Opening the door does not mean walking through it
Greg Sankey poured cold water on the idea. The SEC commissioner spoke Monday to the Monday Morning Quarterback Club in Birmingham, Alabama. The hot topic was a possible move to a 24-team College Football Playoff.
Last week, CFP bosses opened a 30-day negotiating window with ESPN to explore the format. Sankey is not treating that as a done deal. “We took part in that conversation. That does not mean the expansion is going to happen,” he said.
For him this is a media negotiation, nothing more. The decision on the tournament format, he says, comes later in the fall.
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Ten Power 4 games, or no bracket: the SEC names its price
The conference has backed a 16-team bracket so far. This month Sankey sent a memo to the CFP management committee spelling out what the SEC would want in return for signing off on 24.
Two demands stand out. First, money. The CFP would have to make up the revenue the SEC would lose by scrapping its conference title game. Second, the schedule. Teams from the four major conferences would need to play 10 games against Power 4 opponents or Notre Dame to stay eligible for the playoff.
Conference officials met last month to go over the details. “We’re working through the schedule issues, the economics, the regular season and what everyone expects,” the commissioner said.
December 1, and two conferences holding the pen
The Big Ten and the SEC hold the final say on the format. The two conferences must reach an agreement before December 1 for the expansion to take effect in 2027.
Sankey leaned on last weekend’s results to make his case. Texas knocked off Ohio State, then the No. 1 team in the country. Texas A&M beat Arizona State. It all feeds his argument about the strength of his conference’s schedule, and everyone else’s too.
“You look at some schedules. There are a lot of question marks,” he said. “Getting that answer, getting a clearer picture of how we build out-of-conference schedules, matters.”
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