College Football Playoff insider reveals who could unite conferences for expansion

College Football Playoff insider Heather Dinich joined The Paul Finebaum Show to reveal who could unite the conferences in their quest for expansion. While Dinich concedes that there may not be one singular voice, the man with the most power in the sport can do it.

“Well, I guess there has to be one, most-powerful voice in that room. And I don’t know that there is necessarily a most-powerful voice, but Greg Sankey is clearly the most powerful person in college football,” stated Dinich. “And I don’t say that because of the network that I’m on right now.

“I mean, we have to realize that if college football, if the Playoff is going to expand — and it doesn’t have to be unanimous — we’re talking about Year 13. A brand new system from scratch. Then, it’s about participation. There has to be a majority of those ten FBS commissioners and (Notre Dame AD) [Jack] Swarbrick, including a majority of the Power Five commissioners, in order for it to happen. It’s not going to happen without Greg Sankey. Right? So, theres a lot of that. There’s got to be some push and pull.

“Bob Bowlsby in the Big 12 will tell you over and over again that they did not get to where they are with four without compromise. Something, or someone, has got to give.”

Evidently, Dinich believes the power for expansion lays squarely on the shoulders of SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. When the SEC moves, so does the rest of the college football world. Time will tell if Sankey commits to expansion, or continues to be content with the four-team iteration of the College Football Playoff.

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Furthermore, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey expressed empathy with his cohort of commissioners who’ve spoken out against expansion earlier this week on The Paul Finebaum Show.

“Everyone’s trying to communicate their point of view,” Sankey said. “If someone walked into a CFP discussion midstream that’s difficult. Whether it’s Kevin Warren who’s now been in his role with the Big Ten for two years or Jim in the ACC who started at this time last year, they walked into a conversation that had been taking place for two years.

“The reality from the Southeastern Conference is that we have continuing dialogue with our coaches. We don’t always agree but hey, that’s reality and we better get comfortable with some of that disagreement. I never assumed it would just be rubber-stamped. I think my disappointment is that we’re not talking through the depth of issues that have been identified so how do we arrive at solutions. How do we remedy the concern? If we can’t find the way forward now, we’re going to have a difficult time in the future. We’ll have conferences over the coming weeks and months, I’m not sure that will change the perspective of those opposed. We can’t even keep secret meeting dates. We needed to do it in a coordinated way.”