Greg Sankey eviscerates Brett Yormark’s ‘doubling down’ comment
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Greg Sankey was all kinds of fired up on Monday as the commissioner kicked off SEC Media Days in Atlanta. That included chatter on the future of the College Football Playoff and recent comments made by Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark.
During last week’s Big 12 Media Days, Yormark referenced that he was ‘doubling down’ on the Big 12’s preferences for the idea of a 16-team Playoff with a 5+11 selection process. That would involve 5 automatic bids to the highest-ranked conference champs and 11 at-large bids for the next highest-ranked teams.
“We are college football, and we must act like it. … We must protect what makes it special,” said Yormark while also predicting ACC commissioner Jim Phillips would follow his lead.
However, Sankey’s comments differed greatly on Monday, even taking time to confront Yormark’s specific phrase head on:
“As I understand doubling down — that was one of the phrases last week. That’s part of the gambling experience,” said Sankey.
Sankey continued that gambling metaphor, but only to express the power he believes resides within the SEC:
“You always want to have a really good set of cards. You want to have a good hand to play, right? I think we have the best hand to play,” Sankey concluded.
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That clip was a specific point in a larger response from Sankey regarding the future of the Playoff. Asked a question about future 16-team models, Sankey reinforced that expanding beyond 12 teams is not set in stone at all.
In fact, Sankey reminded everyone that the current MOU grants joint power to the SEC and the Big Ten to make a final decision on future Playoff models. The debate on future models will continue, but it’s particularly up to those 2 leagues to show “wisdom and discretion” in the final decision.
“We have agreed — I think last week there was some misunderstanding communicated about a memorandum of understanding. So in that memorandum of understanding, the top 5 conference champions have a role. Unless you’re going to go tear up the MOU, which maybe some other people want to do because of their concerns about the decision-making authority, but very clearly in that memorandum of understanding is granted to the combination of the SEC and Big Ten,” Sankey reaffirmed. “Ultimately, we have to use that authority with great wisdom and discretion. But unless people want to tear it up, we’re going to have 5 plus 7, 5 plus 9, 5 plus 11.”
For now, the debate continues, but it sounds like Sankey does not feel pressured into any specific model or formula for the future.
Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
