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Iowa State AD sends chilling message: Top SEC and Big Ten powers will want to trim the fat from their conference

By Andrew Hughes

Iowa State University athletic director Jamie Pollard speaks at a news conference on Sept. 24, 2019
Iowa State University athletic director Jamie Pollard speaks at a news conference on Sept. 24, 2019 / Olivia Sun, Des Moines Register via
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Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard sent a chilling message to teams in the bottom tier of the SEC and Big Ten: the top programs in the conference will eventually want you out of the picture to increase revenue and field a more competitive schedule.

"You just have to look at the evolution," Pollard prefaced before saying, "It isn't the SEC and Big Ten. It's those that have all the gold make all the rules. Right? So if I was a member of the Big Ten or the SEC, I’d start looking over my shoulder and wondering if, when is the day going to come when the top of the SEC is not going to want the bottom of the SEC.

"Go back and look at times when the AFL and the NFL merged, they only needed one commissioner. And when the ABA and NBA merged, they only needed one commissioner. There's going to come a day they don't need two $6 million a year commissioners. And they're going to eat their own. And if we think that's not going to happen, you're a fool because we didn't think the Pac-12 would get eaten and it did. And the CFP is just another example of our industry running amuk. And they're trying to swallow the ACC and the Big 12. And I wish them all the best, because they're going to eat their own."

Will SEC and Big Ten actually cut bottom tier teams from their conference?

Would the SEC cut a Vanderbilt? Conversely, would the Big Ten do away with a Northwestern? It feels more likely that the B1G would cut an NU than the "It Just Means More" conference doing away with tradition, but you can't count on anything being guaranteed in this era of college football.

If the proposed 80-team super league is imminent, there will be more than just trimming the fat from the top of these conferences. There will be more than realignment too.

There will be a total reimagining of the sport that'll resemble two NFLs stacked on top of each other. And at that point? You may see the less successful programs eventually relegated indefinitely.

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