Kentucky should leave the SEC
- Thread starter SmokinGun9
- Start date
But you made it sound like those teams have ben killing it. You took a down year for UK and ONE good year v/s the other teams to make it sound like they are far better programs than UK, when in all actuality, they had a good year while we had a down year. ANY of those teams you mentioned would have played UK schedule, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, except maybe SMU. IF UK played those other teams schedule, be honest and tell me what you think UK's record would have been, then for each team you mentioned, post what their record would have been playing UK's schedule. Be honest in your assessment.
Bottom line is this: we aren’t going to be competing for a playoff spot looking up from the cellar of the SEC anytime soon. If you are ok with that then fine that’s your opinion. But don’t be thinking that we will ever realistically reach the playoffs from this conference. Hell we won’t even have a winning record. We’ve been passed by SC and Vandy. Pretty soon Miss St will pass us. Like it or not, we have become the doormat of the SEC.
There is a reason Vandy and Mississippi State and Missouri stay in knowing they will never win anything. $$$$$$$$
Big Ten, SEC are top conferences in revenue with athlete pay plan on horizon | FOX Sports
The Big Ten held a narrow edge over the SEC in revenue for the second straight year, according to newly released tax filings.
www.foxsports.com
I clearly said “rank and file” in my post. Meaning any number of middling programs.
Again nobody is discussing teams playing an SEC schedule.
The OP said UK should move and play another conference schedule.
My reply and main point was we are not going to beat a lot of rank and file in the other conference let alone the upper tier.
Also it’s not just this “down year” it applies to most years. Especially the last 3-4 when we’ve been trending down struggling against middle to lower tier teams.
More importantly than the past and could’ve would’ve should’ve, the future is looking great for the “well any other conference and we’d be xyz…”
No that’s a fallacy of logic. Just because SEC overall is historically high achieving and tough that does not equal taking specific teams, especially UK, and saying “welp 2,3, maybe 4 conference wins in a great year…that means we’d probably win 5,6,7 games in xyz conference”
Especially now as the rank and file improve via NIL/portal.
Talent spreading out in search of money and playing time means middle of the pack teams will get better.
I can understand why this comes up.
It's an old argument, originally posed by UK sports history icon Oscar Combs from the pre-internet era. (Yes, there was a pre-internet era.) Oscar insisted UK should move to the ACC.
I have studied this issue for years and am in the stay in the SEC camp. But points can be made on all sides.
Some background. Oscar's case was first articulated in the 1980s and 90s. Oscar liked all UK sports, gave attention to more than just basketball, but was a UK basketball fan first and foremost. Back in Oscar's heyday, UK struggled at times in basketball because of fallout from the "Kentucky shame" scandal that brought down Eddie Sutton and Cliff Hagan. But football was a different level of mental anguish. Fran Curci was caught cheating, and Jerry Claiborne was old fashioned. However, Claiborne was a fantastic fundraiser for those times. Claiborne left behind a fundraising legacy that became more important later. In his day, adjusted for inflation. Bill Curry was massively overpaid for a substandard result (for those who now make that same complaint about Stoops). Curry, a bone dry personality, couldn't keep competent assistant coaches around. Elliot Uzelac killed what remaining team morale Curry had not. Recruiting hit a dramatic decline after the Moe Williams era. The team played poorly and Curry was finally dismissed. CM Newton, a retired basketball coach who knew nothing about football, hired Hal Mumme at the urging of former player Jeff Van Note who resided in Atlanta at the time. It turned out that Mumme was allergic to defensive football, and his recruiting coordinator Claude Bassett was a con man and serial cheater. UK boosters were giving Bassett huge amounts of money to break the rules of those times. When the NCAA caught Bassett cheating, Mumme was fired, Newton suddenly retired, and UK was lucky to avoid the NCAA's death penalty. But UK was penalized with 3 years of crippling recruiting sanctions anyway.
Newton also fostered the relationship of our athletics department with boosters who were cheating on a massive scale at that time. That culminatedcwith those boosters purchasing a vacation home for Newton in the Bahamas. So Newton, a basketball oriented athletics director, did important damage to UK's football program as well as basketball.
Under those circumstances, most people at that time shared Oscar's narrative that UK would never be competitive in SEC football. It was easy to believe, mainly based on perceptions at a time when UK football suffered under the Curci and Mumme NCAA sanctions as well as the tactical management incompetence of Curry and Mumme. And for those who still defend Mumme, well, let's just agree that results matter. You may have been excited to see a UK QB complete a forward pass, or even a screen pass. But Mumme came very close to destroying UK's football program outright.
But, back at that time, the SEC was a weak basketball conference. Boosters and fans would have been happy to see UK play UNC in basketball a couple times a year. The thinking was that UK would perform better in the March NCAA basketball tournament after playing an ACC schedule.
So the case for leaving the SEC was based on two notions. First, UK was a basketball school and always would be. Secondly, UK would never be competitive in SEC football no matter what. And, of course, the latter notion was exactly what basketball-first UK boosters wanted everyone to believe. And Oscar, a product of the times, was more than happy to use his public position to voice the narrative that UK could not succeed in SEC football. To this day, a new rendition of this Oscar narrative comes up publicly whenever UK's football program struggles. Thus, this thread is a new addendum in a very long story.
But football is the financial engine of every Power 4 athletics department. When Lee Todd assumed UK's Presidency, coming out of a business background, he quickly recognized football must be successful in order for UK's athletics department to be financially successful. Among other things, that meant cleaning out the athletics department and avoiding
even more crippling NCAA trouble at all costs. President Todd hired Barnhart from OR St to oversee football through the NCAA sanctions, fix the program, and get all the cheaters and leakers out of UK's athletics department. To this day, one can hardly imagine how much the Herald Leader Sports Dept was hurt when the leakers were expelled from UK's athletics department. Ever since, the Herald Leader has been on the outside. And boosters who lost control of UK athletics never forgave Todd or Barnhart. To this day, they oppose every decision Barnhart makes and always push for him to be fired. We still see those echoes in comments on this board.
Implicit in the case for leaving the SEC is the narrative that UK would win more football games competing in an easier conference. Perhaps UK could even work through an easier non-SEC route into the playoffs? But the main motivation seems to be that some people are frustrated and just want to see change.
In fairness to those people, UK is known to be one of the most watched teams in televised college football. Given this high profile, then, maybe winning more televised games could benefit recruiting and fundraising. Maybe being seen as a winner could have wider benefits.
But IMO, the main motivation is simply that people have disappointment thresholds and some UK fans have hit their frustration limits. For some, this is complicated by standards rooted in the basketball experience. Therefore, something has to change.
But while most fans are reactive, Boards of Trustees are proactive in a 10-20 year perspective. I favor remaining in the SEC. As has been stated, UK is a founding SEC member. While many current UK fans remember back to the 1970s, 80s, or 90s, UK's football heritage goes back much farther. UK won the old equivalent of a national championship (Sagarin) in 1950. UK has won two SEC titles. While UK has had some frustrating seasons, a significant portion of our football trouble has occurred subsequent to NCAA sanctions caused by boosters cheating and getting caught. Are those boosters contributing to the 15 Club now? Is our OP contributing?
There are reasons why no school has left the SEC in >50 years. On the contrary, there are reasons why everyone wants into the SEC, including TX and OK now. But if UK were to leave, we would pay a huge separation fee and lose our SEC TV revenue.
Currently, ESPN pays the SEC >$300 million a year for sports broadcast rights to 15 feature football games, the SEC championship game, 8 men's basketball games, and a comparable number of streaming games for ESPN+ and SEC+. That does not include other fee structures for bowl games, playoff games, and "nonfeature" games or other SEC sports events televised on other networks. All those revenue streams are shared among all SEC schools.
This year, UK athletics revenue (ranking #16 in the country) is >$159 million. If UK were to leave the SEC, the B10 is the only other alternative offering roughly comparable athletics revenue. B10 members play games in places like PA, IA, NE, MI, and WI. Want to visit those places in October and November for games? No. And by keaving the SEC, UK's recruiting traction in southern states like GA, AL, and FL would be badly hurt. Want to trade those states out of our prioritized recruiting territory for IN, WI, IL, and IA? I say no.
As recently as 2018, UK went 10-3 and won the Citrus Bowl over PA St. Mark Stoops has put a lot of Wildcats into the NFL draft. We can agree or not with Coach Marrow's "one bad year" characterization. But 2013-now has been a relatively bright chapter in UK football overall and UK sports in general. College athletics are a complicated business but UK is doing quite well in the SEC.
So here is the takaway point. Don't try to fix it when it isn't broken. And for those who still believe UK's relationship with the SEC isn't viable or successful, that view could be revised by a deeper and broader understanding of UK athletics, including football. But you have to try, and you have to accept a longer and deeper view of our football history. Our coaches says it can be fixed. Maybe he is right, maybe not. I really don't know. But Kentuckians are not afraid of a challenge. Let's move forward. If Stoops doesn't fix it, there will be a football equivalent of Mark Pope out there and Barnhart will snag him. I think I know who that would be. And if Stoops does fix it, so much the better. Either way, UK belongs in the SEC, where we have been for a century.
Bottom line actually is, you are a determined pessimist shying away from a challenge. Not to criticize. That's your right. But a longer, broader view of history doesn't back you up.
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