Saline’s View of the SEC Expansion

More opportunities and competition are two of the benefits the Saline Area Schools Athletic Department see coming with the expansion of the Southeastern Conference, which begins at the start of the 2027-2028 school year.

During the June 9 Saline Board of Education meeting, Athletic Director Ashley Mantha and Assistant Athletic Director Jeff Pike gave an overall presentation of the athletic department and it teams. As part of this, Pike discussed the expansion deeper and gave some insight into how it happened, why and what it expects to bring.

He said talk of an SEC expansion began in March 2025, at the annual meeting of athletic directors in Traverse City. What really started the talk was when the three Livonia schools left the Kensington Lakes Activities Association (KLAA), so the conference started looking to add some replacements which saw the KLAA asking Monroe.

Pike said the SEC schools began seeing the potential if the two conferences aligned, which they did 16 months later. This also included Jackson Northwest. For schools like Monroe, the alignment looks like a good idea, both geographically and competitively.

“We have a lot we could do if we aligned,” Pike said.

“The goal of all of this is to offer more opportunities to our kids, and especially for us in the Red (division) and the six schools that are in the blue division,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot more competition amongst those schools. We’re still going to have the classic SEC matchups with you know our Ann Arbor rivals up the street and Dexter, but also, if you look at those six schools in the blue division, we match up pretty well in a lot of sports, big and small, and by offering more opportunities to our kids and a higher level of competition, and by them seeing different kids in different scenarios and kids from different backgrounds, it’s only going to benefit them both on the competition field and in life.”

The SEC Red Division is Bedford, Dexter, Huron, Pioneer, Saline and Skyline while the Blue is made up of Brighton, Canton, Hartland, Howell, Plymouth and Salem.

Pike said even though it’s still a year away, the athletic departments have begun looking at scheduling. He said it’s a huge undertaking and kind of daunting, but it’s also really exciting and they are looking forward to seeing a lot of these new schools coming in to play Saline’s teams.

Photo: A look at the SEC as it will look for the 2027-28 season. Photo by Heather Finch