SEC and Big Ten Form Advisory Group to Address "Significant Challenges" Facing College Athletics

The SEC shook the college football world to its foundations back in 2021 when they announced they had extended invitations to the Universities of Texas and Oklahoma. Since then, each conference has been in a dead sprint to accumulate as much power and prowess as possible. If you don't keep up, you cease to exist.

No two conferences have added more than the Big Ten and the SEC. Following the SEC's move to acquire Texas and Oklahoma, the Big Ten went out and snagged UCLA, USC, Washington, and Oregon, effectively eliminating the Pac-12 from existence. Now the two power brokers of the sport are teaming up to "address the significant challenges facing college athletics and the opportunities for betterment of the student-athlete experience."

The two conferences announced the formation of an advisory group of university presidents, chancellors, and athletics directors to try and find some solutions to the plethora of issues that have sprung up around college athletics over the past few years.

"These challenges, including but not limited to recent court decisions, pending litigation, a patchwork of state laws, and complex governance proposals, compel the two conferences to take a leadership role in developing solutions for a sustainable future of college sports." - SEC Release 

"There are similar cultural and social impacts on our student-athletes, our institutions, and our communities because of the new collegiate athletics environment," said SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey. "We do not have predetermined answers to the myriad questions facing us. We do not expect to agree on everything but enhancing interaction between our conferences will help to focus efforts on common sense solutions."

The move comes days after the NCAA announced a formal investigation into the University of Tennessee and its use of NIL compensation as a recruiting incentive. 

This is purely speculation at this point, but it does appear that the NCAA's investigation, and the State of Tennessee's subsequent lawsuit, could've been the straw that broke the camel's back in the SEC and Big Ten's contention with the NCAA. With the formation of a joint committee, a split away from the NCAA for the two conferences doesn't seem like a far-off thought.

Why continue to operate in a system that you continuously show your disapproval of? Could we be seeing the groundwork laid for a "super league" that consists of just the top 40 or so schools in college athletics? Or, are we just seeing a group that is tired of the NCAA's ineptitude and lack of consistency and have decided to take matters into its own hands? Either way, the formation of this advisory group could change college sports as we know them.