Greg Sankey’s SEC-only Playoff ploy is a laughably hollow threat

Every decade or so, a college commissioner comes out and says something so outlandish that you feel a need to triple-check whether it actually happened.

But after completing the verification process, I can report it’s true: SEC commissioner Greg Sankey is putting the idea of an all-SEC college football playoff on the table once the CFP’s current contract expires in 2025.

Sankey discussed the potential option with ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Monday.

“Commissioner Sankey has encouraged our athletic directors to think creatively,” Florida AD Scott Stricklin noted in the story. “And an SEC-only Playoff is a different idea that we should absolutely consider an option.”

The soon-to-be-16-team SEC would look into staging its own 8-team Playoff to crown a “national champion.”

“We need to engage in blue-sky thinking, which is you detach from reality,” Sankey told Thamel. “What are the full range of possibilities?”

I’m calling B.S., and that’s not short for “blue sky.”

Sankey’s master plan brings to mind another grandiose commissioner statement that was intended to rattle some cages: then-Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany’s empty threat to take the conference to Division III.

The D-III ultimatum

Around the time of the last great conference realignment chaos, the matter of paying college athletes was among the topics du jour.

Delany came up with the single most ridiculous suggestion of what might happen should players start getting money.

In 2013, he told Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples:

“It has been my longstanding belief that the Big Ten’s schools would forgo the revenues in those circumstances and instead take steps to downsize the scope, breadth and activity of their athletic programs. Several alternatives to a ‘pay for play’ model exist, such as the Division III model, which does not offer any athletics-based grants-in-aid, and, among others, a need-based financial model. These alternatives would, in my view, be more consistent with the Big Ten’s philosophy that the educational and lifetime economic benefits associated with a university education are the appropriate quid pro quo for its student athletes.”

A year later, Delany added Rutgers and Maryland to the B1G for the sole purpose of increasing revenues. Quite the opposite of forgoing them.

Less than a decade later, players have access to 3rd-party financial compensation through Name, Image and Likeness contracts. And rather than rattling a cup of change outside of its suburban Chicago headquarters, Big Ten leaders are preparing to announce a new media rights deal in the neighborhood of $1 billion.

Which brings us back to Sankey’s toothless threat of creating an all-SEC Playoff.

The B1G doesn’t need the SEC

If Sankey wants to create his own insular Playoff, he should go right ahead. Because the Big Ten is about to have a billion [expletive] dollars.

In terms of exercising perceived leverage, Sankey is as foolish today as Delany was a decade ago. The threat is too outlandish.

Let’s say the SEC actually went through with this notion. The Big Ten could rally the remainder of FBS conferences and independents together for their own tournament. One in which every conference champion actually earns a berth.

B1G commissioner Kevin Warren could turn around and say “We’re the conference of uniters, not dividers.” And because there would be 116 schools associated with the Big Ten version of the CFP compared to the SEC’s 16 teams, there’s a path to the next media rights deal being worth well north of $1 billion.

If the SEC walks, the other leagues will be glad to tell them to kick rocks. Thus, I don’t see it having legs.

But Sankey does have a point

Subtext matters here. And even though Sankey’s threat of an all-SEC Playoff is ridiculous, his overall frustration is understandable.

Playoff expansion needs to happen in the 2020s. Sankey and the SEC thought they put in the legwork to get such a thing accomplished as soon as 2024. But when news broke that Oklahoma and Texas were joining the conference, a wrench was thrown into the works.

What once seemed inevitable — a 12-team Playoff structure with only the exact format to be determined — perished on the operating table. Various reasons were cited for other conferences holding off on expansion — the ACC even went with the player health canard — but at its core, it felt like the other leagues opposed expansion simply to spite the SEC.

In their eyes, it felt like the SEC was tipping the table by adding 2 more CFP-caliber programs in Oklahoma and Texas. (This is a historical reference, please forward all Texas jokes to management.) Rather than let the SEC monopolize the field, the other conferences blew the whole thing up. (Even though percentages tell us getting 2 of 4 teams in the field suits the SEC more than putting 4 of 12 teams in the field would.)

Every conference commissioner is, last we checked, an adult. And these grownups need to start acting the part. It seems, hopefully, that the latest version of conference realignment roulette is over. Now is the time to put aside hurt feelings and figure out what CFP expansion will look like.

Sure, the SEC will likely have an edge in getting teams into the field. But that’s reality. And a reality where all sides come together to solve a problem beats the heck out of a “blue sky.”

Alex Hickey

Alex Hickey is an award-winning writer who has watched Big Ten sports since it was a numerically accurate description of league membership. Alex has covered college football and basketball since 2008, with stops on the McNeese State, LSU and West Virginia beats before being hired as Saturday Tradition's Big Ten columnist in 2021. He is an Illinois native and 2004 Indiana University graduate.