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COLUMBIA, Mo. — There’s no tour de news-making force quite like the Southeastern Conference’s annual meetings. The league’s administrators gather at a Florida beachfront resort to strategize.

Nobody so much as touches a ball during this stretch of the offseason. Yet everyone, hyperbolically speaking, finds something to talk about. Such is the nature of the powerhouse SEC and a tumultuous age in college athletics.

Naturally, not everyone agrees. For all the talking that took place at this week’s SEC meetings, there might not be all that much action. That’s how these things go, particularly against a backdrop of House settlement limbo and the looming threat of more change coming.

The ideas discussed down in Destin range from transfer portal reform to the future of the College Football Playoff, and they range from good to questionable to just plain inevitable. Here’s what was at stake during the SEC’s latest discussions.

The good

SEC football coaches seem to be a fairly unified bunch for a group that spends a few months out of the year battering each other on the gridiron. They’ve got a group chat between the 16 of them where they can land on the same page about some things, like the transfer portal.

This isn’t just grumpy old coaches shaking their firsts at passing clouds. The SEC’s coaches, some of whom are in their profession’s upper echelon, are serious about fixing the portal.

“The coaches, the No. 1 thing on their list is the transfer portal and the calendar,� Texas A&M athletics director Trev Alberts told reporters. “And that all makes sense.�

The current format of the transfer portal is chaotic at best, which means more serious clamoring for change is a good development. What sense does it make to have the portal open during the postseason? Is the portal opening for a second time a few months later — which happens in football but no other college sport — more harmful or helpful?

SEC coaches, following the lead of the American Football Coaches Association, back a single portal window, ideally after the postseason. Sounds good for everyone involved. It won’t magically come to be without NCAA action and, potentially, surviving a court challenge. But this could be a step in the right direction.

Among the other good developments:

• All 16 SEC schools signed an agreement to follow the rules created by the House v. NCAA settlement, which could be approved at any point now to take effect for the upcoming sports year.
• SEC schools agreed to a much stricter penalty for field and court stormings: $500,000 per occurrence, regardless of whether it’s the first or the 15th. There’d previously been a scale of penalties that clearly wasn’t enough of a deterrent.

The questionable

As far as conferences go, the SEC and Big Ten are increasingly in a league of their own — and clearly want to be. Among the hypotheticals created by this dynamic is a possible football scheduling arrangement between the two conferences.

“Our first goal would be wanting to play Big Ten teams, as coaches,� Louisiana State coach Brian Kelly said. “I can speak for the room. We want to play Big Ten teams. … We’ve made our voice clear, our athletic directors know that as well that we would like that. Our commissioner obviously heard us well. The rest will be up to what gets negotiated.�

This arrangement would then probably be similar to the interconference “challenges� seen in college basketball. To even seem realistic, the SEC would probably need to level with the Big Ten by adding a ninth conference game and the playoff format (more on that below) would probably need to change to be even more favorable to these two conferences.

But would a yearly Big Ten-SEC crossover really be all that beneficial?

There would be some great matchups. Alabama-Michigan is entertaining. Texas-Ohio State is the best-looking nonconference game on the 2025 schedule. Mizzou-Illinois will be fun when it returns in 2026, as could be MU-Nebraska.

Outside of those blueblood battles and one regional rivalry, though, what does the rest of the series look like? Florida vs. UCLA? South Carolina vs. Rutgers? Kentucky vs. Minnesota?

Those three SEC schools have compelling rivalries against ACC foes. The Gators playing against Florida State or Miami, the Gamecocks against Clemson and the Wildcats against Louisville are all more valuable than facing a generic Big Ten team.

If rivalries are sacrificed, a scheduling arrangement just to add a few marquee games that could be scheduled without one becomes a questionable idea.

The inevitable

Feel used to the 12-team College Football Playoff yet? Don’t bother. It won’t be around for long.

With the format able to change in 2026, further expansion to a 16-team model seems almost guaranteed for that season and beyond.

“We’re not committed, at this point, to something,� SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said. But he was talking about committing to a structure for the 16 bids, not whether there’ll be 12 or 14 or 16.

Conferences are divided on the best format. The most familiar has been dubbed the 5 + 11: five automatic bids for the five highest-ranked conference champions, then 11 at-large places allocated by the CFP Selection Committee.

The more controversial option looks like numbers soup. It’s known as the 4+4+2+2 model because it would give the SEC four automatic berths, the Big Ten four, the Big 12 two and the ACC two — plus a few at-large bids awarded by the committee after the automatic ones. This is the format that has prompted visions of “play-in� games within conferences as a precursor to the postseason.

The debate between the models, which is a debate between conferences, is only beginning. But regardless, the state of conversations makes a field of 16 look like a certainty.