Greg Sankey provides five-year outlooks for SEC amid conference realignment

Conference realignment has remained a major topic of conversation in college football with more changes in the landscape coming. It’s an issue that the SEC and Commissioner Greg Sankey are aware of moving forward.

As Sankey explained during an appearance on The Triple Option, the SEC is happy with how new members Texas and Oklahoma are transitioning to the conference. On top of that, he shared what he thinks is the five-year outlook for the SEC amid conference realignment.

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“We’ve worked hard because it’s been a three-year transition process,” Greg Sankey said. “I think the longest change from announcement to entry of a new member, ever, that I’ve experienced and that’s because of contracts and media agreements. But that’s allowed us to prepare so that the transition has been close to seamless. I’ll go back to during those three years we wanted to be respectful. There wasn’t a lot of flag waving. You didn’t see our logos in Norman or in Austin. We certainly talked were about. Then when we came to June 30th, July 1st, couple of big celebrations. Now, they want to beat our teams that are conference members and our teams want to beat them.”

Already, both Texas and Oklahoma have made their impact felt on the football field this first season in the conference, with Texas ranked second in the AP Top 25 Poll and Oklahoma playing in a pair of games against marquee opponents in the SEC.

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“That’s the natural order of things and I think, for example, you saw in Austin they played Mississippi State and it ends up being a tough game just because of talent and focus on conference games,” Sankey said. “Oklahoma lost that first game but just a tough game to Tennessee at home.”

Looking forward, Sankey made it clear that the SEC isn’t against adding more schools. However, before they do so, they want to make sure they find teams that fit the culture well. He also made it clear how much success the conference is having at its current size.

“Across the board, I think just really good fits,” Sankey said. “As I look out five years, I’m not focused on numbers. I think the quality of our 16 members stands unique by comparison. In other words, above in a unique way. Competitively, across the board, we have 22 championships. 11 of the sports we sponsor have the defending national champion in our league this year. So, last year our 16 teams won half the national championships. We didn’t win football last year, which was disappointing. So, I think there’s great strength, great attention. We’ve had great viewership so far. We have a new relationship from a media standpoint that’s working well and we can stay at 16.”

Around college football, there is still a large amount of realignment in progress. That has included both the Pac-12 and Mountain West trying to add schools and solidify their position while Clemson and Florida State are in the midst of separate lawsuits against their own conference.

“I am highly attentive to what happens around me, though, and we’ll be prepared if further adjustment is needed,” Sankey concluded.