With the expectation of Texas and Oklahoma leaving the Big 12 for the SEC, conference realignment talks dominate the headlines. As both schools inch closer and closer to joining college football’s best conference, what are the pros and cons for the SEC to add two of the sport’s biggest brands?
During Tuesday’s edition of ESPN’s College Football Live, former Georgia linebacker David Pollack dove into what he sees as the pros and cons of the SEC’s probable expansion. He started with the pros.
“Well if I’m the SEC I expanded my market more, bringing in the state of Oklahoma, obviously I added a brand with Oklahoma and Texas, I added more good quality football,” Pollack said. “A lot of the time you expand for regions because you want to grow your region and grow your TV with money, not only did you get two name brands but you got one football team that has been great, one of the best football teams in the country in the last five or six years and another team that’s one of the biggest brands in college football, so the rich get richer.
“By the way, we get more games that are going to be really fun to watch. I mean you bring in Texas and you get that rivalry with A&M back, you’re going to see Texas vs. Georgia more, Alabama vs. Oklahoma more. So as a fan, you’re going to get more quality football that you’re really, really going to love.”
Despite the number of pros, Pollack also pointed out some glaring cons that the expansion could cause for college football as a whole. He started by saying the SEC will now have an unbalanced amount of power in the college football landscape.
“The power that the SEC will have,” Pollack said. “The NCAA is not going to be around for too much longer I don’t think, they’re continuing to lose their foothold. Now, you look at the SEC with all the schools they have and the spreading out and the money they’re making, obviously giving them a huge amount of power.
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“Another con too, if I’m Missouri and Texas A&M, it’s kind of a negative for me, right? Like, I moved a couple of years ago, I used to live in your neighborhood, Oklahoma and Texas, and I got tired of ya’ll, ya’ll were annoying neighbors and I wanted to get the heck out of dodge, and I went and I bought a bigger mansion in a bigger neighborhood, a better neighborhood, got a gate on that thing, and then guess what? They’re going to come in my hood and build a bigger house and come steal all the attention. So, I think Texas A&M and Missouri obviously won’t be super ecstatic with it either.”
