'We have the best hand to play': How Greg Sankey, the SEC and the Big Ten will steer the future of college football

NBC Sports

2 days ago

Ahmed Fareed, Nicole Auerbach and Joshua Perry debate if the College Football Playoff should expand once again, discussing what went well in the first-ever 12-team playoff and what is concerning amid expansion talks.
ATLANTA — Greg Sankey has finished 41 marathons. And he's decided the grueling nature of a marathon makes it the apt comparison for the current state of college sports.
On Monday here at Southeastern Conference media days, he described the post-House settlement as a marathon. That makes sense; trying to implement a system of revenue-sharing contracts and an NIL clearinghouse is messy, confusing and perhaps still multiple lawsuits away from settling into a new normal.
But there is a second and perhaps more interesting marathon in progress, too.
Sankey compared the process of moving from a four-team College Football Playoff field to 12 (and potentially 16) to the ups and downs of running that particular race. Some parts of a marathon are going to be hard, others easier — but the finish line makes it all worth it.
Will that be the case for the College Football Playoff?
Already, the frustrations have bubbled up and the fissures between various parties become clear. And, because of that, it's quite possible the eventual outcome here is that the stakeholders opt to stand pat and stay put at 12.
'We have a 12-team Playoff, five conference champions. That could stay if we can't agree,' Sankey said. 'I think there's this notion that there has to be this magic moment and something has to happen with expansion, and it has to be forced. No.'
If the Big Ten and SEC don't agree to change the model, it won't change. The Big Ten supports a model with four automatic bids for both the Big Ten and SEC, two apiece for the ACC and Big 12, one for the highest-ranked conference champion outside of the Power 4 and at-large bids for the rest (in a 14- or 16-team bracket). The Big 12 and ACC support the 5+11 model, which includes the five highest-ranked conference champions and 11 at-large spots in a 16-team field. The Big Ten would not support a format with so many at-large spots without the SEC adding a ninth conference game to mirror the Big Ten's league schedule. (And the SEC argues that no one in the Big Ten would trade its nine for the SEC's eight because the SEC is tougher.)
SEC coaches on the whole prefer the 5+11 CFP model. Sankey said on Monday that he has always supported any version of a bracket that was simply the 'best' teams, no automatic bids at all. So, it's safe to say he'll back his coaches' preference for an at-large heavy model.
'We had a different view coming out of (SEC spring meetings) around the notion of allocations,' Sankey said, referring to automatic bids. 'I think you'll probably hear that again from our coaches. The Big Ten has a different view; that's fine.'
CFP executive director Rich Clark told NBC Sports that there is a sense of urgency around the expansion conversation although there are no in-person commissioners' meetings scheduled until late September. Clark said the commissioners are being 'deliberate' about the decision. They must tell ESPN by Dec. 1 if they are changing the format in advance of the 2026 season, the first year of a new media rights deal that stretches through the 2031-32 campaign.
Clark said earlier this summer he hoped that the commissioners' format decision would be for the duration of the new ESPN contract. But he said Monday that might not be the case.
'It would be great to have a decision that lasted and endured throughout, but I don't want to tie us down to that,' Clark said. 'If we need to change something because we go through a season and the commissioners realize that there needs to be a tweak here and there, we need to do it. We need to have that freedom.
'But the fewer changes, the better. It lets fans settle in. It lets the coaches and the teams understand what they're coming into in the postseason. A bit of consistency would be really helpful.'
Clark said there will be tweaks to both the selection committee process (including the recusal policy) and the data made available to the group. Both are undergoing evaluation now, and new metrics will be presented to the commissioners before they are implemented. Both process and metric decisions are expected to be made by mid-August, so they can be communicated to this year's selection committee.
One significant change moving forward is that the Big Ten and SEC will largely control CFP decision-making. In the past, decisions had to be unanimous among the 10 Football Bowl Subdivision commissioners and Notre Dame's athletic director. Now, 'if (there isn't unanimity), there's a level of authority granted to the SEC and the Big Ten together,' Sankey said. Clark described it as the two commissioners looking to build consensus and work with their peers, unless no consensus can be reached. Then, they can act unilaterally.
'It's not you just show up, you pound your fist and something happens,' Sankey said. 'I hope that type of narrative can be reduced.'
Still, the tension persists. Sankey did not mention Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark by name but referred to him multiple times during his session with the media here on Monday. Then once again, by omission, when he mentioned speaking with Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and ACC commissioner Jim Phillips last week. And then he played off of Yormark's remark last week that the Big 12 was 'doubling down' on its support for the 5+11 model.
'That's part of the gambling experience, as I understand it — you always want to have a really good set of cards,' Sankey said. 'You want to have a good hand to play, right? I think we have the best hand to play.'
And that's ultimately what this comes down to. Two of the stakeholders in this game — the Big Ten and SEC — have the best hands, so they get to determine where the sport goes next. Or if it stays put at 12 for the time being: a decision in its own right, even if prompted by an impasse.
'It's hard to predict if there's going to be a change and what it would be,' Clark said. 'I will say that the conversations that we're having in the room are very positive, and I feel like they're addressing all the right issues to really get to a good decision.
'It's going to be a good decision for college football.'