Greg Sankey highlights SEC’s concerns with proposed 24-team playoff
By Jacob Moss
Published:
The 2026 college football season marks year 3 of the expanded College Football Playoff format, and fans and analysts remain divided over the new look of the bracket, with many feeling it was too much, too soon.
Despite these mixed feelings about the current 12-team format, further expansion seems almost certain, with a possible 24-team playoff becoming increasingly likely.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, speaking on behalf of the conference, mentioned Friday that the league has some concerns with the prospect of doubling the current number of teams in the CFP. Here’s what he had to say:
“Our concerns relate to how you manage the economics,” Sankey said (per On3’s Brett McMurphy). “Is there value? I don’t think people understand the difficulty of going week to week to week to week in December. … We’ve looked at it & said CFP selection decisions are negatively impacting regular-season scheduling, particularly big non-conference games. That needs to be addressed first & also the economics, what we do with conference championship games, where the games fit & understanding the impact.”
There’s no denying that the expanded format has already strained regular-season scheduling, with many big-time non-conference games already axed in favor of more manageable opponents.
If expanding to 24 teams makes those scheduling decisions nearly impossible and puts conference title games on the chopping block, then it’s hard to see the merit in making that kind of jump.
