Greg Sankey insists SEC is 'going to be ready' for College Football Playoff games in cold weather

Greg Sankey has heard the narrative floating around college football. The one about how warm-blooded Southeastern Conference teams aren’t eager to play in Big Ten Country during the middle of Winter.

And, if he needed a refresher, the Indianapolis-based gang at The Pat McAfee Show were eager to remind the SEC Commissioner all about it.

Of course, Sankey didn’t back down, expressed confidence his conference’s College Football Playoff-bound programs won’t either should any have to travel North during first-round action on Dec. 20-21.

“Those guys on the line of scrimmage are going to line up with no sleeves, and it’s going to be a line-of-scrimmage game,” Sankey quipped after McAfee mentioned Indianapolis recently faced sub-zero temperatures, 50-mph winds and heavy snow that McAfee described as an “arctic tornado.”

Based on the College Football Playoff’s penultimate Top 25 rankings, two of the SEC’s four teams currently in the 12-team field would hit the road for first-round action. That includes No. 6 Ohio State (10-2) potentially hosting No. 7 Tennessee (10-2) for an 8 vs. 9-seed game in Columbus, while No. 11 Alabama (9-3) would potentially travel to South Bend, Indiana to take on No. 4 Notre Dame (11-1) in a 6 vs. 11-seed matchup.

And while College Football Playoff contenders anxiously await the release of the definitive 12-team field Sunday on Selection Day, Sankey knows the SEC representatives are more than prepared for whatever weather conditions may come into play.

“Let’s go back to last week, at the end of those eight overtimes it was in the 20s in Athens, I asked. I was at the Egg Bowl, it was cold at the Egg Bowl and a great football game,” Sankey told McAfee on Friday afternoon from inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta ahead of Saturday’s SEC Championship Game.

“It was a little warm in College Station, it was in the 50s, so that was pleasant. But we had snow in Missouri for Arkansas at Missouri, so it’s happened in this league,” Sankey continued. “I thought Josh Heupel went to the podium and said (it best), ‘Any place, any time, and if you don’t feel that way you’re just here for the cup of coffee.’ Our guys are going to be ready. We have heated benches, hot hands, gloves.”

The good thing for any SEC teams that do have to hit the road for the opening round of the Playoff, they’ll only have to deal with the winter conditions for a single game, with quarterfinal action slated for more traditional bowl sites located in more favorable cities like Glendale, Arizona (Fiesta Bowl), New Orleans (Sugar Bowl) and Pasadena, California (Rose Bowl).

“Long time ago, I was commissioner of the Southland Conference and you’d take southern teams up to Montana, now that’s cold in Missoula, Montana,” Sankey joked. “But our guys will be ready. Some global warming might help around these states.”