Southeastern Conference Commissioner GREG SANKEY (photo courtesy of Southeastern Conference)
At the SEC Spring Meetings, Commissioner Greg Sankey said the league will not take a firm stance this week on expanding the College Football Playoff from 12 to 24 teams. Sankey says instead, they will use the meetings to brief university leaders and coaches on the pros and cons of an expansion.
“We don’t just leap to a decision, which is what my opening remarks indicated. We’ll spend time hearing and learning, without making a decision at this point, because part of what we have is time,” Sankey said.
College football leaders have until December 1st to decide if they want to expand the CFP to 24 teams, 16 teams or stay at 12 for the 2027 season. The Big 10, ACC and the Big 12 have all said the CFP should expand to 24 teams and there are also SEC coaches who support it as well. Sankey says he prefers an expansion to 16 teams over 24 teams.
“I’m not an opponent of 24 or 28. We have to inform the decision-making. I think we did a good job informing our position last year on 16. We’ll consider other ideas, certainly this week and moving forward,” Sankey noted.
Based on polling, a vast majority of college football fans oppose a 24-team playoff, while coaches might support it because if they can make the playoff, it provides more job security. Sankey says right now, every regular season college football game matters; that could change if the CFP is expanded to 24 teams.
“Go to 24, and maybe one or two of those games don’t matter in the same way. Rivalry games will matter, I would argue; but hey, if you’ve got somebody that needs to rest because they’re at 24, those are the things that we want to try to understand,” Sankey explained.
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