Urban Meyer on SEC, Big Ten discussions: ‘Why in the world would you share the wealth?’

Having coached and won national championships in both leagues, Urban Meyer doesn’t see a world in which the Big Ten or SEC willfully agree to surrender any of the indomitable power they currently hold over the sport of college football.

“The SEC and the Big Ten commissioners met in the Fall. Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti, the two most powerful men in college football – or two of them – met, and I don’t know this because I haven’t talked to them, but I can see (them thinking) why in the world would you share the wealth?” Meyer said on Wednesday’s episode of The Triple Option podcast with Rob Stone and Mark Ingram.

In fact, the former Florida and Ohio State head coach wouldn’t be surprised if the Big Ten and SEC ultimately refuse to collaborate and instead use their combined financial clout to force the other FBS conferences as well as Notre Dame to ultimately agree to a new College Football Playoff structure that mostly benefits the Big Ten and SEC.

When the College Football Playoff’s board of managers next meet to discuss the its future, On3’s Pete Nakos expects the Big Ten and SEC to introduce discussion about seeding the bracket on rankings and eliminating the conference champion bye rule.

In October, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti led a roughly seven-hour meeting in Nashville with their 34 combined athletic directors to discuss the current and future state of college sports, per Nakos.

That particular meeting even prompted Meyer to suggest the Big Ten and SEC could be contemplating splitting off from the NCAA at large and form their own superleague.

Report: Power conferences take steps to create governing body to police athlete compensation

During Wednesday’s podcast, Meyer and his fellow Triple Option hosts discussed the recent Yahoo! Sports report revealing a committee of power conference administrators met last week to discuss the potential creation of a new enforcement entity that will govern college sports’ revenue-sharing system.

The new entity would “oversee, manage and enforce the settlement-related athlete compensation system for all of NCAA Division I.”

Yahoo! Sports outlines the new move as follows:

This new, nameless entity — running adjacent and intertwined with the NCAA — serves as a sea change in how college athletics is policed, replacing a much-maligned NCAA-controlled process of lengthy investigations, controversial enforcement decisions and, what some believe to be, unnecessary committee hearings. The NCAA’s enforcement unit, for now, will continue to police matters around eligibility and academics.

Builders of the new framework, the transition team is made up of two athletic directors from each the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12. The four power leagues, named defendants in the settlement, are leading the implementation of the agreement’s most significant piece: that schools are permitted annually to share millions in revenue with athletes under a capped system scheduled to begin July 1.

Meyer compared the haves and have-nots in college football to the disproportional financial hierarchy in Major League Baseball, where the New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees boast payrolls ranging from $321 million to $275 million on the high end of the spectrum, while there are eight MLB teams with sub-$100 million payrolls. That’s in comparison to the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement format that is meant to level the financial playing field.

“You think if you go to the Mets, the Dodgers and the Yankees, and say, ‘Hey, we’d like to make this equal. We want the Florida Marlins, the (Tampa Bay) Rays or some of these other small markets, the Pirates, (so) you guys cut back and we’ll make it all equal.’ What’ s the difference between that and Alabama and Ohio State or the (Michigan) Wolverines? I can tell you from those meetings, there’s no difference,” Meyer continued. “And they say, get Congress involved. I’m sure you’ve watched the news, and Congress has some other issues, and they’re not the most fiscally responsible people as we’re all seeing. Congress? Come on. I don’t see it happening. … Go balance your own budget.”

Urban Meyer: ‘The NCAA is toothless, there are no rules’

Political jokes aside, Meyer believes the NCAA’s authority is “toothless” and the Big Ten and SEC would be wise to consolidate their own power rather than establish any sort of collaborative effort with conferences and leagues that don’t share their unique interests.

“The NCAA is toothless, there are no rules. There was a tampering situation, I believe at Tennessee or something, in the Fall, and they sent out a memo – someone read me the memo – basically saying ‘you’re on your own.’ Because every time (the NCAA) tries to set a rule or enforce a rule, we get litigated and we lose, and we lose millions of dollars on attorney fees and all that,” Meyer added. “So, there’s two teams (of thought), one is the powerful, why would they ever give up power, and then the other team always lives their life in the gray area, as far as following the rules. Why would you ever want to change? Right now there’s no rules. So those are the two constituents in this college football world, and they’re not going to cooperate.”

Ingram: “Cooperation.”

“Zero,” Meyer responded. “Not happening, Mark.”

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