Florida Gators

DESTIN, Fla. -- South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier has a new plan for paying college athletes.

During last year's SEC spring meetings, Spurrier floated a proposal to pay players $300 a game for expenses. Now, he's taking it a couple thousand steps further and wants to pay players approximately $3,500 to $4,000 a year for "living expenses, academic expenses and game-related expenses."

Sure, the NCAA is mulling over the idea of paying college athletes a $2,000 stipend, but Spurrier's idea goes well beyond that -- and a little off the deep end. His plan is to pay athletes in revenue-producing sports. That means football and some men's basketball.

LSU coach Les Miles said one reason Spurrier brought up the proposal was because he didn't think the NCAA would pass the $2,000 stipend proposal, so this is a way for revenue-producing sports to share some of the wealth with its athletes. The "billions," as Spurrier puts it.

The problem is that if schools are going to pay the starting quarterback, they have to pay the men's and women's swimmers, too. Paying athletes this kind of stipend has to be on a national level and it has to be every scholarship athlete.

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DESTIN, Fla. -- My how quickly things can change when you get a lot of people with different ideas together in one room.

Hours after the consensus was that the SEC was set on moving to a 6-1-1 scheduling model beyond the 2012 season, some SEC coaches stepped in and gave their thoughts.

Now, it appears as though the model that SEC commissioner Mike Slive described as the "frontrunner" before the 2012 SEC spring meetings now has come competition.

A 6-2 model, which has two rotating cross-division opponents, was brought up and so was the idea of having some schools rotate crossovers, while others could preserve their permanent crossover rivalry. Even a nine-game conference schedule was discussed, though the current feeling is that it has little traction.

"We had a vigorous discussion," Slive said Wednesday. "It was good. Coaches, I thought were really impressive. They came in and they were very thoughtful. It was a sharing session with our athletic directors and looking, thinking about the various different formats and the pros and cons."

There are people on both sides, but the feeling coming out of meetings in Phoenix was that the preference was to go with a 6-1-1, Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork said. That gave teams six divisional opponents, a permanent crossover and a rotating crossover, which would change each year.

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If the 2012 Rimington Trophy watch list is any indication, it should be a banner year for centers in the SEC.

Nine SEC players were named on the list of 50. The Rimington Trophy is awarded annually to the top center in college football.

The last SEC player to win the Rimington Trophy was Florida's Maurkice Pouncey in 2009.

The nine SEC players making the watch list this year were:

• Reese Dismukes, Auburn
• Jonotthan Harrison, Florida
• T.J. Johnson, South Carolina
• Barrett Jones, Alabama
• Patrick Lewis, Texas A&M
• P.J. Lonergan, LSU
• Matt Smith, Kentucky
• Travis Swanson, Arkansas
• Evan Swindall, Ole Miss

DESTIN, Fla. -- Dan Mullen doesn't know how much his thoughts on this whole playoff thing will impact any decisions, but he has his own interesting idea on what a four-team playoff should look like.

Mississippi State's coach would like to see the semifinal for the playoff played on the Saturday before Christmas, which Mullen referred to as the "dead weekend," and have the national championship game played after New Year's Day. Teams still could play the other bowls between the semifinal and the final, Mullen said.

"I'd be a fan of that," Mullen said Tuesday at the SEC spring meetings.

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ESPN analyst Doug Gottlieb provides his take on the top 30 prospects in this year's NBA draft, including Florida's Bradley Beal at No. 2.

DESTIN, Fla. – Alabama coach Nick Saban hasn’t held back from talking about his disdain for placing only conference champions in a four-team playoff. He’s very much for a four-team playoff, but he won’t go for one that alienates teams by only picking the top four conference champions.

The whole reason any of this playoff talk even started is because people outside of the game are passionate about seeing one in college football. To take away the chance for the four BEST teams to play makes no sense to Saban.

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DESTIN, Fla. -- The idea of having a four-team playoff drifted into the 2012 SEC spring meetings and was met with a resounding "yes."

You would have been hard-pressed to find anyone toting an ounce of SEC pride who didn't like the idea of having the four best teams in the country playing for a chance to go to the national championship at season's end.

“I think the event is spectacular," LSU coach Les Miles said of a Final Four-like ending to the college football season. "Any play that is tournament-style and ends with a championship is preferred."

And one reason it's really preferred around these parts is that it'll give the SEC an even better shot at competing -- and winning -- more national championships. The conference dripping with power, confidence and championships stacked on championships wants more of those three things and believes it'll get them with this playoff model.

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DESTIN, Fla. -- When SEC commissioner Mike Slive and the rest of the SEC elites leave the 2012 SEC spring meetings later this week, the hope is that there will be a concrete scheduling format for the 2013 football season and possibly beyond.

The addition of Missouri and Texas A&M means teams will have to play six divisional games instead of five, making things a little complicated.

Right now, it looks as though the most likely format, which could be set as early as Friday, will be a 6-1-1 model. That gives teams six divisional games, one permanent crossover game and rotating crossover. The rotating crossover no longer would be a traditional two-year home-and-home series. It simply would be a one-year rotation. It’s the same model that will be used for the 2012 season.

LSU coach Les Miles said he’d like the structure of future SEC schedules to be “definable,” and wouldn’t mind if the league re-examined how it chose permanent crossovers.

"Legitimately tell me about how you're picking crossover games,” Miles said at the spring meetings Tuesday. “Is it the best team in the East, the best team in the West, top three and top three? OK, if you guys want to do that, let's do that. It might change the matches, but if you want to say, 'Well, we really are going to seed the best teams versus the lesser teams,' well, OK, let's do that, but define the structure and let's stay with it.

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2013 defensive end Jordan Sherit (Tampa, Fla./Hillsborough) talks with Derek Tyson from GatorNation. The 16th overall defensive end in the 2013 class gives an update on his recruitment.

DESTIN, Fla. -- Florida coach Will Muschamp isn't going to bet against Ronald Powell coming back this fall.

Despite the rising junior defensive end/linebacker undergoing ACL surgery on April 23, Muschamp said he's still holding out hope that Powell will return at some point during the fall.

“I think so. I really do," Muschamp said during the 2012 SEC spring meetings Tuesday. "I’m not going to bet against him. He’s working extremely hard. His range of motion is way ahead of where it should be at this time. His strength levels are good. Everything points really good."

By all accounts, Powell, who led the Gators with six sacks and recorded nine tackles for loss in 2011, had a tremendous spring and showed a lot of improvement in the maturity department before his injury during Florida's spring game.

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DESTIN, Fla. -- The 2012 SEC spring meetings get under way on Tuesday at the Sandestin Hilton.

The SEC football coaches, men’s and women’s basketball coaches and athletic directors will meet over the next two days, while the presidents and chancellors arrive later in the week.

But there's more to this week in the Sunshine State than just checking out that white sand and the blue ocean. There's a little business that needs to be discussed.

For one, the league is welcoming in two new schools in Missouri and Texas A&M. It's time for everyone to get nice and acquainted with one another. I can't think of a better location to do that at this time of year.

For the football side of the conference, one of the hot topics will be about future scheduling for the regular season. With two new teams, there are a lot of questions about how the league will schedule in the future. Remember, 2012's football schedule is a test run, so future schedules might not look like it.

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Five Florida baseball players were named to the All-Southeastern Conference teams released Tuesday, including four who were named to the first team.

Outfielder Preston Tucker, catcher Mike Zunino, pitcher/DH Brian Johnson and reliever Steven Rodriguez made the first team in a vote by the league's 12 coaches. Shortstop Nolan Fontana was a second-team selection. It is the third time Tucker and Fontana have earned All-SEC honors. Only four others players in school history -- Josh Adams, Mike Stanley, Brad Wilkerson and Marc Valdes -- have accomplished that feat.

Zunino leads the Gators (42-18) with a .323 average, 27 doubles, 16 home runs, and 55 RBIs. Tucker (.312) is second with 14 home runs and 44 RBIs. Johnson has started a team-high 15 games as a left-handed pitcher and is 7-4 with a 3.67 ERA. He's hitting .318 with five home runs and 39 RBI. Rodriguez is 3-2 with a 2.04 ERA and three saves.

Fontana is hitting .290 with nine home runs and 28 RBI. He and Zunino also were named to the SEC's All-Defensive team.

In addition, third baseman Josh Tobias (.245, 7 RBI) was named to the All-Freshman team.

After being released from his commitment to Virginia Tech, ESPN 100 power forward Montrezl Harrell is starting the recruiting process from square one. Now Alabama, Florida, Kentucky and Louisville and more are calling.