SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wants scheduling changes

Since the SEC formally accepted Texas and Oklahoma into the SEC, a move that is expected to be completed in 2025, scheduling questions have circulated around the conference. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey must find the best solution to conference’s format issues and scheduling problems as the SEC moves from 14 members to 16.

During a radio interview with XL Primetime, Sankey discussed his vision for the future of SEC scheduling as he looks at the big picture.

“I’ve asked our athletic directors, and even at a Presidents and Chancellors level, to take a step back and look at the big picture,” said Sankey. “I start back from, we need to rotate team through our campuses with greater frequency. The once in 12-year at games for crossover opponents.”

Solving the scheduling crisis

Under the Greg Sankey’s current football scheduling guidelines, each team plays against their six divisional opponents. In addition, they play one cross-division rival and one other cross-division opponent. This means that each school will only host their six non-rival cross-division opponents once every 12 years.

Baseball is the only other sport which still uses the divisional format. It allows each team to play their six divisional opponents and four non-divisional opponents each season in the 30-game conference schedule.

All other sports have gone away from divisions when scheduling, rotating series each season while maintaining key rivalries from year-to-year. Sankey’s focus when creating the new schedule is to rotate through those teams as fast as possible.

“When I talk about compelling content within 16 teams, compelling competition in volleyball, basketball, football, baseball, the more we can move our teams through our campuses, both traveling to and receiving those visiting teams, that’s the focus,” said Sankey. “Is that a specific set of games right now, no. We’re going to look at the alternatives and we’re engaged actively in that work right now. But the challenge has been, let’s look big picture and figure out how to meet that objective.”

With four years left to finalize a 16-team conference schedule, the SEC has plenty of time to experiment. From a pod system to the death of divisions altogether, all options are available.

There is also discussion surrounding an expanded conference schedule. This provides a solution that increases revenue projections and solves the commissioners time crisis. XL Primetime asked Sankey about moving from eight SEC games to 10, which the conference did temporarily in 2020. The commissioner declined to directly answer.