MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — It was only matter of time before this inevitable arrived.
The desperate lash out, the defeated try anything. But not this time, not in this specific situation.
“I don’t need lectures from others about the good of the game,” says SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.
Especially when, in his mind, he’s the one who has been working to save the ACC and Big 12’s hide all along.
He was the one who not long ago convinced his presidents in the SEC that the College Football Playoff (not an SEC playoff) was in the best interest of college football ― even thought many of those presidents were unsure of CFP expansion in the first place.
And he’s the one who, along with new working partner commissioner Tony Petitti of the Big Ten, was given all the power in the CFP by everyone else in the process ― including the Big 12 and ACC commissioners now complaining about it.
So poking the bear probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
But here we are, with the CFP on the verge of a 16-team format beginning in 2026, and the desperate have decided to speak up. Commissioners of the ACC and Big 12, whose leagues won’t get similar access – and more to the point, similar revenue – to that of the SEC and Big Ten, made statements to CBS Sports last week that looked eerily coordinated.
Both said, in part, that the “best interest of the sport” is at the forefront of every decision each has made relative to the CFP.
That didn’t sit well with the guy who was asked by the CFP board of directors to build the first 12-team playoff, then watched as petty politics delayed it for months. Apparently, the ACC’s part in the delay – the failed “Alliance” with the Big Ten and Pac-12 – was in the best interest of the sport, too.
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The Big 12 and ACC’s raids of the Pac-12, Mountain West and American Athletic conferences to save their very power conference lives was, too, in the best interest of the sport.
“You can issue your press statements, but I’m actually looking for ideas to move us forward,” Sankey said. “(The SEC) didn’t need the playoff. That was for the good of the game.”
But Sankey wasn’t done there. For the first time since he was named commissioner in 2015 and has since spoken with measured yet forceful tones, Sankey unloaded.
For 10 years he has spoken as the conference, rarely as the commissioner. It’s always “we,” never “me.”
That ended in various spots during a 45-minute state of the SEC to begin the league’s annual spring meetings — a state of the league that quickly turned into the state of college football.
And Sankey’s place in it.
“You want to go inside what it’s like to sit in this role?” Sankey said. “I think about the responsibility I have to our member institutions, and I think about the rest of college football, more broadly, all the time. I’m open to (CFP) ideas, there’s just not a lot of incoming. My phone’s not ringing off the hook with, ‘Hey, here’s another way to look at it.’”
This is more than the ACC and Big 12 looking for more access with the new CFP, which currently has a preferred model of 13 automatic qualifiers: four each for the SEC and Big Ten, two each for ACC and Big 12, one for the Group of Six, and three at-large.
This is about Sankey hearing explicitly one way from his presidents and athletic directors, and dealing with the rest of college football on another level.
Frankly, his presidents – who ultimately make all football decisions – aren’t too thrilled about the CFP process. About the format and allowances to schools who they believe are hanging on SEC financial coattails.
So when Indiana makes the CFP after beating just one team with a winning record, when SMU makes the CFP after losing its conference championship game, when Texas is a top three team but has to play a first-round game, when Tennessee is a top seven team but has to play a first-round game on the road, that’s a problem for the SEC.
We’re not that far removed from the SEC’s spring meetings in 2021, when Sankey alluded to the possibility that the conference could hold its own playoff — and the market to buy those games would be significant.
In other words, we actually can take our ball and go home.
“Our athletic directors are telling me we’ve given too much away (in the CFP) to arrive at these political compromises,” Sankey said. “How many of those compromises does it take?”
Meanwhile, these meetings began with the backdrop of the SEC’s seemingly never-ending move to nine conference games. Only now, it’s more of a financial lifeboat.
And another reason the ACC and Big 12 “best interest of the game” statements fell flat.
College sports is days from the potential approval of the groundbreaking House case that will essentially usher in pay for play — and the need for new revenue streams to pay for it. But why add another game in the best conference in college football to increase media rights revenue, when the CFP selection committee preferred wins over strength of schedule?
Why continue to work to find compromise with a CFP format that favors others based on an easier road to a better record?
So yeah, it probably wasn’t the right time for the whole best interest of the game thing.
“Ultimately, I recognize I’m the one who ends up in front of the podium, explaining not just myself, but ourselves,” Sankey said. “So yeah, good luck to me.”
Don’t poke the bear, everyone. Especially when he has all the cards.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.