No. 99: Central Michigan

[CrimsonPhantom]

Roy Kramer’s impact on college football reaches beyond the borders of Mount Pleasant, Mich., where he spent 11 years as the most successful head coach in Central Michigan’s history — with all due respect to Herb Deromedi. After concluding his coaching career in 1977, Kramer was hired as the athletic director at Vanderbilt, serving in that position through 1990 before being named commissioner of the SEC. It’s in this capacity that Kramer changed the game. First, in 1991, he added Arkansas and South Carolina. A year later, the SEC became the first league in the F.B.S. to play a conference title game. Over the next decade, a period that saw the SEC develop into the most dominant league in N.C.A.A. history, Kramer brokered record-breaking television deals with contracts stretching long past the end of his tenure in 2002. Oh, and before we forget: the B.C.S. was Kramer’s brainchild. You like college football as it currently stands? You can thank Kramer. Then again, if you hate the way the landscape has changed, feel free to blame Kramer.

Continued at- www.presnapread.com/no-99-central-michigan/