Programs most likely to end SEC's reign
Ryan McGee
ESPN INSIDER
I passed the magazine around to the plumbers and pipe fitters who surrounded me in the hotel bar. It was Thursday night, and we were in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They were in town for the annual meeting of the United Association, their union. I was there for the weekend's NASCAR events.
On ESPNU was a replay of January's BCS Championship Game between Alabama and LSU. Now I was flashing the cover of our ESPN The Magazine College Football Preview, featuring voodoo dolls of the Bama, LSU and Georgia mascots with the question:
Can someone please take down college football's most dominant conference?
"Oh geez," Larry, a pipe fitter from Lansing, Mich., said as he rolled his eyes. "As we speak, there's a bunch of coaches back in my town and just up the road at the Big House trying to answer this same damn question. Can't happen fast enough for me."
Larry's not alone. And in the days since our SEC voodoo dolls hit newsstands, I have conducted an admittedly unscientific poll. No, not with pipe fitters, but BCS-level athletic administrators, the men and women charged with ultimately finding the solution. None wanted to be identified, but all were willing to offer up their opinion on the matter.
"I only get this question about once an hour, from the office to the grocery store," one southwestern athletic director said as he laughed. "It won't take a conference to do it. It will take one school. And that school has to be in a position to hit on the right combination and keep it there."
So what are the factors that can put it in that position?
"I'll give you five," said another AD, this one in the Northeast. "Revenue, pedigree, facilities, recruiting and talent. And pretty much in that order."
"Let me add one more to that list," said an AD in the Midwest. "Mindset. You have to have people who believe it can be done. The kind that don't lose any sleep over the SEC because it doesn't intimidate them at all, and they are too busy working their [butts] off to be worried about anything else."
OK, then with those six keys in mind, which schools are in the best position to take a realistic shot at toppling the SEC's mid-January tyranny, not merely this year but for years to come?
These are the five programs, ranked backward from No. 5 to No. 1, that made my list based on which teams were mentioned most, along with the five that barely missed the cut.
5. Texas Longhorns
Full disclosure: I expected Oklahoma to be the Big 12 representative on this list. If it were strictly my list, the Sooners likely would have been. But the people in the know said they knew better. (Don't panic, Sooner Nation, check out the barely missed list.)
"With all due respect to Oklahoma or anyone else, no one has deeper pockets than Texas," the northeastern AD said, admittedly jealous. "No one."
The numbers don't lie. According to USA Today's annual report on athletic department revenues, UT hauled in $150.3 million in 2010-11, the most recent year available for research, and cleared nearly $17 million. The highest SEC departments were the very similar numbers of Alabama and Florida, ranked third and fourth, respectively, as both were in the revenue neighborhood of $124 million with expenses in the $106 million range.
Recruiting in Texas is certainly not a problem. Neither is pedigree nor media exposure. (Added one AD: "Say what you want about its launch issues, but they have the Longhorn Network and no one else does. The money on the deal is just getting going.") So, in recent years, what's been the holdup?
"They got comfortable just as everyone around them got hungry," a rival southwestern AD explains. "There's where the mindset thing comes in. Now they're changing it up. Mack [Brown] is promising national titles within the next two or three years. There's some attitude back."
That attitude starts with the Horns' ridiculous defense led by coaching wunderkind Manny Diaz. If the offense catches up, look out. "That's a defense that can stop an SEC school," observes a West Coast AD. "But they have to get that offense going again."
4. Florida State Seminoles
The Seminoles trail the other programs on this list when it comes to cash, and it's not even close. Their $78 million in 2011-12 revenue ranked 24th. That puts them between Minnesota and Virginia. They were also not one of the 22 schools that finished in the black, ending the year with a nearly $8.5 million deficit. But the folks in Tallahassee have long excelled at bang for the buck. How? Remember that term pedigree?
"We refer to FSU as the sleeping giant," says the southwestern AD. "They are essentially an SEC school in the ACC. If they ever got their act together on the field for just a couple of years in a row they would snap right back into their winning ways of the '90s."
All of the athletic directors were quick to say that anyone who points to their ACC membership as a problem hasn't actually done his homework. "The ACC's media deals are plenty big," says a West Coaster. "So the money is good. And the road to a conference championship is easier there than in other places. Realistically, they could be in a BCS-type bowl every year. They should be."
And all literally started laughing when I posed the recruiting question, pointing to recent reports that FSU is spending nearly twice what it did on recruiting during the Bobby Bowden days. One added: "That makes all the sense in the world. There was some laziness that had crept in, like Texas. Hey, you are Florida State in the state of Florida. But now they are catching up, and we're in a period where Florida and Miami are down. Talent is stacking up down there. They just need to get them coached up."
3. Ohio State Buckeyes
In Columbus, they long ago mastered pedigree. They're also ranked second behind Texas in revenue, just shy of $132 million (clearing $9.5M), and have sunk a ton of that into facilities. Over the past decade Ohio Stadium has received a nearly $200 million expansion and face-lift, the Woody Hayes Center got a $21.5 million upfitting, and the athletic department even donated $1 million to the OSU library two years ago.
"Where they'd grown stagnant was recruiting," says an AD from a fellow Midwest school. "Some of that came from the fact that they didn't need to be very aggressive. They got everyone they wanted. But some of that also stemmed from their reputation as, well, offensively dull. Kids want to move the football. Well, the new guy is changing all of that."
That'd be Urban Meyer. And while his SEC-ish recruiting tactics have rubbed some fellow Big Ten members the wrong way, the results this past February were obvious. Anyone who watched their spring scrimmage saw more evidence of a new aggression -- the spread offense.
"If they can get people to buy into that, it's a little scary," says a southern AD. "And he knows how things work in this part of the world [the Southeast] because he was here. If -- and this might be a huge if -- he sticks with it long enough, they will be a machine."
Several of the athletic directors mentioned Ohio State's NCAA sanctions as actually a bit of a boon for Meyer during his makeover efforts. "That fan base always wants to win," one says. "But the postseason ban is kind of a built-in buffer. Down the road people will ultimately be willing to write this year off to rebuilding. Next year, certainly two years from now, they'll be ready to go."
2. Michigan Wolverines
The Buckeyes are in Year 1 of their new world. Their archrivals are hitting Year 2. Fifth in revenue, tops in attendance and coming off an 11-win season with a half-dozen starters returning on both sides of the ball, the Wolverines could very well be the team on this list best positioned to knock off the SEC in the shortest period of time.
Especially with that showdown versus Alabama coming on Sept. 1.
Says the northeastern AD: "They have a jump on the other schools we've been talking about because this particular group has a pretty high 'been there, done that' factor. But if they get crushed by Alabama opening weekend, it's going to send out this big 'Oh no, not again' vibe to the rest of the college football world."
1. USC Trojans
When it comes to talking about the Trojans, several of the ADs mentioned that USC is kind of a piecing-together of all the aspects that make the other four schools a threat.
Talent-rich recruiting base? Check.
Scared-of-no-one mindset? Check.
Coach with some knowledge of how things work within the SEC? Check.
Winning pedigree? Check.
Talent on the roster? Big check.
"Their revenue isn't the highest, but they make up for it in all those other areas," says a West Coast AD.
Because it's a private school, USC's budget doesn't have to be made public. But in its annual Title IX filings with the Department of Education, it is in the Florida State-ish range of the mid-$70Ms. And while the L.A. Coliseum isn't state-of-the-art, there has been tremendous work on the on-campus facilities, particularly the $70 million, 110,000-square-foot John McKay Center with new football offices and team facilities.
"Yes, they lack depth," a southwestern AD says. "But their first team is so good that may not matter. To have weathered the storm they have with the NCAA and still be loaded like that is impressive. Once they get back to full strength they can give the SEC all they want for a long time to come."
The next five
• Oklahoma Sooners -- "Their numbers are so surprising, both revenue and wins in the BCS era," says an AD from the West Coast.
• Nebraska Cornhuskers -- "They are so gun-shy now about being more creative on offense because that pro-style experiment was such a disaster," says the Midwestern AD.
• Oregon Ducks -- "They have a serious SEC hang-up after their losses," says a West Coaster, "but if [former Auburn running back Michael] Dyer's knee goes down in the BCS title game, we aren't even having this SEC conversation."
• Wisconsin Badgers -- "Russell Wilson kind of showed them the way on opening it up a little," says the southeastern AD. "Not a lot. But a little."
• Michigan State Spartans -- "They are scared of no one," the southeastern AD says. "But they have to survive that brutal schedule of theirs just to see an SEC team in a BCS bowl, and that's a tall order."
Ryan McGee
ESPN INSIDER
I passed the magazine around to the plumbers and pipe fitters who surrounded me in the hotel bar. It was Thursday night, and we were in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They were in town for the annual meeting of the United Association, their union. I was there for the weekend's NASCAR events.
On ESPNU was a replay of January's BCS Championship Game between Alabama and LSU. Now I was flashing the cover of our ESPN The Magazine College Football Preview, featuring voodoo dolls of the Bama, LSU and Georgia mascots with the question:
Can someone please take down college football's most dominant conference?
"Oh geez," Larry, a pipe fitter from Lansing, Mich., said as he rolled his eyes. "As we speak, there's a bunch of coaches back in my town and just up the road at the Big House trying to answer this same damn question. Can't happen fast enough for me."
Larry's not alone. And in the days since our SEC voodoo dolls hit newsstands, I have conducted an admittedly unscientific poll. No, not with pipe fitters, but BCS-level athletic administrators, the men and women charged with ultimately finding the solution. None wanted to be identified, but all were willing to offer up their opinion on the matter.
"I only get this question about once an hour, from the office to the grocery store," one southwestern athletic director said as he laughed. "It won't take a conference to do it. It will take one school. And that school has to be in a position to hit on the right combination and keep it there."
So what are the factors that can put it in that position?
"I'll give you five," said another AD, this one in the Northeast. "Revenue, pedigree, facilities, recruiting and talent. And pretty much in that order."
"Let me add one more to that list," said an AD in the Midwest. "Mindset. You have to have people who believe it can be done. The kind that don't lose any sleep over the SEC because it doesn't intimidate them at all, and they are too busy working their [butts] off to be worried about anything else."
OK, then with those six keys in mind, which schools are in the best position to take a realistic shot at toppling the SEC's mid-January tyranny, not merely this year but for years to come?
These are the five programs, ranked backward from No. 5 to No. 1, that made my list based on which teams were mentioned most, along with the five that barely missed the cut.
5. Texas Longhorns
Full disclosure: I expected Oklahoma to be the Big 12 representative on this list. If it were strictly my list, the Sooners likely would have been. But the people in the know said they knew better. (Don't panic, Sooner Nation, check out the barely missed list.)
"With all due respect to Oklahoma or anyone else, no one has deeper pockets than Texas," the northeastern AD said, admittedly jealous. "No one."
The numbers don't lie. According to USA Today's annual report on athletic department revenues, UT hauled in $150.3 million in 2010-11, the most recent year available for research, and cleared nearly $17 million. The highest SEC departments were the very similar numbers of Alabama and Florida, ranked third and fourth, respectively, as both were in the revenue neighborhood of $124 million with expenses in the $106 million range.
Recruiting in Texas is certainly not a problem. Neither is pedigree nor media exposure. (Added one AD: "Say what you want about its launch issues, but they have the Longhorn Network and no one else does. The money on the deal is just getting going.") So, in recent years, what's been the holdup?
"They got comfortable just as everyone around them got hungry," a rival southwestern AD explains. "There's where the mindset thing comes in. Now they're changing it up. Mack [Brown] is promising national titles within the next two or three years. There's some attitude back."
That attitude starts with the Horns' ridiculous defense led by coaching wunderkind Manny Diaz. If the offense catches up, look out. "That's a defense that can stop an SEC school," observes a West Coast AD. "But they have to get that offense going again."
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4. Florida State Seminoles
The Seminoles trail the other programs on this list when it comes to cash, and it's not even close. Their $78 million in 2011-12 revenue ranked 24th. That puts them between Minnesota and Virginia. They were also not one of the 22 schools that finished in the black, ending the year with a nearly $8.5 million deficit. But the folks in Tallahassee have long excelled at bang for the buck. How? Remember that term pedigree?
"We refer to FSU as the sleeping giant," says the southwestern AD. "They are essentially an SEC school in the ACC. If they ever got their act together on the field for just a couple of years in a row they would snap right back into their winning ways of the '90s."
All of the athletic directors were quick to say that anyone who points to their ACC membership as a problem hasn't actually done his homework. "The ACC's media deals are plenty big," says a West Coaster. "So the money is good. And the road to a conference championship is easier there than in other places. Realistically, they could be in a BCS-type bowl every year. They should be."
And all literally started laughing when I posed the recruiting question, pointing to recent reports that FSU is spending nearly twice what it did on recruiting during the Bobby Bowden days. One added: "That makes all the sense in the world. There was some laziness that had crept in, like Texas. Hey, you are Florida State in the state of Florida. But now they are catching up, and we're in a period where Florida and Miami are down. Talent is stacking up down there. They just need to get them coached up."
<hr style="width: 50%;">
3. Ohio State Buckeyes
In Columbus, they long ago mastered pedigree. They're also ranked second behind Texas in revenue, just shy of $132 million (clearing $9.5M), and have sunk a ton of that into facilities. Over the past decade Ohio Stadium has received a nearly $200 million expansion and face-lift, the Woody Hayes Center got a $21.5 million upfitting, and the athletic department even donated $1 million to the OSU library two years ago.
"Where they'd grown stagnant was recruiting," says an AD from a fellow Midwest school. "Some of that came from the fact that they didn't need to be very aggressive. They got everyone they wanted. But some of that also stemmed from their reputation as, well, offensively dull. Kids want to move the football. Well, the new guy is changing all of that."
That'd be Urban Meyer. And while his SEC-ish recruiting tactics have rubbed some fellow Big Ten members the wrong way, the results this past February were obvious. Anyone who watched their spring scrimmage saw more evidence of a new aggression -- the spread offense.
"If they can get people to buy into that, it's a little scary," says a southern AD. "And he knows how things work in this part of the world [the Southeast] because he was here. If -- and this might be a huge if -- he sticks with it long enough, they will be a machine."
Several of the athletic directors mentioned Ohio State's NCAA sanctions as actually a bit of a boon for Meyer during his makeover efforts. "That fan base always wants to win," one says. "But the postseason ban is kind of a built-in buffer. Down the road people will ultimately be willing to write this year off to rebuilding. Next year, certainly two years from now, they'll be ready to go."
<hr style="width: 50%;">
2. Michigan Wolverines
The Buckeyes are in Year 1 of their new world. Their archrivals are hitting Year 2. Fifth in revenue, tops in attendance and coming off an 11-win season with a half-dozen starters returning on both sides of the ball, the Wolverines could very well be the team on this list best positioned to knock off the SEC in the shortest period of time.
Especially with that showdown versus Alabama coming on Sept. 1.
Says the northeastern AD: "They have a jump on the other schools we've been talking about because this particular group has a pretty high 'been there, done that' factor. But if they get crushed by Alabama opening weekend, it's going to send out this big 'Oh no, not again' vibe to the rest of the college football world."
<hr style="width: 50%;">
1. USC Trojans
When it comes to talking about the Trojans, several of the ADs mentioned that USC is kind of a piecing-together of all the aspects that make the other four schools a threat.
Talent-rich recruiting base? Check.
Scared-of-no-one mindset? Check.
Coach with some knowledge of how things work within the SEC? Check.
Winning pedigree? Check.
Talent on the roster? Big check.
"Their revenue isn't the highest, but they make up for it in all those other areas," says a West Coast AD.
Because it's a private school, USC's budget doesn't have to be made public. But in its annual Title IX filings with the Department of Education, it is in the Florida State-ish range of the mid-$70Ms. And while the L.A. Coliseum isn't state-of-the-art, there has been tremendous work on the on-campus facilities, particularly the $70 million, 110,000-square-foot John McKay Center with new football offices and team facilities.
"Yes, they lack depth," a southwestern AD says. "But their first team is so good that may not matter. To have weathered the storm they have with the NCAA and still be loaded like that is impressive. Once they get back to full strength they can give the SEC all they want for a long time to come."
The next five
• Oklahoma Sooners -- "Their numbers are so surprising, both revenue and wins in the BCS era," says an AD from the West Coast.
• Nebraska Cornhuskers -- "They are so gun-shy now about being more creative on offense because that pro-style experiment was such a disaster," says the Midwestern AD.
• Oregon Ducks -- "They have a serious SEC hang-up after their losses," says a West Coaster, "but if [former Auburn running back Michael] Dyer's knee goes down in the BCS title game, we aren't even having this SEC conversation."
• Wisconsin Badgers -- "Russell Wilson kind of showed them the way on opening it up a little," says the southeastern AD. "Not a lot. But a little."
• Michigan State Spartans -- "They are scared of no one," the southeastern AD says. "But they have to survive that brutal schedule of theirs just to see an SEC team in a BCS bowl, and that's a tall order."
