College Football Playoff expansion means more SEC teams will enter postseason play with an opportunity to win the national championship.

Greg Sankey was asked for his thoughts on how many SEC teams could make the 12-team field of 6 conference champions and 6 at-large teams. Sankey joked at Thursday’s SEC Championship Game press conference that we could see 7 SEC teams, the max for any conference.

Sankey then offered a more serious answer.

“I would anticipate the opportunity for three, perhaps four of our teams total, between the conference champion and the at-large teams to be fully in the mix on an annual basis,” Sankey said.

The expanded model will feature the 6 highest-ranked conference champions (regardless of Power 5 or Group of 5 designation) and the 6 at-large teams. We’ve already seen 2 SEC teams make the field of 4, so 2-3 SEC teams receiving at-large bids in a field of 12 doesn’t seem far fetched.