Greg Sankey predicts whether college football will have commissioner

People long to have a college football commissioner in some circles and count Greg Sankey among those talking about it.

The SEC commissioner is one of the most powerful figures in college athletics, but even he can’t control or fix everything. A commissioner of college football would be a nice first step, but there’s a whole new world of problems once you open up that can of worms.

Sankey explained when he joined The Triple Option Podcast.

“It’s interesting because it used to be called a czar,” Sankey said. “And I point out, like the czar thing didn’t work really well. I’ll go back to COVID. So it’s a simple observation. Somebody should be in charge, right? Okay, go back to COVID. That wouldn’t have worked very well, and we had to make some decisions based on the information, justified as being appropriate to provide opportunities, keep people connected to their team, rather than this notion of just canceling things and losing a year in life, and you never get the year back. 

“And I identify that to say that means that people are going to have to give authority someplace other than their local group, which they’ve agreed to be a part of voluntarily. I think that’s a big conversation. I think there’s probably more of that conversation happening now because of the disdain for what’s happened in some compartments.” 

Greg Sankey talks potential College Football Commissioner

Just putting someone like Sankey or another figure in that position wouldn’t be the magic fix.

“But just having a commissioner wouldn’t solve the transfer portal and the legalities around that,” Sankey said. “It wouldn’t solve the name, image and likeness issues. It wouldn’t resolve lawsuits. And so we have to deal with what’s in front of us. We have to deal with that in the system we have, and it’s going to have to adapt. Would that lend itself to some kind of central coordination? I think that’s a lot more difficult proposition that people understand, and that’s why I go back to the COVID example to say: that didn’t work so well. 

“And you could put in these independent entities, some central authority, and have your own level of walk away, if you will, from decisions. So it’ll be talked about. I’ve studied it a little bit, and I come back to: I don’t want to dumb down the Southeastern Conference to be part of some Super League notion of 70 teams that some people speculate would happen. They want to be us, and that’s on them to figure it out, not on me to bring myself back to Earth.”

Who’s the new college football commissioner?

Would Sankey take the job? He didn’t exactly say no, but he was pretty clear about his role.

“I love my job here, so I’m going to be commissioner of the Southeastern Conference,” Sankey said. “I avoid hypotheticals like that, because I know the work that’s needed to achieve that type of outcome. And I think generally, and I mean this respectfully to the question, Rob, there’s a naivete about what that means. 

“And that’s why I try to go back to a tangible example of what it would have meant during a period of time. Like I once said, yeah, we could make our own decision in May of ‘20 about playing that fall, and like the world flipped out. But we had the independence to make our decision so people have to think long and hard about what it actually means before they sign on and that would include me.”