Sept. 30, 2011
In the past few years, no topic relating to college athletics has been discussed more frequently than conference realignment and expansion. Just recently, realignment became a reality in the Southeastern Conference with the addition of Texas A&M to the league. The Aggies will begin competing as a full member in the fall of 2012. To gain a Vanderbilt perspective on conference realignment, VUCommodores.com recently sat down with Vice Chancellor David Williams to discuss the topic.
What has led to these recent moves in conference realignment?
Being at 12 teams in the league, you sort of got a comfort level and you knew the other 11 because you’d been working with them for a number of years. You sort of felt 12 was a nice number. The 12 number was a number that got you to the point of having a championship football game. So when the Big 10, which was 11, moved to 12, you thought maybe that was the end of it, and there was a lot of media hype about super conferences. And we all in the SEC all thought that we were the super conference. You don’t need 16 to be a super conference, we are already a super conference.
But I think as things started to unravel and you started to look at the possibility at more teams going to the Pac 12 and the possible breakup of the Big 12 and the fact there was clearly some dissention among some of the universities in the Big 12 basically over revenue sharing, it became clear there was going to be more movement.
What are your thoughts on the SEC expanding?
I think you have to take it into context that there was going to be some movement and where does the SEC play in that. One has to understand that part of looking at this was, how do you protect the SEC brand as the premier athletic conference? One of the things in looking at that was how do you bring in universities that fit our culture and are quality universities? I’m not saying that some universities are not, but one of the things from my vantage point that made Texas A&M attractive is Texas A&M from an academic point of view is an AAU university. There are a set group of universities that are in the AAU of which in the SEC only Vanderbilt and Florida are. So it is good, I think, to bring in another AAU university for the academic profile of the conference. Texas A&M from a sports point of view, finished in the top 10 in the Director’s Cup. You are bringing in a team that has a sports history that is as rich as some of the schools in the SEC.
And then finally from a footprint, it puts us in Texas for recruiting and television sets, and things like that. That helps to expand and protect the brand. For all of those reasons, I think Texas A&M is a very, very good addition to the SEC. You hear people say, ‘we were comfortable with 12.’ It is kind of like I’m fine with my car, but if you tell me I need another car or that I want another car for whatever it is — yeah, I think Texas A&M would be right at the top of that list. So I am happy that Texas A&M is coming in for all of those reasons.
What are some of the challenges Vanderbilt will face with expansion?
There are challenges to scheduling and there are challenges for us having to go out there. People can think football, but when you think about traveling with other teams, there is a cost added to it and that is distance and hopefully not, but maybe missed classes.
With Texas A&M joining the league, there are currently 13 members. Does an odd number present a lot of problems in your eyes?
I think that the one difference between our odd and the Big Ten’s odd is that the Big Ten’s odd kept them from having a championship game. Our odd won’t keep us from having that. With scheduling, we are going to have a meeting to talk about this because they want to fully bring (Texas A&M) into the fold starting next year. I’m not a scheduling guru and for the life of me, I don’t know how you do that, I really don’t, but I’m looking forward to the meeting.
If there is additional expansion, what should the conference look for in a 14th school?
There was a lot of due diligence that went into Texas A&M being the 13th team, and I know there would be as much that would go into a 14th school if that is the direction the conference takes. You don’t want to bring in Texas A&M and that forces you to bring in a 14th team that doesn’t fit our culture that doesn’t add anything that doesn’t enhance our brand. If we wanted to add a 14th team just to add a 14th team, we could do it today. There are enough teams that have made interest that we could go out and pick up one today, but would it be the right team.
What has your role been during expansion talks?
From the conference point of view, it is the presidents that vote. The commissioner has done a very good job of almost twice a week having a phone call with all the (athletic directors). We don’t have the power to vote, but gave sort of a hidden nod about whether we are comfortable with Texas A&M, which all 12 of us were. Chancellor Zeppos and I are in constant conversation about what is happening at his point and what is happening at my point and other things that we need to think about.
As the only private school in the SEC, do you see it being beneficial that if there is a 14th team, that institution is private?
I go back and forth on that sometimes. I think it would be nice to have another private institution in here. Other times, I can see other things that would trump it. For example, I think I would rather see a public university that is an AAU university than a private university that is not a member of the AAU because I think that will help the academic status of the conference. Certainly having another private university of our size would be kind of cool, but I think you have to weigh a lot of things. Take someone like Stanford. That would be cool until it is time to send the tennis team or the track team out there. I don’t think we need to go that far. I’d rather have a public university that is somewhere within our footprint than a private university that takes us outside the footprint.
Was there ever a concern that Vanderbilt would be pushed out of the SEC?
No. There was conversation that none of the 12 schools would ever be at risk of not being in the SEC. Three years ago when this first started, we sat down and said, ‘alright, first rule: these 12 will be here.’ Of course one could jump up and say, we don’t want to be here. But there was never any discussion about replacing a university. The 12 are the 12 members. Ten of those are founding members of the conference. Arkansas and South Carolina have been in for almost 20 years. The first thing was we would do nothing that would cause one of these universities to leave.
Was Vanderbilt ever contacted by another league?
Nobody officially ever contacted us. You get people who pick up the phone and say, ‘I’m really a good friend of Joe who is a good friend of Larry who is a good friend of Carol who had dinner with the commissioner of the so and so and they are really interested in you.’ You get all of that stuff. There was a point in time when the Big Ten expanded, there was a report that came out that the Big Ten was very much interested in going south, and they were. The Big Ten had said their mantra was they wanted all AAU schools, so right off the bat every AAU school in the SEC or ACC was suddenly on their hit list. But did they ever officially contact us? No.
What is your response to people who say we don’t belong in the SEC because of lack of past football success?
I always find that to be a strange thing. If you happen to have four kids, it is like saying the other three don’t matter because it is all about which of those kids can get an A in chemistry. To me, comments like that discredit all of the hard work that all of the other people at a university and all the other student-athletes and coaches do. We are not a one sport endeavor. It would be like saying Ford Motor Company is only as good as one of the cars it makes. They have a lot of cars.
It kind of bothers me because it tends to suggest that the people who are saying that really don’t have an understanding of the relationship and importance of athletics and higher education. It is comments like that that drive the argument that you shouldn’t even have sports in higher education. If it is all about how you do in football, when football may have less than 30 percent of your student-athlete mix, that is ridiculous. I find that you can’t just gauge the success with how we do in football. And then I would add to you that there are a number of other programs that are not always winning in football.
I think you have to take the totality of the program in all of its glory. What does it do in its other sports? What does it do academically? What’s its graduation rate? How many times have they appeared before the NCAA for a major violation. All of those things to me have to be a determination of what the success is of a program. The media many times is going to be what the score of the game is and not what your mission and goal is. If you are an NFL football team, I understand why they judge you purely by the number of games you win. We are an institution of higher education and we are a part of it. In our case, we have 325 student-athletes who are student-athletes. We have a very good graduation rate. We have a good grade points. Our kids go on and do all of these great things. My view of it is that it is nonsense. By the way, Coach Franklin is making us competitive in football and he has only been here nine months. Our goal is to be excellent in all we do and that includes football.
Where do you see college athletics in 10 years?
I’m not in favor of 16-team conferences, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. I think the ACC going to 14 sort of starts the questions of if we go to 14, do we stop? I know if we go to 16, there will be some conferences that don’t survive. I hate to see that because I think that as we whittle them down, you really start to eliminate opportunities. I’m hoping that 14 can be the limit. I think that college athletics needs to return back to some more basic stuff.
Whether or not we have a college playoff and whether or not we have 14 or 16 team conferences is going to be a minor issue if we don’t correct the other stuff. If we don’t correct the academic piece, if we don’t correct the compliance piece, if we don’t correct those things we are going to be in for a bumpy ride. If we do not establish the proper mission and relationship of college athletics in an institution of higher ed, it won’t make any difference because your playoffs and your major conferences really just become a stronger minor leagues for whoever, and that is not what the purpose of college athletics is all about.
I think we’ve got a lot of work to do. I think that President Mark Emmert at the NCAA and his recent presidents retreat get that. They actually put together four working groups, in which I am on one of them, and they are actually looking at that. They are looking at student welfare, academics, the rules and enforcement and the finances. I think that for the first time in along time that there has been an acknowledgment that we have to grab this thing and get it back under control. If that happens, I think the future of college athletics is great. If not, I worry about it.