The Southeastern Conference is leading the charge to make a change to college football overtime rules, according to University of South Carolina president Harris Pastides. And changing the format for cross-divisional opponents in football is back on the table for conversation.

The presidents of all 14-member SEC schools met on Thursday in Nashville, Tenn. at the SEC basketball tournament and discussed a variety of topics that will be brought up at length at the SEC Meetings in Destin, Fla. in May.

The presidents, according to Pastides in his Southeastern Conference Update to the school’s Board of Trustees on Friday morning, voted to recommend to the NCAA changes to the overtime rules in college football.

The change was spurred by one game.

“You know this year, we had a game in the conference between LSU and Texas A&M that had seven overtimes,” Pastides said in the meeting to the Board. “Can you imagine if that game had been in September, a 1 o’clock or 4 o’clock game in September? Those student-athletes wound up playing three halves, if you will. I know that’s a non-sequitur, but they played the equivalent of an extra half of football. Players were being infused to be able to keep hydrated long enough to play.

“So the recommendation that came first out of LSU and then A&M, and we support it, is that there would be no more than four overtimes. Then, after that, there would be only a two-point conversion. It would be four overtimes, that would be the maximum, then you go just to two-point conversions. We estimate that fewer than 100th of 1 percent of all games would result in a tie after that moment in time. I think that’s the right way to do it. That requires one more NCAA vote to be adopted nationally, so we’re comfortable with that.”

Pastides later clarified that the first four overtimes would be played in the traditional format and following the fourth overtime, the teams would then play just two-point conversions until there is a winner. Games would not end in ties. His "fewer than 100th of 1 percent" statistic related to the amount of games that would advance all of the way to the two-point conversion format to decide the winner.

LSU and Texas A&M met at Kyle Field on November 24, 2018 and the 74-72 final featured the most overtimes in college football history. The game, which kicked off at 6:39 p.m. local time, was played at 65 degree temperature at kickoff and lasted 4 hours, 53 minutes.

There were 197 total plays in the game with LSU running 90 offensively and Texas A&M having 107.

Also back on the table for discussion is changing the scheduling format as it relates to cross-divisional opponents. Currently, each SEC team plays the six others in their division, and there’s one rotating opponent and another permanent opponent from the opposite division.

Some schools want to go to change to a format that calls for two rotating opponents from the opposite division, eliminating the permanent opponent. Others have traditional rivals across the division that they want to continue to schedule. It’s a discussion that’s been had many times.

“We voted to continue to study football scheduling,” Pastides said. “It’s a potentially very divisive issue - we’re talking about the inter-divisional competition that has Texas A&M be our so-called permanent Western rival. Several of us, we’d rather see more rotation, and really that’s for student-athlete well-being.

“We all loved going to Ole Miss last year and seeing that great university and watching our students have an opportunity in their four years at the university to see more of the SEC peers. There, of course, are other SEC programs that have an intra-divisional rival - Georgia and Auburn, for example - and they don’t really want to give that particular one up. Tennessee and Alabama goes back deep in history and so that will be a continued item for negotiation. I don’t know where it will end up, but we’re studying it yet again.”

Unsurprisingly, the SEC presidents voted to keep the College Football Playoff as is.

“We voted yesterday to support the four-team football playoff,” Pastides said. “We think it’s working fairly well. Some fans, of course, want eight, others want 16. If you go to 16, people want 32. Mainly this is based on player welfare. At that time of the year after playing a rugged season, the last thing these great student-athletes need is to play yet another football game. That is something that I’m confident all five power conferences will be supportive of.”

Pastides pointed out that there was discussion about television being a significant part of revenue distribution within the league and with traditional cable and satellite companies struggling, there’s been some worry about how that would affect the bottom line.

Pastides pointed out that live TV viewership is down 8 percent over the last five years, but that number is not as significant for sporting events.

Not only does the league not expect television revenue to drop, the feeling is that dollars will continue to increase.

“Let me be clear that the athletic viewership is not dying, people are just shifting to digital providers, as you well know, like HULU and many others. In turn, HULU is buying our programming, so they’re subcontracting to ESPN and CBS, both of whom own our programming,” Pastides said. “We’re getting the same amount of money. In fact, were anticipating increases to our revenue coming from television, but it’s just not coming from traditional outlets anymore. It’s growing on the digital platform.”

Pastides, who is set to retire as South Carolina’s president in July, is the longest-serving president in the Southeastern Conference. He is currently serving as the SEC presidents board chair and the league’s board chair of the NCAA.