Greg Sankey evaluates state of College Football Playoff expansion

Greg Sankey has a pretty clear idea for when the College Football Playoff might expand. In a recent interview on the Paul Finebaum Show, the SEC commissioner offered insight on when he believes it might happen.

“There is what I would call ‘super majority support’ among the management committee to move forward,” Sankey said. “I think there’s a high degree of interest the way our structure is set up. We’ve got to have more supporting the endeavor. It’s not clear to me that for early movement — so the ’24 and ’25 football seasons — that there’s gonna an attitude change that allows that to happen.”

The Playoff board of managers failed to approve a proposal for an expanded 12-team field last month, casting more mystery on when it will finally happen. The goal was expand the Playoff by 2024, but now it appears 2026 is the earliest likely date. That coincides with the end of ESPN’s contract to broadcasting rights for the CFP.

But even that isn’t a given.

“We still have to make decisions for what happens with the Playoff for the ’26 season,” Greg Sankey said. “What’s really key whether its the CFP or bowl games, conversations around what that format and the future of postseason football at the college level looks like, those have to happen very soon. We’re going to work through the ‘Can we do this early?’ which would be the ’24 and ’25 seasons. It’s not clear to me that there’s a path forward to accomplish that objective. But then we’re gonna have to turn the page and whether people want 12 teams or eight teams, whether they’re saying their the most flexible or perceived to not be very flexible, we’re gonna have some work to do to see what happens with the Playoff come 2026.”

The idea of an expanded Playoff was first discussed in 2019 at the annual meeting between the board and conference commissioners. Two years later, after working through various models, a 12-team Playoff that would award bids to the six highest-ranked conference champions as well as the next six highest-ranked teams was proposed publicly.

It seemed like a watershed for the sport, with many expecting it to be approved soon after. But it never got a vote.

The talk of Playoff expansion was instead pushed to the backburner after the equally-groundbreaking change allowing college athletes to profit off of their name, image and likeness (NIL). The announcement that Oklahoma and Texas would leave the Big 12 for the SEC only added fuel to the fire. With so much change already happening, leaders started to question whether they wanted to pile on.

Even after the 2021 season, some conference commissioners, including Sankey, are still skeptical. The ACC recently joined him in his resistance, citing NIL and “the health and safety of players” as reasons for pause. Leaders are set to meet again in Dallas in the coming weeks to discuss how to move forward.

Although there are still some that hold out hope the Playoff can be expanded by 2024 or 2025, Sankey said time is running out.

“I think we’re in a nine-overtime contest,” Sankey said. “And none of us can accomplish a 2-point conversion right now. Eventually, even that game ended. So there’s an opportunity here, but I think we all — including me, including us — will have to look circumspectly at our positions.”