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However, the SEC uses a single assigner who utilizes specific officials for SEC games.

This is something I didn't know. Thanks for the insight.

One of the benefits to be had by going to route I suggest is potentially increasing the pay for SEC officials, attracting better talent.

The scheduling process is very interesting. Some assigners assign for more than one conference. Most officials are scheduled by more than one assigner. And, just because an assigner uses you as one of their officials, it doesn't mean they will use you in all of the conferences they assign for.

Because an official doesn't want to accept an assignment from a lower paying conference before they know their schedule from the bigger conferences, the assigners schedule in serial. The big conference assigners (ACC, SEC, P12) send out their ref schedule a few months before the season. Then those refs will block out their schedule for the days they've been assigned, and then the next tier of conferences will assign. Often, your JUCO/DIII, assigners can't really set up their schedule until a couple weeks before the season. You're top officials may work 75-100 games in multiple conferences, and can gross over $200K for a season.

I don't know if pay is really the issue for attracting better talent, at least at the SEC and other Major conference level, they are making very good money. One issue, is it takes a very thick skin to be an official as it is one of those jobs that you can only do wrong in most people's eyes. Second, you can't grow a good official over night. Even the most instictive and talented officials made plenty of mistakes early on, and took years before they had the experiece to work SEC games. And the pay at those lower conferences is not great as they gain that experience.