Greg Sankey explains importance of maintaining, restoring historic rivalries with SEC expansion

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey had a major challenge recently with the conference’s football schedule with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma. But it wasn’t just that those teams coming in that changed the need for the football schedule.

It also impacts other sports, where the conference has to rearrange the schedules to keep those rivalry games in place as well.

Sankey said at a Texas High School Coaches Association press conference that it is important for the conference to keep historic rivalries in place and also try to bring back old battles as new teams return.

“Georgia Tech left and we have a Georgia Tech-Georgia game every year. We’ve got a track record of facilitating those in-state rivalries,” Sankey said. “Sometimes, you’ve seen it here, those decisions drive people away. Uniquely, the Southeastern Conference expansion restores rivalries. Obviously, Texas A&M and Texas will be played next fall. But the Arkansas-Texas series, having been there in 2004 in Fayetteville, Arkansas, I saw more private planes in the airport than I’ve seen in my life…Oklahoma-Missouri, their wrestling programs have a storied level of competition. But we’ll now have a quarter of the old Big Eight in the SEC, which people were 30 or 40 years ago but we’ve got an opportunity to restore some of those really special games.”

Sankey said the league takes pride in its ability to keep longstanding rivalries going even if one of the programs is not in the conference.

The Georgia–Georgia Tech example is one he mentions twice. Known as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate, the rivalry game has been played every year since the Yellow Jackets left the SEC ahead of the 1964 season. The one year they didn’t play was in 2020 when neither conference allowed non-conference games due to the COVID pandemic.

South Carolina and Clemson were also conference rivals in the SoCon and then the ACC for many years before the Gamecocks left the ACC after the 1970 season. They were independent for two decades before joining the SEC.

But once again, the rivalry game has been played every year since the two programs split from the same conference except for 2020.

“There are really two components,” Sankey said about keeping rivalries. “One, we’ve honored people working and playing. Again, I’ll use Georgia Tech-Georgia. Georgia Tech left the SEC yet they still play Georgia. South Carolina left Clemson and they still play and we facilitate that along with our conference colleagues. So we can facilitate that if people want it to happen. We’re also proud about the rivalries which we’ve restored.”

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey on conference realignment and the importance of maintaining/restoring historic rivalries pic.twitter.com/Bjs5iazlF1

— Josh Criswell (@criswell_sports) July 16, 2023