Ex-SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, whose vision paved the way for college football playoffs, dies at 96

Pretty much every debate over who should play for the national title, every argument about the staggering amounts of money, every angry tirade about how college football is nothing like what it used to be, traces back to a man who saw a lot of this coming, then made it happen — Roy Kramer.

Kramer, the one-time head coach who became an athletic director at Vanderbilt, then, eventually, commissioner of the Southeastern Conference where he reshaped an industry to reflect the billion-dollar business it would become, died Thursday. He was 96.

The SEC said he died in Vonore, Tennessee.

The man who currently holds his former job, Greg Sankey, said Kramer ''will be remembered for his resolve through challenging times, his willingness to innovate in an industry driven by tradition, and his unwavering belief in the value of student-athletes and education.''

Kramer helped transform his own conference from the home base for a regional pastime into the leader of a national movement during his tenure as commissioner from 1990-2002.

It was during that time that he reshaped the entire sport of college football by dreaming up the precursor to today's playoff system — the Bowl Championship Series.

''He elevated this league and set the foundation" for Sankey and Kramer's immediate successor, Mike Slive, to build on, former Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said. ''He was smart and had incredible passion for this league. Every decision he made was what he thought would elevate the SEC. It's the thing that stands out most when I remember him: his passion and love for this league.''

Kramer was the first to imagine a conference title game, which divided his newly expanded 12-team league into divisions, then pitted the two champs in a winner-take-all affair that generated millions in TV revenue.

The winner of the SEC title game often had an inside track to Kramer's greatest creation, the BCS, which pivoted college football away from its long-held tradition of determining a champion via media and coaches' polls.

The system in place from 1998 through 2013 relied on computerized formulas to determine which two teams should play in the top bowl game for the title.

That system, vestiges of which are still around today, produced its predictable share of heated debate and annual frustration for a large segment of the sport's fans. Kramer, in an interview when he retired in 2002, said it had been ''blamed for everything from El Nino to the terrorist attacks."

But he didn't apologize. The BCS got people talking about college football in a way they never had before, he said. And besides, was it so wrong to take a baby step toward the real tournament format that virtually every other major sport used?

Turning the SEC into a national power

Before Kramer was named commissioner, the SEC was a mostly sleepy grouping of 10 teams headlined by Bear Bryant and Alabama whose provincial rivalries were punctuated by the Sugar Bowl every year where, often, the league's best team would show what it could do against the guys up north.

Kentucky was the basketball power.

Not content with that role in the college landscape, one of Kramer's first moves was to bring Arkansas of the Southwestern Conference and independent South Carolina into the fold. That small expansion previewed a spasm of bigger reshufflings that continue to grip and overrun this sport some 35 years later.

With 12 teams, the SEC could divide into two divisions and play for the championship in a newly created title game. Kramer sold the rights to televise the games for five years to CBS for a then-staggering sum of $100 million.

— In his first year as commissioner, the SEC distributed $16.3 million to its member schools.

— In his last, in 2002, the amount rose to $95.7 million.

— In 2023-24, it was $808.4 million.

''By any standard,'' former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said in 2002, ''Roy's influence has been mind-boggling.''

Not everyone will agree that all this change has been good.

On Saturday, the 34th version of Kramer's SEC title game will take place in Atlanta. On Sunday, the 12-team College Football Playoff will come out, with Kramer's old school, 14th-ranked Vanderbilt, likely to be left out despite a historically great 10-2 season that Commodore fans will argue is something to be celebrated, not ignored.

But part of Kramer's legacy is that the old bowl system that ran this sport back in the day has been reduced to near irrelevance. A spot in the Sugar Bowl today only means something if it's part of that playoff.

Southern roots and not a spotlight seeker

Born Roy Foster Kramer in Maryville, Tennessee, on Oct. 30, 1929, he earned a bachelor's degree from Maryville College, where he was a football lineman and wrestler. Kramer earned a master's at the University of Michigan and served three years in the Army during the Korean War.

He coached football at five high schools in Michigan before he was named assistant coach at Central Michigan in 1965 and then head coach in 1967. Kramer was named the 1974 national coach of the year after leading Central Michigan to the Division II national championship and went 83-32-2 over 11 seasons in charge of the Chippewas. Kramer ended his coaching career in 1978 when he became athletic director at Vanderbilt, where he served until he left for the SEC.

Foley, the former Florida AD, recalled rushing into a locker room full of umpires to berate them after he thought they'd robbed the Gators with a bad call.

The next day, there was no mass email to media announcing a fine for the AD, no penalty being meted out to the program.

But Foley's phone rang. It was Kramer.

'''That can never, ever happen again,'" Foley recalled the commish telling him. "That was his style. He wasn't a grand-stander or a showman. He had an unbelievable ability to read people and deal with people.''

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