ShareThisA man stood before an audience of college football fans this week, and told them how it's going to be.
Conference expansion, he said, won't ruin college football. It will only change it.
The Alabama-Tennessee game won't go away, no matter how many teams the SEC adds.
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS), reviled by many, has succeeded wildly at its proposed goals. And where it might have failed, so what? It's not life or death.
The BBVA Compass Bowl and the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl enhance someone's experience. So stop with the whining and the jokes.
When the man has Roy Kramer's credentials, what he has to say should not be taken lightly.
This isn't one of ESPN's afternoon screamers or some guy with a blog. This is the man who put expansion on the frontburner 21 years ago and later godfathered the BCS.
Kramer is nearly 10 years into retirement now, back home in Blount County, Tenn. But his passion for college football is undiminished.
A former head coach (Central Michigan), athletic director (Vanderbilt) and commissioner (SEC), he sounds like a man still standing guard, and not just over the league he once ran. Buddy, you're not going to mess with Akron's right to play in the Little Caesars Bowl without hearing about it from Kramer.
The BCS is perpetually a hot-button issue, and now expansion has achieved equal status.
Kramer had just assumed leadership of the SEC when it added Arkansas and South Carolina for the 1991-92 school year. Neither was chosen, he pointed out, for the sake of TV markets.
Two decades later, Texas A&M has signed up and the league is deliberating a 14th member. Meanwhile, virtually every other conference in America is in flux.
The straw stirring the expansion pot is Texas and its Longhorn Network. Kramer isn't a fan, never was.
"You've got to have equal distribution of money," Kramer said. "There's no other way to run the railroad."
Without mentioning names (or giving a hook 'em sign), Kramer said several heavyweight candidates were in the mix when the SEC considered expansion in 1990. The SEC presidents weren't interested in cutting any deals.
"They told me the first thing I was to tell everybody: If you're coming to the Southeastern Conference, you're going to be one of 12, not one plus 11."
Kramer wouldn't speculate on who will be No. 14, only that it's inevitable and the sooner the better.
I offered that if it's not Missouri, then who?
"Logically," he said, "it would make sense to look at a team on the east side, if you could. But you can make it work several ways."
And, he sort of guaranteed, make it work without sacrificing the marquee rivalries like Auburn-Georgia, Auburn-Alabama or Tennessee-Alabama.
That however, remains to be seen. Tennessee-Auburn was a marquee rivalry before expansion. Tennessee-Florida has more than filled the void.
And let's not forget that Tennessee-Georgia wasn't a real rivalry before expansion.
Like Kramer said, expansion won't ruin college football, only change it.
(Contact Mike Strange at strangem(at)knoxnews.com.)
