'We should break away from them': Why Iowa State AD has 'draconian' idea for Big Ten, SEC

On the same day that the Big Ten Conference held its spring meetings outside of Los Angeles, Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard suggested a "draconian" idea for the current model of college athletics during a Cyclones Tailgate Tour Stop in Des Moines . His idea? For the Big Ten and SEC to "break away" from the Big 12, the ACC , and other NCAA-member conferences in every sport, and "see how fun" it is for those conferences to compete only against themselves in an NIL era without the College Sports Commission .

REQUIRED READING: NCAA, College Sports Commission resist attempts to 'rewrite' House Settlement Pollard’s point — and frustration — stem from the same place: the Big Ten and SEC not wanting to "adhere" to the College Sports Commission, the NIL oversight system that Power Four commissioners invested heavily in creating last June. "The four commissioners spent a lot of money creating the CSC. Then to have two of the conferences not want to adhere to it is perplexing to me, because then, why did we spend the money?

If you didn't want rules, then why did you create this entity? That's what's frustrating to me, the same people that say they want rules only want rules if they don't apply to them," Pollard said on Monday. "I said it three years ago, let (them) break away.

I would turn it around and say we should break away from them. Let them go, but they have to go in all their sports and see how fun it is to play baseball and softball and track when it's just the 20 of you. "That's what I think we should do, but I'm one person, and you know that's probably a little more draconian, but that's how I feel about it.