As the winds of change continue to swirl in college athletics, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said more change is coming, particularly with regard to college football's postseason format, and reiterated that the SEC would not be reactionary to what the Big Ten or any other conference is doing.
"Right now, you put it in bold letters that things are going to change. Period," Sankey told ESPN in a recent interview. "And we're all going to have to be prepared to deal with that change. Period."
Sankey, one of 10 FBS commissioners who oversee the College Football Playoff along with Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, is convinced that the 12-team format, which he helped author and which was agreed upon for the 2024 season, needs to be reexamined. Per that format, the six highest-ranked conference champions by the playoff committee would make the playoff, along with the next six highest-ranked teams. The four highest-ranked conference champions would earn the top seeds and a first-round bye.
But with the Pac-12 soon down to four teams with Oregon and Washington heading to the Big Ten and Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado leaving for the Big 12, Sankey said "we need to rethink" the playoff model with college football's landscape changing so dramatically. There's also a push by some to get Cal and Stanford in the ACC, and Florida State's president has said the Seminoles will look to leave the ACC if they don't receive a larger portion of the revenue being generated in that league.
"The circumstances have changed, and we need to reconsider the format," Sankey said. "I'm not convinced we need to reconsider the number of teams, and I've been clear that I would have been OK with an eight-team playoff with no conference champion access. That wasn't, if you will, politically tenable within the group. So as we continued to look at the models, we came up with the six-and-six model. But, again, the circumstances have changed in a meaningful way, and my inclination is we need to reexamine the current format."
The FBS commissioners will meet next week in Dallas and then again in September in Chicago. The SEC is the only conference to have had a team in the playoff every year since its inception in the 2014 season.
Sankey emphasized that the SEC would have been OK had the four-team format with no automatic qualifiers remained in place, but also acknowledged a responsibility to be as inclusive as possible.
"We're adding Oklahoma and Texas, and we're not going to have fewer teams involved in the postseason with the addition of those two historic programs to our current 14," Sankey said. "We could stay at four and we could stay at the four best teams, and that is just a straightforward representation of our attitude.
"But the idea of 12 creates a balance. I think all of that's an indication of a willingness to support the game more broadly than just one conference's interests. If it was just one conference's interests, I could have been obstinate that we stay at four as long as we wanted and then let's go negotiate Year 13 [2026] and beyond as opposed to try and continue to grow the game and bring people into the national championship."
Mississippi State president Mark Keenum, who is the chair of the CFP board of managers, proposed a 12-team format with no automatic qualifiers last summer, but that proposal did not receive enough votes to pass.
"We spent a lot of time and discussion when we started down this path on how to get beyond four," Keenum told ESPN. "My position was that I wanted the top 12 teams. I understand there's great prestige being a major conference champion. At the end of the day, though, it depends on where they're ranked. We want to make sure we have the best teams competing in our nation's playoff to determine the champion.
"So, that's where I've been. But again, as you work through something like this, you have to be willing to make compromises. Now, we're going forward with all the shifting of schools among conferences, and I don't think any of us know what the playoff will look like from 2024 on."
As change comes to the playoff -- and whatever the model looks like -- Sankey is unconcerned about any lingering accusations that the committee has shown bias toward SEC schools.
"Well, it was 65-7 last year (Georgia beating TCU in the championship game), and the year before, we had two teams in the national championship, and I think there were two pretty decisive victories in the semifinals," Sankey said. "So at least from an SEC perspective, when we've had access, we've proven the wisdom of the selection committee."
Sankey said jokingly that he uses the old antiperspirant television commercial with his staff about "never let them see you sweat" whenever the changing landscape in college athletics is discussed in any detail. But that said, he's adamant that the SEC doesn't feel any pressure to expand just because the Big Ten or Big 12 have ventured out west.
"In the current circumstance, to be very direct, we don't feel pressure to go to some number, the notion of having a presence in all four time zones," Sankey said. "I mean, we are a presence in all four time zones. In fact, we go from time zone to time zone around the world and people have interest. I've had emails this week from the United Kingdom about accessing our games."
Asked directly whether other schools had reached out to the SEC during this recent wave of shuffling, Sankey said, "No, not really. I would not say that. I'm never one that puts out there what happens or who we might be or might not be hearing from. I'll answer it by saying I'm fully aware of what's happening around us."
In the past, Sankey said the SEC would always be willing to listen if there were schools available that created value. But he stressed that value goes far beyond dollars and cents.
"What we've done in the past is an education to the future, and that's add philosophically aligned universities that are committed to supporting national championship-caliber programs, both of which academically and athletically are of the highest levels in this country," Sankey said. "So we know who we are, and we're comfortable in that."
Sankey said he has watched with interest as the discussion has ramped up about the hardships teams will likely encounter when they start making cross-country trips to play games, especially the Olympic sports if they're traveling during the week.
"I sit and I watch the commentary about all that, and it's almost like the 'Forrest Gump' lady, 'Hey, we're over here,'" Sankey said. "There was an article about the college basketball coaches saying, 'Hey, leave us alone in this thing, and why do we have to be lumped in with football and this geographical shift?'
"And I'm like, 'Hey, we're over here. Our deal works pretty darn well.' So, it's nice to see people talking about everybody else.'"