Former SEC commissioner Slive dies
Tide-Louisville begins ABC prime-time slate
Mike Slive, the former Southeastern Conference commissioner who guided the league to unprecedented success and prosperity, died Wednesday. He was 77.
The Southeastern Conference said Slive died in Birmingham, Ala., where he lived with his wife of 49 years, Liz. The conference didn’t provide the cause of death.
Slive retired in 2015 after 13 years as commissioner. He was battling prostate cancer at the time he stepped down.
Slive replaced Roy Kramer as SEC commissioner in 2002, coming from Conference USA to help clean up an SEC that was beset by NCAA compliance issues. Soon after the SEC became the most powerful conference in college football, winning seven straight national championships and landing television contracts worth billions.
“He was a friend before he was the boss, he was a friend while he was the boss, he was a friend after,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, who replaced Slive, told the SEC Network.
The SEC’s success was not limited to football under Slive. Overall, the conference won 81 national championships in 17 sports during his tenure.
Slive played a pivotal role in the creation of the College Football Playoff. He first proposed the idea of a fourteam playoff for college football in 2008, but it was shot down by most of the other conference commissioners. Finally, after two SEC teams, LSU and Alabama, played in the BCS national championship game after the 2011 season, the rest of college football’s power brokers came around and constructed the current postseason system.
The SEC expanded from 12 to 14 schools with the additions of Missouri and Texas A&M in 2012 under Slive and he was the driving force behind the launch of the SEC Network in 2014. He also played a major part in ushering in a new governance model for the NCAA in which the SEC and the other four most powerful and wealthy conferences were given autonomy to create and pass legislation. FOOTBALL SCHEDULING: The Camping World Kickoff game featuring Alabama and Louisville in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday, Sept. 1, will kick off ABC’s first Saturday Night Football schedule and air at 6 p.m. Florida State and Ole Miss previously faced off in this series to open the 2016 campaign.
Boise State and Florida State will open the 2019 season against each other in Jacksonville, Fla. The announcement was made on Wednesday by the Jacksonville Sports Council, which also runs the annual Gator Bowl game, and Florida State. The game will take place on Labor Day weekend (Aug. 31-Sept. 2) at the NFL Jaguars’ stadium.
Texas and Alabama, which last met in 2010 Rose Bowl, will play each other in 2022 and 2023. Alabama will travel to Texas in 2022 and the teams meet in Tuscaloosa the following year. The Longhorns will push a home-andhome series with Ohio State from those years back to 2025-2026. Texas also announced it had canceled a 2023 home game with Central Florida.
TRANSFERRING: Clemson is losing one of its highly regarded defensive line prospects in freshman tackle Josh Belk, who is transferring after just four months.