Greg Sankey offers his latest thoughts on realignment affecting Playoff expansion
By Keith Farner
Published:
Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, is a key figure in college football decisions around the country, from realignment and expansion, to the College Football Playoff.
Sankey was a guest on “SEC This Morning” on the SEC Network on Monday as SEC Media Days are set to begin, and was asked by Chris Doering and Peter Burns about his concern about Playoff expansion being affected by realignment news. Sankey maintains that the SEC remains in a strong position. Doering’s question centered around the timeline of the proposed 12-team Playoff being agreed to in June of last year before news of Oklahoma and Texas coming to the SEC was reported in July.
“I don’t worry about those things, we’ll be fine,” Sankey said. “The positioning of yes or no votes, if you will, on the proposed 12-team format, that began in mid-June. Shortly after the model was introduced, so that was a month before the expansion news. I’d submit if people were truly just voting no because we added members, that was an unfortunate and short-sighted approach. There have been other reasons cited, and I think those were more legitimate, it probably caused a chill. You saw, what was it called the Alliance, formed in August, and that was reportedly about stabilizing college sports and I certainly wasn’t invited to participate in those meetings. It’s just been interesting to see how things have manifested themselves in the 52 weeks since. That brings me back to focusing on us. We’re really proud to expand it to 16.”
Sankey deflected a question about recent calls — and how many — he’s received about how conference realignment could work with the SEC.
Sankey pointed out that some schools have grant-of-rights “and we’re not going to get in the middle of those.”
Given the recent Big Ten news, Sankey said he waited a week to schedule a call with SEC presidents to avoid the perception of the conference scrambling to respond. Sankey also includes Oklahoma and Texas officials in meetings that pertain to the future of the conference when they will be officially in the league.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
