COLUMBIA, Mo. — Much to the disappointment of Paul Finebaum's ratings, there were no public fireworks set ablaze when all 14 Southeastern Conference football coaches gathered this week in Destin, Florida, at the league’s spring meetings. That doesn’t mean they agreed on everything or came home without concerns about the league’s future — and the sport at large.
Two weeks ago, Alabama’s Nick Saban and Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher engaged in an unusually bombastic war of words that started with Saban’s allegations that A&M paid for its top-ranked recruiting class under the guise of name, image and likeness endorsement deals.