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* Video of Malik Zaire's three starts at Notre Dame

* Florida Gators Rivals100 Targets

* Five prospects Florida gained ground with over the spring

* Five prospects Florida lost ground with over the spring

* Roundtable: How many games will Florida win in 2017?

* Getting to Know: Marco Wilson

* Getting to Know: Donovan Stiner

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On the first day of SEC spring meetings Tuesday in Destin, Fla., one of the most popular topics was whether the league would change its current set of graduate transfer rules.

The Gators are currently being strongly considered by Notre Dame graduate transfer quarterback Malik Zaire, but he cannot join Florida unless the conference changes the current set of rules. According to SEC bylaw 14.1.15.3 (b), considering 2015 grad transfers Anthony Harrell and Mason Halter did not meet their academic requirements, from that point on Florida has not been able to take in a graduate transfer on scholarship for another three years.

However, members of the conference will vote on whether that rule will be changed sometime later this week. On Tuesday night, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said the current proposal on the table is altering the policy’s penalty from three seasons to just one.

“We’ll see what happens this week,” Sankey said, when asked for where he stands on the current graduate transfer rule.

Currently, the SEC is the only conference enacting this policy.

When posed with a question about the current grad transfer rule, Florida head coach Jim McElwain replied, “It doesn’t matter. I mean, if it happens, it happens, and then we’ll all move forward. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t, and then we’ll all move forward. I’m never a great lobbyist anyway for anything, so we’ll do whatever the league says.”

However, then McElwain made his stance on the topic pretty clear.

“I’ll probably say like I do with all the rules – if we have rules in the Southeastern Conference that are different than the other conferences that we’re playing against or we’re competing against, you know, I don’t know what we’re trying to prove there, I guess maybe," he said. "But at the same time, we’ve got a ton of guys calling us every year that are graduates.

“I can’t speak for the people,” McElwain continued. “I know what I think is what’s good for our conference, and what’s good for college football is what I’m all about. They may say, ‘Look, I don’t want him to go there, so I’m going to vote against it.’ We’ve got issues if that’s it, right? You know what, those people better check their whole card on it, because that isn’t what it’s about. It’s what’s good for these kids. Like I said, it goes back to the personal agendas that people have.

“If you’re worried about that, man, go to another conference. I don’t know. You can’t worry about that. They deservedly should get the best players, right? What the heck? That’s the way it goes.”

Regardless of what ends up happening this week, McElwain has continued to make it known that he’s looking to bolster the quarterback position moving forward. He reaffirmed Tuesday that he’s all for more competition at that spot. The third-year Gators head coach has said in the past that he doesn’t believe a graduate transfer like Zaire would hinder the development of the younger quarterbacks on the roster.

“Competition is what breeds quality,” McElwain said. “Well, we did it a year ago with Austin (Appleby), and he came in and ended up helping our program. It was really good. I think it doesn’t matter as much as that dynamic, as it is constantly knowing what you’re trying to do is enhance each position group, whatever that might be.

“I was the guy they tried to replace every year at Eastern Washington, so I get it.”

Here’s what some of the SEC’s other head coaches had to say Tuesday regarding the league’s current graduate transfer rules:

-- Alabama head coach Nick Saban: “I think the intent of the rule to start with was based on the fact that somebody was changing schools for academic reasons. That was the intent of the rule to start with, the way I understood it. That was why we allowed people to transfer to other places. So, now that doesn’t matter, so that’s not the intent of the rule anymore. I’ve never been in favor of free agency in our league. I don’t think that’s a good thing. I wasn’t for it last year, I don’t think I’ll ever be for it. Why should guys leave your team and go play for somebody else and then you have to play against them? I don’t think that’s fair. Look, I think we would benefit – we would benefit as much as anybody in our league, if you said you could transfer.

“When it comes from transfers from other places, I like that we have some kind of academic standard built into it. That’s a good thing, because that’s supposed to be why the guys are transferring. I don’t think we should penalize ourselves as a league and allow people to transfer into other places and then they can’t transfer into our league. So, if there’s some balance that can come up with that, that’s more of what I’d be for.”

-- Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema: “I think we have to be smart in this league. I love my SEC brethren, I think they’re very nice people. But I think we also have to put some rules in place that makes sure that there’s no funny business going on.”

-- Georgia head coach Kirby Smart: “I certainly think it’s nice to have a level playing field with the conferences we play against. I’m in support of allowing graduate transfer penalties to be the same as other conferences and not singling us out or making it a little bit difficult for a guy to come in and be able to play.”

-- Tennessee head coach Butch Jones: “I’m really looking forward to these discussions and really seeing where we’re going with this. The thing that we really have to be cognizant of is we can’t turn this into free agency. I understand everything that goes into it, but I’m more or less going to sit back a little bit. I want to form an opinion based on everyone else and their thoughts. Obviously, I have my thoughts moving forward, but I do think there’s some stipulations that need to occur to allow a young man to be able to do that.”

-- South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp: “I think we need to have the same rules as everybody else in college football. Our league has done an outstanding job monitoring the transfer policy and the policies we have in place, but it is a little unfair for us to have different rules than the competition we have at other places.”

Quotes courtesy of Bleacher Report Barrett Sallee’s Periscopes