Do not expect final decisions on key topics as SEC Spring Meetings finish

The SEC enters this year’s spring meetings in the Florida panhandle with much ground to cover on the to-do list. Some major changes are on the horizon in college athletics. As usual, football decisions are at the top of that document. Changes to the transfer portal, College Football Playoff (CFP), and the SEC’s scheduling model are needed. There’s not much time to waste. Everyone is also waiting for the House settlement to pass.

That puts us all in one big giant lobby playing the waiting game as all these items go hand-in-hand. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey does not expect the league to have final answers on these big-picture topics when everyone departs Destin on Thursday.

“There’s a lot on the table. So we have to first start there. We just spent hours with our presidents and chancellors engaged in deep conversation about making the settlement work and how it will work, but we’re waiting on a judge’s decision. So managing the cart and the horse is a challenge right now,” Sankey said. “But were there decisions made? There are decisions that have been made and those have been communicated and we talked about decisions to be made.”

“You can’t make them all here.”

The settlement is a big one but that is completely out of the SEC’s hands. The transfer portal decision will be made on an unspecified date by the House Implementation Committee, a group of power conference athletic directors. The future of the CFP has created a hotly debated issue on social media with many against Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti’s 4+4+2+2+1 proposal that would give the power two conferences half the field via automatic bids. All these years later, SEC members are still debating the 8 vs. 9-game conference structure. All of these items are tied together. One — the settlement — needs to come before the others. The portal is also a one-off with its own committee. Things get tricky when weighing the next CFP model and what the SEC will do with the schedule in 2026.

SEC ADs told @YahooSports that the deadline to decide on the 2026 SEC football schedule – 9 games or 8 – is, at latest, by the start of this coming football season.

There is a real chance that the CFP format negotiations extends into the fall.

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) May 28, 2025

SEC head coaches supported the 5+11 model this week that was presented by the ACC and Big 12 as an alternative option to Petitti’s auto bid-driven format. That would keep the same structure as the 12-team playoff but add four more at-large teams to the field. The selection committee’s importance would increase. That’s not something SEC administrators feel comfortable with.

Greg Sankey and the rest of college football’s leaders are scheduled to meet with the CFP management committee on June 17. There discussions will be had about where everything is going. The SEC and Big Ten currently have authoritative power to pass whatever format they see fit. So this thing could get messy. If no decision is made, then the SEC will have to make a call on the schedule before knowing the future of the playoff. That could mean kicking the can down the road.

“My concern right now is all the time we have waited in the CFP not making decisions has created a time crunch for us,” Sankey said.

Greg Sankey wants his league at nine games but that might be tough to accomplish in 2026 if a clear CFP plan is not established. Getting the House settlement passed will be a big step in the right direction, but the longer the CFP negotiations go, the less likely it is that the SEC will take that next step toward a permanent scheduling model.

Yeah, so things are kind of a mess everywhere in college athletics.