Satellite camps, cost of attendance among topics for SEC Spring Meetings

DESTIN, Fla. – With the Power Five conferences now possessing the autonomy they desired for so long, the issues facing the SEC at its annual Spring Meetings this week will revolve around rules the conference wishes to see enacted through that structure.

Cost of attendance was the first piece of legislation passed by the Power 5 back in January but coaches are only first coming to grips with the implications of the new benefits to their current players and how it'll impact recruiting.

While Auburn has the second-highest cost of attendance figure in the SEC at $5,586 per nine-months, schools with lower figures are understandably concerned.

Georgia coach Mark Richt appears to be fighting a losing battle to get COA equal and capped, which the decision in the Ed O'Bannon lawsuit explicitly forbids, so there is a clear disconnect between the NCAA, conference commissioners, athletic directors and coaches.

"We're in an evolutionary period and the end result is that everything isn't necessarily going to be the same for everybody," outgoing SEC commissioner Mike Slive told the Associated Press last week. "That's a difficult concept for them and it flies in the face of the experience of our coaches and our institutions for decades.

"The days of everything and every rule being grounded in a level playing field are gone."

COA will garner a lot of attention, but the SEC's stance against satellite camps, a potential forthcoming rule governing graduate transfers, how best to legislate athlete conduct and of course, money, as the SEC Network's revenue is expected to hit the books, will also be discussed at the Sandestin Hilton hotel this week.

1) With athletes set to receive cost of attendance, how are coaches handling the differences from their school to their competitors?

Alabama coach Nick Saban has said the method of calculating cost of attendance could be "a nightmare" as schools will undoubtedly feel pressure to inflate their numbers in the future.

Georgia's $3,221 is lower than some of its SEC brethren and Richt is waging what appears to be a losing fight from years past to make COA payments equal across the country, which would violate current legal decisions.

"No one wants it to be the deciding factor between a guy going to your school or not, especially if you're on the lower end of it," Richt said earlier this month. "Obviously there are some schools who would probably be like, 'Hey, we like it because we're giving more than other people.'

"There's time between now and August 1 to see if this thing could become more equitable. And I think that's what most people are shooting for."

2) Will the SEC maintain its hard line against satellite camps?

It's the geographic battleground issue that keeps on giving. The Big Ten, led by Penn State, Michigan, Nebraska and Ohio State, the Pac-12, Notre Dame and others love to exploit the loophole in the rule governing camps and have tours planned in the South and outside the 50-mile radius of their campuses.

The SEC, for obvious reasons, doesn't like the idea of northerners invading its fertile grounds, though the prevailing thought is the conference is more concerned with battling local rivals than it is those from outside the region.

Notre Dame's athletic director has raised a critical point of potential antitrust litigation if the practice were banned entirely, as the SEC hopes.

Outnumbered on the issue, the SEC and ACC have been steadfast against satellite camps but eventually they either have to get a new rule approved or get in line with the rest of the country, open the floods gates and risk appearing hypocritical if eventually permitted to barnstorm the Midwest just as the Big Ten is the South.

3) Will a proposal come forth regarding graduate transfers?

The rhetoric regarding the supposed concern of graduate transfer numbers has been labeled misguided and disingenuous.

Incoming SEC commissioner Greg Sankey discussed how the number of graduate degrees attained isn't aligning to the number of transfers, though that's not a problem anyone's ever cited when an athlete wishes to finish their playing career at their original institution after graduating with a bachelor's degree.

Only when the athletes, who are in good standing and having graduated, are offered by coaches far and wide and choose to go elsewhere for a year do the masses find an issue.

There is clearly motivation for change, but what it will be is very much up for debate.

4) Is enforcement of athlete conduct going to be handled by the conference?

Slive said there would be "some significant conversations" on the issue of athlete conduct this week.

After years of prominent crime-related issues such as domestic violence and sexual assault, which the NCAA felt necessary to addressed via a PSA featuring current athletes, it may no longer be up to schools, and coaches, to act as judge and jury on conduct.

The days of schools providing a shield of plausible deniability for their conference offices are over. With the Power 5 conference each launching their own lucrative television networks, and revenue always expected to go up, no league can risk blowback on issues that could upset advertisers.

5) With SEC Network revenue expected to hit the books, just how much is it?

Last year there was unneeded worry about whether the SEC Network would get all the necessary telecoms on board by its launch, which was not an issue at all.

Now we'll all better see exactly how much the SEC is getting from its 20-year deal with ESPN. Based on reported distribution fees and the number of households inside the SEC footprint, estimates are for the league's revenue split to each school to as much as double in the very near future.