Greg Sankey details happenings of SEC coaches meetings

The SEC coaches meetings were last week in Birmingham, Ala., and there was plenty to discuss. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey opened up about that on The Paul Finebaum Show on Friday.

Sankey told Finebaum about the many discussion points the coaches had to talk about at the meetings. All 14 coaches met to talk about the state of the conference and issues related to college football.

In fact, it was the first time they were able to meet in person in some time because of the pandemic. But Sankey said they jumped right into talking about name, image and likeness out of the gate.

“This is our first time to have our football coaches in person in two years,” Sankey told Finebaum. “We met in February of 2020 with no idea that a month later, we’d be shutting everything down. So first, it was great … to have all 14 coaches back in a room together.

“There’s a lot on our table and a lot on their table, and we started right off talking about the realities around name, image and likeness. There’s been plenty said in the media, so [we] want to make sure we always have a healthy reminder that we’re in this work together. Everybody chose to be apart of the Southeastern Conference, and in that room, everyone understands that reality.”

Greg Sankey: Transfer portal was a topic of discussion at SEC coaches meetings

Another hot-button issue in college football this offseason is the transfer portal. Sankey said its impact is being felt across college football — not just in the SEC.

“[We] talked about the transfer portal, how that changes dynamics for coaches,” Sankey said. “How it changes communication with student-athletes, both those entering and those who may be departing. We actually talked a lot about the impact on high school recruiting that’s a result of the transfer trend where maybe not so much here, even though we’re still holding scholarships for future transfers, but the reduced focus on high school recruiting activity as programs at other levels of Division I wait to see kind of the fallout from transfers.

“We talked about officiating in depth, we talked about other common issues — this early signing day discussion that erupted a bit in mid-December around that early signing day that [had] implications around earlier decisions around coaching transition. So a lot of deep conversation, about five hours. Really, once we’re in that room, Paul, the distractions outside the room go away and there’s a lot of focus on the sport of college football.”