The Southeastern Conference, and especially Greg Sankey, has long been considered a leader in the world of college sports. That influence is especially potent regarding the college football landscape. With SEC meetings set to commence in Destin, Florida next week, all eyes have shifted to how the league could alter the fabric of the Power 5 with the inception of its own playoff system.
Brandon Adams joined the Midday Show to discuss how the ramifications could affect the sport, and that this is closer to reality than many people think.
Just last summer the conference took the college world by storm with its announcement that it was expanding to 16 teams with the addition of two of the biggest brands in the NCAA - Oklahoma and Texas. Now, only one year later, news again comes out of the SEC that it could be looking to form its own playoff.
"I think this is more real than people would probably consider it to be," Adams told the Midday Show. "It's not just the idea that the SEC is mad at the rest of college football about the College Football Playoff expansion stuff, this is also a way around all the other issues like NIL and the transfer portal."
Those hopes for an expanded playoff were officially put to rest in January after the commissioners failed to come to a common resolution. As a result, college football will continue with its current four-team model at least through the 2025 season. This will come right along the same time that Oklahoma and Texas will join the conference.
The college football world has already seen the impact of the SEC as the preeminent conference in the sport. It has been a force, both on the field and in ratings. The conference has had a representative in all but one national championship since the inception of the playoff in 2014, and two instances of having both teams. That has shown up in television deals, as ESPN just agreed to pay $300 million for the rights to broadcast its football games starting in 2024 (or $44 million per school solely from this deal).
Sankey has already shown that he is not afraid to step out of his comfort zone and shake up college sports. He has made such moves already (namely his stance during the heavily impacted 2020 season due to COVID-19 uncertainty), and few should doubt that he would hesitate at doing it again.
With the NCAA failing to properly address things such as the transfer portal or NIL in the eyes of many, plus the commissioners' failure in expanding the playoff, the precedent is theoretically there for Sankey to break away.
"If you create a smaller organization that doesn't include every school in the country, that is your way around creating new rules to defend against some of the chaos without running afoul of anti-trust," Adams said. "Because you can now say, 'well this isn't the way that everybody does it, just the way we do it.'"
This would then put the primary decision-making power into the hands of Greg Sankey and the SEC rather than the NCAA and its commissioners.
The news is especially significant as the most powerful man in college sports would increase his influence ten-fold.
As we already know, the SEC, along with the Big 10, has widened the financial gap between itself and the rest of the leagues. Whatever decision, whether formally made or even just discussed, will send waves throughout college football.
All we know for sure is that everything is currently on the table, and Greg Sankey is certainly seated at its head.