Florida State officials: There has been 'no contact' with SEC

By Jim Lamar, Tallahassee Democrat

As another round of conference expansion rumors swirled Saturday, Florida State director of athletics Randy Spetman repeated what others on his campus have already said.

"We have not been invited to the SEC," Spetman said. "That is a fact. I can't say the SEC won't come to us because I don't know what the future holds. I can't say things like 'forever' or 'never' because I simply don't know what will happen in the future.

"But I know this: We are extremely happy in the ACC. Our football coach is happy in the ACC. We are doing well in the ACC. And I think things are going pretty well for all of us in the ACC."

Spetman attended an out-of-state funeral Friday afternoon for the wife of the man he considers his mentor in the U.S. Air Force. He said his phone "was blowing up" Friday as rumors swirled that Florida State was poised to move from the ACC to the SEC.

For a second consecutive day, Florida State football coach Jimbo Fisher fielded questions about the SEC.

"No one has talked to me and there has been no proposal that I'm aware of at all," Fisher said following Saturday's morning practice session. "We're in the ACC and we're happy to be in the ACC."

Spetman said he would expect that if the SEC had any interest in initiating a conversation with Florida State, the call would be made to university president Eric Barron.

"Conference commissioners work with university presidents," Spetman said.
Barron is attending the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce conference in Destin this weekend. He told the Democrat on Friday that he has had no contact with the SEC.

"There has been no contact on this topic," Barron said. "None."

As he addressed the Chamber Conference on Saturday, Barron joked that "the more I tell people we have had no conversations with the SEC, the more people report that the door is still open."

Spetman laughed as the subject of SEC expansion was broached for a second straight summer.

"To tell you the truth," Spetman said, "I thought we were just ready to focus on winning some football games this year. I didn't think we'd have to talk about this again."

Florida State joined the basketball-rich Atlantic Coast Conference two decades ago, yet it is surrounded by SEC universities – including Florida, Alabama and Georgia – which represent the supreme college football powers.

If the Seminoles was to entertain an offer to join the SEC, the decision would be made by Barron and Florida State's Board of Trustees, Barron said Friday.

Contributing: Doug Blackburn, Tallahassee Democrat

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