Greg Sankey, Mike Slive and the SEC are closing in on a pivotal date in the 80-plus-year history of the conference.

On Aug. 1 of this year, now less than 70 days away, Sankey will take over for Slive as the SEC’s new commissioner. That day marks the dawn of the Sankey era in the SEC, and perhaps more importantly the end of the Slive era, a span in which the innovative soon-to-be former commissioner grew the SEC into one of the wealthiest, most powerful and most successful conferences in the NCAA.

Many expect the transition from Sankey to Slive to be a smooth one. After all, Sankey has been handling much of the day-to-day operations in the SEC office for the last three years, so the conference is not exactly bringing in some guy off the street.

In a recent Q&A with Nola.com, Sankey discussed what he expects out of the transition away from Slive and into a new regime leading the conference.

“I know where everyone’s office is, I know the issues, I’ve been in the meetings, but it’s still different. The pace has quickened, the level of issues I’m in conversation about is a little bit elevated. It is seamless in many regards, but there is recognition it will be different moving forward.

“One of the things I identified during the interview process was in the Southland Conference, I moved from an associate commissioner into the commissioner’s role. I remember recalling that ‘I’m not the advisor anymore, the buck stops here.’

“Part of what has happened over the last 12 months is mentally preparing me for that reality.”

Sankey also took the opportunity to praise the man he’s replacing, a man almost universally beloved in SEC country.

“He set a high bar of expectations as the commissioner of the SEC, and I don’t have any choice to excel in meeting the expectations he established.”

But perhaps the most fascinating part of the interview was when Sankey answered a question regarding paying student-athletes. The new commissioner’s adamant stance against paying student-athletes is not a new one, but his elaboration on that stance may sway the opinions of some SEC fans in our reading audience.

“We’re in an educational setting. From a principle basis, we need not separate the educational effort from being involved in intercollegiate athletics. They are students first, and yet there are going to be times that people say they are athletes first.

“My view is that the support of our student athletes needs to be tied to their educational efforts. When you go beyond that, are they not students? Are they then only athletes on our campus? That’s a very different model that I don’t want us to pursue and I hope we don’t.

“The reality of what we do is hundreds of thousands of times is we provide great education to young people, providing them with lifelong opportunities and lessons that go beyond the playing field.”

To check out the full Q&A (and we recommend you do, the guys at Nola.com absolutely crushed it), click here.