SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey talks about CFP expansion, conference championships and the football calendar

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was seen as the driving force behind a postseason expansion: the NCAA Tournament. Now that it’s official, the ball may be in Sankey’s lap, or at least in the lap of his conference, during the College Football Playoff.

“I have become an easy target over the years,” Sankey said.

And as he completes his 12th year as commissioner, Sankey is preparing for an important few weeks that will discuss the direction of the conference on a number of key issues: its preference for the CFP, the future of the football conference championship game, and the desire of some members within the SEC to make their own rules.

Sankey spoke for an hour Monday at the Associated Press Sports Editors Southeast Regional meeting at the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Here are the five most notable things Sankey weighed in on:

1. Playoff size: 16 or 24?

This time last year, Sankey and the SEC were the deciding vote between competing ideas from sixteen teams: the Big Ten’s desire for multiple automatic conference bids, and everyone else’s preference for five conference champions plus eleven at-large bids. The SEC sided with the latter, and the result was no agreement, and a third year in the 12-team field.

Now, support seems to have shifted to the idea of ​​the 24-team Big Ten, and the SEC could be the mainstay. So the question may be whether the SEC will hold out or whether there is enough support within the conference to agree to a 24-team field.

That’s a discussion that will be had throughout the conference, Sankey said, including in the coming weeks during the SEC’s spring meetings. And he says the key to that is whether this will enhance or detract from the importance of the regular season.

Sankey indicated that they did research to show that a 16-team playoff would not diminish the regular season. Sankey called a 24-team field an “unknown.”

“There are many ideas that need to be supported with analysis and information, not speculation,” Sankey said. “And with something as important as a regular season in football, hey, if you can build the regular season and the postseason in a different way through expansion, great, let’s look at that. But let’s understand that.”

The expansion to 12 has actually tripled the number of teams that started November with playoff hopes, according to Sankey’s estimate. One concern for Sankey is whether the expansion would reach a point where teams would rest key players in regular season games.

“That needs to be fully understood (with any expansion),” Sankey said. “At every level of expansion, there will be games that don’t matter, but that do matter. But there is another side to that coin.”

2. Future of the SEC Championship

The momentum is certainly toward the elimination of the SEC Championship, with Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne voicing the sentiments of many when he said in early April that the game has “run its course.” Georgia coach Kirby Smart, whose team has won the last two SEC championship games, said he would be fine with expanding the Playoff field to 24.

From a competitive perspective, it makes sense. Financially it is more complicated. The game always gets big TV ratings and, along with other revenues, brings in an estimated $50 million a year for the SEC, maybe more.

Sankey didn’t talk about money Monday. Instead, he focused on what the Playoff model will look like. Essentially, he reiterated that the SEC Championship isn’t dead – it just depends.

“We didn’t pick the model. There are plenty of models out there, one of which we now have contracts (for conference championship games),” Sankey said. “If the model changes, we will have to answer the questions differently.”

When asked how important holding a championship game would be in determining the future Playoff model, Sankey smiled and said it was a question he didn’t want to answer.

3. NCAA tournament reaction

Sankey has been the face of the unpopular effort to expand the NCAA basketball tournaments in recent years. That was not because Sankey was alone, but because he speaks more publicly than other commissioners. The time finally came last week, as the men’s and women’s tournaments spanned 76 matches next season.

That gives another eight overall spots for SEC teams such as Auburn and Oklahoma, which were among the last teams to emerge from the men’s field in March. But critics say it will dilute the tournament, diminish the importance of the regular season and risk the popularity of the tournament itself, which is aimed at fielding people who fill out a clean slate of 64 teams.

Sankey was asked if expansion was necessary.

“Did I think it was necessary?” Sankey said, repeating the question. “Necessary would mean it’s ‘do or die’. So in that sense: no.”

Sankey was referring to 10 SEC teams competing in the men’s tournament this year, and 14 the year before.

But then he also referred to two of his teams just standing on the outside. He said his opinion is that the top 50 teams should participate in the tournament. Given the number of mid-major and low-major conference champions receiving bids, Sankey believed expansion would move them into the top 50.

He also pointed to examples of teams going from the First Four round in Dayton and making runs all the way to the Final Four. The eight-team expansion will create “a new Dayton,” as Sankey put it.

“The apple cart isn’t being burned, overturned, thrown off the hill and thrown away. It’s a bit of change,” Sankey said.

4. Calendar: AFCA call to end the season around January 8

Future national championship games will conclude in late January, including January 25 this season. Many in the sport would like to reverse that: the American Football Coaches Association said last week that it prefers the season to end on the second Monday in January.

That statement, which also included calls to “maximize” the playoff field and abolish conference championships, caught Sankey by surprise.

“The press release in particular was quite disappointing,” Sankey said. “I had seen Craig (Bohl) a few weeks ago. I know he has my cell number. But it would have been nice to have a conversation about the reason for their statement and maybe the reason for some of those decisions.”

As for the calendar, Sankey pointed out that the Army-Navy game would take place the weekend after the conference championship games. And there’s also talk of confrontation with NFL games, which Sankey said he has discussed with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

“If you start to compress the schedule, you’re going to have some of those problems,” Sankey said.

5. SEC makes its own rules

There remains an internal debate – and an external desire – over whether the SEC should establish and enforce its own rules on issues like tampering. That stems from lingering frustration over the slowness of NCAA investigations, or the failure to enforce rules at all. That includes the SEC’s own teams, with Ole Miss under investigation after Clemson accused the company of tampering.

Sankey pointed out that the Big Ten, with whom the SEC appeared to sympathize on the issue, sent a letter asking the NCAA to suspend the tampering rules given the changes in the environment.

“We didn’t send a letter, but our communication was that you need to establish the definitions of how they are applied before you go out on the road from an enforcement perspective, and do that quickly. That didn’t happen,” Sankey said. “You’ve heard some of our campus leaders say that we need to set our own policies. … Is that going to continue to be on people’s minds? Absolutely.”