According to an NCAA document obtained by The Chronicle of Higher Education, four SEC schools opposed the new policy allowing major college programs to award athletes with multiyear scholarships.

Those four schools were Alabama, LSU, Tennessee and Texas A&M.

In the past, scholarships were renewable on a year-to-year basis, and Tennessee coach Derek Dooley was among a handful of SEC coaches who felt strongly that scholarships should continue to be awarded on a year-to-year basis.

"We forget this is a contract, a two-way street," Dooley said right after national signing day. "I think it's humorous that the academic institution can give an academic scholarship and take it away when a student doesn't perform at a certain GPA-level, but it's absolutely the worst thing you can do as a coach. It's so wrong what you do to these young people ... when he doesn't do what he's supposed to do.

"I'm still trying to figure out what I'm missing."

SEC commissioner Mike Slive has been a proponent of multiyear scholarships. In fact, it's one of the things he proposed last year at the SEC media days when outlining his agenda for change in college athletics.