Greg Sankey is stubborn in maintaining the SEC's best interests, and that's the way the members want it

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. – In 2024, Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey’s SEC Spring Meetings had a variety of topics to discuss. There were roster issues presented by the House settlement, the prospect of Texas and Oklahoma joining the league, future league schedules, and College Football Playoff jockeying for his 16 member institutions.

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The topics in 2025 look similar, though the Longhorns and the Sooners are now full-fledged members in the process. The House settlement details are all still “pending” considering the entire college sports world awaits the decision of presiding judge Claudia Wilken. So too are any decisions about whether to move the SEC football schedule to nine games as opposed to the current eight.

Why the wait on the latter? The CFP format for the years following 2025 are still in flux.

The 2025 CFP will feature 12 teams once again, but instead of slotting the four highest-ranked conference champions into first-round byes, the four highest-ranked teams will get those precious spots. With that on the way, the focus moves to the 2026 format and the format for years following.

Finding a solution amenable to all parties, schools in the SEC, the Big 10, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12, and Notre Dame (who has a vote equal in weight to all the other entities), is going to be a difficult task. Will some conferences have four spots reserved for their best teams? How many teams will the future format have? How will the money be split?

In the course of searching for the next stage of the College Football Playoff evolution, Sankey is stubborn. And that’s a good thing for his main constituents: the 16 member institutions of the SEC and their leadership at the university and athletic department level.

A casual internet search of “Greg Sankey” will offer a variety of headlines emanating from last night’s initial availability featuring Sankey. One reaction piece mentioned Sankey’s statements featured “selective memory and spin that fails the reality test.” Other headlines mentioned how he “got testy” and took “shots at other conferences.”

On3’s Andy Staples offered a quality look at how Sankey handled the opportunity to address how the league was attacking the CFP issue. And there was a key quote that shows what Sankey’s mentality is as he represents the league in these important discussions.

“Look at the track record,” Sankey said. “We didn’t need [a 12-team playoff]. If we’d stayed at four, we would have had half the four last year.”

Sankey would say after that, “I don’t need lectures from others about good of the game. I don’t lecture others about good of the game.”

Staples’ outlines what Sankey is doing for the SEC. He’s looking out for what the SEC thinks is best for its member institutions. In the coming age of House, that means more money. More money comes from getting more spots in the College Football Playoff, which as far as the financial side of things go has been very successful.

And he’s being stubborn about making sure his conference can get the most amount of teams in every single year.

That might be seen as a negative for college football by a lot of people. But it’s the only way to describe what he’s been in representing the SEC. It’s just the way Sankey is acting.

He’s good at it, too. Sankey rarely says something without putting a good amount of thought into what it means and how it’ll be handled by the public. He knows his message has to be one that 16 different entities would approve of. He knows he has the upper hand in most discussions and negotiations. Any discussion of a CFP model that doesn’t get the approval of the SEC won’t feature the SEC, and then it’s not really a true playoff. Even Notre Dame’s singular vote doesn’t have that much sway.

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Sankey, whether in Destin, in Birmingham, or in boardrooms, is stubborn in maintaining the best interests of the SEC. That’s the way his constituents want it, and that’s what he’s good at presenting.