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Greg Sankey said on The Paul Finebaum Show that no definitive decision will be made about the future of the SEC league schedule at the conference’s spring meetings this week in Florida.
The league schedule remains a point of contention, and its future complexion is up in the air. The SEC plays 8 league games each season. The Big Ten plays 9 league games. A report earlier in the week from Yahoo’s Ross Delenger stated that the Big Ten would support a “5 plus 11” College Football Playoff model only if the SEC added an extra league game to move in line with the Big Ten.
There is also the possibility of a scheduling alliance between the 2 leagues, but that would bring the annual minimum commitment to 10 power conference opponents for the Big Ten and just 9 for the SEC if the league held to its current 8-game schedule. Such a setup would certainly favor the SEC when it came to Playoff selection.
Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts said this week the SEC moving to 9 league games would only make sense if Playoff sports were guaranteed.
The discussion is convoluted and Sankey, who is in favor of 9 games, said they can’t make a decision with so much still up in the air regarding the Playoff.
“It’s not all about the CFP,” Sankey told Finebaum on Wednesday. “Recall our past conversations. There’s a segment of our membership highly focused on, if you go to 9 games, is that an asset or a liability in the CFP selection? [That segment] leans more towards liability. There’s a segment who says, ‘You know what, we’ll play the games. We’re going to be successful, and we’ll be fine.'”
Sankey said the future of bowl games also impacts the discussion. Adding another league game potentially adds another loss for teams who might be fighting to reach the 6-win threshold. That is clearly a discussion topic. As is the inventory. Sankey said the league has held conversations with ESPN about what adding a ninth league game would mean for its TV schedule, saying the loss of a nonconference game would cost the SEC’s network partner 8 games one weekend.
“We need some clarity around CFP direction, though. I think that becomes the most prominent issue on the list of evaluation points.”
Several SEC teams like South Carolina and Florida already have high-profile rivalry games with ACC opponents on their schedules each year. What would happen to those games if the league moved to 9 conference games? What would happen to those games if the league moved to 9 games and added an additional matchup with a Big Ten school? Would a team like South Carolina have to give up the Clemson rivalry? Could it chose to play one or the other?
Conferences have long been unequal, and that means schedules will always be unequal, regardless of the length. There’s a lot for the SEC to consider.
It sounds like we won’t have any clarity on this front in the immediate future.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
