Four Means More: SEC commish Greg Sankey issues blunt reminder on CFP expansion

Minus the Southern accent and dirty garbs, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey did his best Ernest T. Bass impersonation earlier this week. 

Sankey didn’t think the rest of college football needed a reminder, but just in case, he chewed his cabbage twice and delivered a warning shot to the rest of the sport. 

“I was sitting there watching the National Championship (against Georgia and Alabama), and I thought they just thought I wasn’t serious when I said we can leave it at four,” Sankey said Monday, per al.com, at the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame museum in Birmingham. 

“People apparently didn’t take me seriously. I don’t think people heard me when I said we are fine with it staying at four.”

While College Football writ large continues to bicker over the future of the sport — be it NIL, conference realignment or College Football Playoff expansion — the SEC sits in the catbird seat, flourishing in the current model and in no rush to cede its position.

Greg Sankey was right to issue another straightforward salvo to a group of CFB power brokers that routinely gets in their own way. 

The SEC never asked for the current four-team model to be reevaluated, but because many believe it is better for college football collectively if more teams get a bite at the apple, Sankey openly supported the 12-team format for the CFB Playoffs starting in 2026.

Expansion would bring more conferences and teams into the equation, the financial pool would be markedly enhanced, and selfishly (with good reason) for Sankey, it would likely provide opportunities for three or maybe four SEC schools to get into the dance each year. 

And yet, as CFP expansion seemed imminent last year, the 12-team proposal suddenly had its detractors after Oklahoma and Texas announced their future move to the SEC. The proposal officially died in February after the worst Alliance since the Starks and the Freys — the ACC, Pac-12 and Big Ten — all voted against it during a College Football Playoff meeting. 

Well, they Red Wedding’d themselves.

Sankey didn’t even wait for an invitation for his own First Take segment for an I-told-you moment Monday, saying, “We have regions that don’t access the playoffs.

“We’re trying to enhance the meaning of conference championships, provide access for independents in a way that would be equitable, and engage fanbases differently. It seemed like a reasonable approach, but some adults said no, and we didn’t move forward with expansion.”

Sankey can say as much with a shrug and sly grin because basic math is on his side. Four Means More to the SEC than any other conference.

Since the CFP’s existence starting in 2014, the SEC is the only conference to have at least one team in the field. The league is the only conference to place two schools in the playoff, something it has done twice including last season when Georgia and Alabama both made it and eventually met in the national championship game for the second time in four years. The SEC has won the CFP five times, including three straight years by three different programs (LSU, Alabama and Georgia). The league has had at least one representative in the title game every year except for the inaugural CFP Championship Game featuring Ohio State and Oregon. 

The current CFP contract expires after the 2025 season and there’s nothing on books — not bowl or media relationships, no CFP format, etc. — dictating the future of the sport. That’s a major problem for the Big 12s, Pac-12s and ACCs or the sport, but Sankey has made it abundantly clear the SEC is no longer in a benevolent mood. The SEC was willing to make some minor concessions for the 12-team model. It’s no longer eager to kowtow to the needs of others now though. 

“We felt the responsibility to be a contributor to the conversation in the spirit of compromise and collaboration that we’ve seen with the creation of the playoff to that same approach,” Sankey said. 

“It didn’t work.”

Undoubtedly, a 12-team playoff would give the SEC even more opportunities to exert its dominance, but you know which conference would’ve placed the most teams in the field (using past CFP rankings) if the proposed model existed since 2014? 

The Big Ten. 

And yet, multiple Power 5 conference commissioners got spooked by Texas and OU’s move, self-sabotaging their own paths to potential success by refusing to see the forest for the trees. Their loss only strengthens the SEC’s future leverage. 

The conference is projected to have as many seven or eight teams ranked in the preseason polls, including three in the Top 5 — Alabama, Georgia and Texas A&M — with legitimate CFP hopes. It wouldn’t surprise anyone, especially Sankey, if come December we’re debating a field with more than one SEC school in it and other multiple conferences complaining about missing the dance. 

“We can stay at four. This conference will thrive at four,” Sankey said.

“Period. That’s not healthy for the rest of college football, but we can stay at four.”