Greg Sankey Says CFP Talks Were 'Unsatisfactory,' Rejects 24-Team Playoff at SEC Media Days

Greg Sankey opened SEC Media Days on Monday, July 20, in Tampa the same way he's opened a lot of recent press conferences: complaining that the College Football Playoff selection committee doesn't fully grasp how tough the SEC's schedule really is.

According to On3's Brett McMurphy, Sankey told reporters, "We had what I would call an unsatisfactory conversation with College Football Playoff staff at spring meetings. We have questions about their understanding the strength of the SEC." He added that the SEC has "heard about strength of schedule, strength of record" without feeling the committee actually credits it.

Sankey also used the podium to pour cold water on the 24-team playoff model that the Big Ten has been pushing, according to Sports Illustrated. "We don't have any idea in the clear interests of the media in an expanded playoff. We do know what happened when we went to 12," Sankey said, per McMurphy. He cited calendar problems and the difficulty of finding host sites as reasons to hold the line at the current 12-team format.

That position isn't new. Sports Illustrated noted Sankey told Paul Finebaum back in April that the conference needs to "do the homework before expanding again," and at spring meetings in May he said flatly that "college football isn't a tournament sport." Monday's comments confirm months of Big Ten lobbying, which has also pulled in the ACC and Big 12 on the 24-team push, haven't moved him.

The Numbers Sankey Is Arguing Against

The SEC has been shut out of the national championship game for three straight seasons, according to Fox News. Last season, the conference went 1-8 in bowl games against other Power 4 teams and 0-3 in the College Football Playoff itself.

Over the last three playoff tournaments, counting games against non-Power 4 opponents and in-conference matchups, the SEC is 5-9. The Big Ten, by contrast, is 13-5 over the same stretch, per Fox News.

Fox News also pointed to Alabama's 2025 season as the clearest example of the SEC getting benefit of the doubt from the selection committee rather than the reverse. The Crimson Tide lost to Florida State, a team Fox News described as "atrocious," and got blown out by Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. Alabama still made the playoff field. Fox News noted this marked the first time in the selection committee poll's history that a team lost its conference championship game and didn't drop in the rankings, with voters apparently crediting Alabama simply for reaching the SEC title game and playing Georgia close.

Five of the 12 teams in last year's playoff field came from the SEC. That's the largest share of any conference. Sankey, per Fox News, complained at the time that it should have been even more.

A Fair Reading of Sankey's Argument

Strength-of-schedule complaints aren't pure noise. The SEC plays an eight-game conference slate with no divisions and a rotating cross-conference schedule that regularly pits ranked teams against each other on a near-weekly basis in the fall. If the selection committee's model doesn't fully account for that gauntlet, that's a legitimate process question, not just conference chauvinism. Sankey's opposition to 24 teams also rests on real logistical concerns: calendar compression and where games would even be hosted, concerns that other commissioners have raised too.

A conference that just went 5-9 across three playoff cycles, while being handed the benefit of the doubt on a one-loss-in-the-title-game Alabama team, has a hard time arguing it's being shortchanged. Fox News made that tension the center of its piece, framing Sankey's complaint as the SEC wanting more preferential treatment layered on top of what it already gets.

None of this is settled. The College Football Playoff has not announced any change to the 12-team format, and no formal proposal for 2026 expansion has been adopted. The Big Ten's 24-team push, the ACC's and Big 12's alignment with it, and Sankey's resistance will keep colliding through the rest of the offseason as conferences negotiate the next playoff contract cycle. Whether the selection committee changes how it weighs SEC scheduling, or whether the format stays at 12, remains an open question heading into the 2026 season.