FOOTBALL

Roy Kramer, ex-SEC commissioner, 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 a lot of it happen -- Roy Kramer.

Kramer, the onetime football coach who became an athletic director at Vanderbilt, then, eventually, commissioner of the SEC where he set the template for the multibillion-dollar business college sports would become, died Thursday. He was 96.

The SEC said he died in Vonore, Tenn.

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.

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 frustration for a large segment of the sport's fans.

FILE - Southeastern Conference Commissioner Roy Kramer talks with reporters during the opening session of the Southeastern Conference football media days in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday, July 25, 2000. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)FILE - Southeastern Conference Commissioner Roy Kramer is pictured at the SEC headquarters in Birmingham, Ala., Tuesday, June 6, 2000. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)