The SEC has descended upon Destin, Fla., for its annual spring meetings, and day one of the beach-side festivities have centered primarily around one topic: satellite camps.
The practice of holding a camp outside one’s campus has been around for a few years now, but the debate has metastasized this spring, thanks in large part to new Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. The Big Ten, Pac-12 and Big 12 are for them, while the ACC and SEC ban the practice within their conferences. Naturally, they’d like other conferences to do the same... even though the other three have no practical reason to do so.
Well, here’s a reason. As incoming SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said Tuesday evening: if the satellite camp rule isn’t banned, the SEC will be forced to jump in.On satellite camps, Greg Sankey says SEC will propose national rule outlawing them. If it doesn’t pass, SEC likely to relax its own rule.
— Seth Emerson (@SethEmersonAJC) May 26, 2015
The reason the SEC enacted a ban in the first place, of course, is to protect its coaching staffs from themselves. Otherwise LSU, for example, would hold camps in Tuscaloosa, Oxford, College Station, etc. Depending on how the legislation Mike Slive promised Tuesday to present turns out, the SEC may now be forced to jump in.
Elsewhere in league governance, the SEC will require its members to have a conference-supplied independent medical observer at all games on its campuses this fall.
SEC passed a regulation today requiring an independent medical observer on the field for all SEC and non-conference games.
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) May 26, 2015
One step backward, one step forward.