chance for the league to flex its muscles even more. Sure, the old method has worked, but things change. The SEC took a major step with the first conference championship game in 1992, and this would be another one.

Coaches could get more than they asked for, but they should embrace the challenge should it arise.