{"id":902494,"date":"2026-05-27T09:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/902494\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T09:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:36:19","slug":"georgias-kirby-smart-on-future-of-college-football-sec-im-not-afraid-to-break-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/902494\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia’s Kirby Smart on future of college football, SEC: ‘I’m not afraid to break away’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Destin, Fla. \u2014 Georgia<\/a> head coach Kirby Smart<\/a> is not running away from saying the quiet part out loud. Entering SEC meetings this week, discussions about the possibility of self-governance were expected.<\/p>\n

That option is becoming a popular topic with the lack of success in Washington, D.C. Similar conversations were held last week among Big Ten leaders. Smart has become a leading voice among SEC coaches and addressed the possibility of self-governance head-on on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said this for a long time to our president, I\u2019ve been a huge advocate that if we can\u2019t find rules that everybody plays by, then we should play on our own,\u201d Smart told<\/a> reporters. \u201cI\u2019m not afraid of that. I\u2019m not afraid to break away and say that our conference is strong enough to go out and play.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could actually function financially, it would make our programs more stable. We could support things financially. I\u2019m talking about all the sports and do our own rules \u2013 I\u2019d be all for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The frustration around roster spending, lack of oversight and self-governance has created a climate of change at SEC meetings. Last week, the SCORE Act died. The NCAA-backed bill would have granted conferences legal protection to enforce transfer movement and cap compensation. But the bill was pulled from markup due to opposition from the Congressional Black Caucus.<\/p>\n

The lone hope for Congressional legislation now sits in the Senate. Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell have been negotiating the final stages of bipartisan legislation for more than a week. And while it is the best chance for the NCAA and power conferences, the Senate is working on a deadline. The odds of any legislation moving forward after the summer recess in August are slim with midterms around the corner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that we\u2019re talking about our own rules isn\u2019t anything new,\u201d SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said on Monday night. \u201cWhat you\u2019re hearing is the expression of frustration about the lack of progress, and I\u2019ll go back to March 6. I was in the White House, and I spoke about the need for national standards. We still believe we need national standards. If those can\u2019t be achieved, then we\u2019ll have to look at more conference-led regulation, but that\u2019s the reality we\u2019re facing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Destin, Fla. \u2014 Georgia head coach Kirby Smart is not running away from saying the quiet part out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":902495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,11741],"class_list":["post-902494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-kirby-smart-95-bainbridge"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116645867325200095","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}