Slive outlines proposed new agenda for college football

HOOVER, Ala. -- Mike Slive typically opens the Southeastern Conference's annual Media Days by listing the league's various championships and accomplishments from the previous year.

He used his state of the conference address on Wednesday to do more than brag. The SEC commissioner proposed an ambitious four-plank agenda that could put a sledgehammer to the current infrastructure of college football.

"We don't have the luxury of acting as if it's business as usual. And that's been made clear by the headlines emanating from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Gulf to the Great Lakes," Slive told the gathered media members, referring to the numerous high-profile NCAA rules violation cases that have attracted national attention in the past few months. "As NCAA President Mark Emmert has observed, the events giving rise to these headlines indicate that intercollegiate athletics has lost the benefit of the doubt."

Slive's plan aims to restore some of the sport's moral authority while attempting to keep pace with its rapidly changing and expanding landscape. He described the four segments of his agenda as follows:

n Redefine the benefits available to student-athletes.

n Strengthen academic eligibility requirements for incoming freshmen and two-year transfers.

n Modernize the recruiting rules.

n Continue to support the NCAA's efforts to improve the enforcement process.

Slive said his proposal is "intended to stimulate a national discussion, an agenda for change if you will, with the hope that we will see significant action in the foreseeable future."

Some aspects of the commissioner's plan will undoubtedly generate significant debate, with the portions concerning athlete benefits and academics creating the most controversy.

Continuing a conversation that arose in recent months, Slive stopped short of proposing to pay college athletes. He instead advocated expanding the value of athletic scholarships to include the full cost of college attendance.

That would put an average of about $3,000 into the pocket of each scholarship athlete across the nation, according to some estimates.

Both Slive and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany have publicly supported expanding scholarships to cover the cost of attendance in recent months, although some critics question whether their motivation is to extend their conferences' competitive advantages over smaller leagues whose coffers aren't overflowing with the cash to expand scholarships.

Slive acknowledged that criticism on Wednesday, but said his proposal is also more equitable for scholarship athletes.

"We recognize that this proposal may be a financial hardship on some, yet at the same time, economics cannot always be the reason to avoid doing what is in the best interests of our student-athletes," he said.

Included in a series of academic proposals that would create upheaval within college athletics, Slive supported awarding multi-year athletic scholarships rather than the current one-year, renewable arrangement.

The proposal would help eliminate some of the cutthroat roster-management tactics that became a black eye for many college programs -- several of which reside in the SEC -- but would draw the ire of many coaches who demand accountability from their athletes in order to keep them on the roster.

Take South Carolina's Steve Spurrier, for example.

"That's a terrible idea, commissioner," Spurrier said Wednesday. "Do you sports writers have a two-year contract, three- or four-year? Have you ever had a two-year deal? If you go bad, don't show up to work, your butt will be out in the street.

"Everybody has to earn your way in life," he added. "You earn your way in life, go from there. That's the way I believe. The commissioner and I agree on a lot of things, but not that one there."

Slive wants to increase recruits' minimum high school GPA from 2.0 to 2.5 in 16 required core courses to be eligible for first-year competition in college.

He also suggested a "satisfactory progress rule," where prospects must complete a certain number of core courses in each year of high school

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