The SEC, with help from ESPN, is becoming big man on campus

Most college football conferences would be content with having produced the past three national champions, or, in Tim Tebow, the game's most heralded, overpublicized player.

But the Southeastern Conference is hungry. It won't be satisfied until it becomes America's Conference.

A lot of people think it already is.

With ESPN providing the money and coverage, the SEC is poised to become the most widely disseminated, wealthiest college football league in the country.

Already superior in quality and intensity than anything in college football - and boasting the nation's most passionate fan base - the SEC ranks second only to the NFL in brand appeal. Now it's putting even more daylight between itself and its so-called competitors.

The ACC should be worried - the Big Ten and Big 12, too. The Big Ten started its own network. But ESPN is the de facto SEC Network.

A new 15-year, $2.25 billion contract with ESPN is expected to net each SEC school about $17 million annually. That's about three times more than ACC schools receive from their TV deals.

With ESPN Regional Television expanding the conference's reach - and generously complementing the lucrative deal with CBS - many more SEC games will be available in more major markets and nontraditional SEC areas, either on cable networks or local over-the-air stations.

The impact this kind of exposure will have on SEC recruiting seems obvious. By partnering with ESPN, the SEC gets to enjoy the fruits of endless hours of hype on all sorts of electronic devices.

Before, prep stars and their parents in Virginia, New Jersey, Cleveland, San Antonio, Los Angeles and Seattle were stuck with a relatively limited menu of televised SEC games. Now, they can wade through a smorgasbord of the Bible Belt 's finest football each week.

The blitz begins immediately; during college football's first weekend, eight SEC teams are scheduled to appear on ESPN's family of networks for regional or national broadcasts.

The SEC is in a league of its own, in part, because of its high-profile coaches. Now the cult of personality surrounding Florida's Urban Meyer, Alabama's Nick Saban and others can be expected to grow exponentially with the size of the TV audience.

"The highest-paid coaches in America are pretty much all in the SEC," Richard Morgan, coach of defending state champion Oscar Smith High School in Chesapeake, said last week. "Their teams are always ranked in the top 10. People are going to watch on TV. Everybody wants to see the best teams play."

Morgan has firsthand knowledge of the SEC's widening appeal. Jerod Askew, a linebacker for Oscar Smith last season, is a freshman at Tennessee, while Phillip Sims, Morgan's highly acclaimed senior quarterback, signed with Alabama. Before them, Percy Harvin left Virginia Beach to become a star at Florida.

In recent years, SEC schools have discovered Hampton Roads' best talent. And vice versa.

"The exposure of the SEC has the schools on the kids' minds," said Morgan. "They see 100,000 people going crazy on Saturdays on television. Kids want to be in that environment."

No conference that has won four of the past six national titles needs another competitive advantage. In some ways, the SEC is threatening to become the only league that matters.

The ACC and other conferences will try to figure out a way to negotiate their own sweetheart TV deals in order to close the gap.

But for the time being, they're all standing - perhaps with grudging admiration - in the SEC's giant shadow.

Bob Molinaro, (757) 446-2373, bob.molinaro@pilotonline.com