Greg Sankey on current state of college football: 'I'd say everything causes issues'

News has been plentiful since the college football season has ended, and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey seems to be busier than ever.

Fresh on his plate is an issue regarding Tennessee and Virginia, where a federal judge on Tuesday denied a request from the Tennessee and Virginia attorneys general to grant a temporary restraining order that would’ve effectively halted NCAA enforcement of NIL rules until further notice.

“Just look at the last 24 hours, I’d say everything causes issues,” Sankey said during an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show. “You have an announcement among three media entities about a new streaming service. You have the situation at Dartmouth, its release. You have other court filings, you have this decision about the temporary restraining order not being granted in a particular matter involving the Tennessee and Virginia attorneys general.

“That used to be like six months worth of news and college sports that’s all compressed into 24 hours and that’s just the cycle we work on.”

Of course, Sankey will be focused on the Tennessee side of the issue. Still, when Finebaum asked the commissioner to comment on the matter, Sankey deferred to those in the legal field to come up with the solution. Instead, he is choosing to focus on the SEC as a whole instead of getting bogged down in this NIL matter.

“I’m really one who thinks it’s important to look, given the environment we’re in, on big issues facing college sports, not cases,” Sankey said. “And my hope would be from a policymaking standpoint, at the national level, we could do that. We’ve got a lot ahead of us. We have a lot ahead of us in courts. A lot ahead of us in states and Congress and I would like not to be in this circumstance. But certainly, attorneys general have the right to bring this.

“It will be decided, these things are going to be argued out, and we’ll see the outcome and then how we move forward from this particular matter.”

The issue regarding Tennessee and Virginia is just one of many things to come up on Sankey’s radar recently, piling up on each other before anything can be resolved.

At least for the Tennessee a Virginia situation, the next step is clear. A preliminary injunction hearing for the case is set for Tuesday, Feb. 13, according to a report from On3’s Pete Nakos.