Paul Finebaum's best moves to level the playing field after SEC expansion

Last week, reports surfaced of a potential alignment between the ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-12. The three conferences had previously been rumored to be discussing a scheduling alliance in response to Texas and Oklahoma leaving the Big 12 for the SEC. An announcement regarding the alignment is expected to come in the coming days, although there are still a lot of details to sort through. If ESPN’s Paul Finebaum was in the position to make decisions for the ACC, Big Ten, or Pac-12, he would have done things differently.

Finebaum: Everything is about leverage and power for the ACC, Big Ten

With Texas and Oklahoma heading to the SEC, there aren’t really that many major cards left on the table, at least not to Finebaum. If he had a seat at the table, he would have done things a different way than the conferences have.

“Well, I don’t have a problem with them trying to coalesce and figure out a path,” Finebaum said on Monday. “The problem is there really isn’t a good path. This is really about power and leverage and television. There’s only one big card out there that I think could move the needle and that’s Notre Dame. If Notre Dame suddenly decided to join the ACC, then they have satisfied and checked the SEC.

“The only other solution would be for the Big Ten to say, ‘You know what, we’re going to do the same thing that you’re accusing the SEC of doing. We’re going west and we’ve got our eyes on two schools out there.’ Oregon, very attractive national brand, and then one of the biggest brands of all time in college football, USC. That would make the Big Ten as powerful as the SEC or the ACC with Notre Dame. But other than that, there really aren’t many cards.”

Texas and Oklahoma chose to join the SEC, not the other way around

While many people are unhappy with the SEC for making itself too powerful, Finebaum said that it was Texas and Oklahoma that initiated conversations to join the conference. If the SEC said no, Finebaum thinks that college football would be having the same conversation, just about a different conference.

“They (Texas and Oklahoma) decided that they wanted to go elsewhere,” Finebaum said. “Every time I say this people react negatively, but the SEC did not go courting them. They called the SEC. The SEC took them. If the SEC had said, ‘No, we don’t want to take you guys, it’s really not fair to college football,’ do you know what the next call would have been? It would have been to Chicago to the Big Ten and the Big Ten would have taken them.

“I think it’s just disingenuous for a lot of people out there to make the SEC out to be like a wall street or like a tycoon in the late 80s or 90s going around and gobbling up companies, breaking them up, selling them, and putting everybody out of work for a profit. That’s not exactly what this is about.”