Greg Sankey: College football should 'think carefully' on its impact for high school football

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said college football needs to be careful about its impact on high school football.

With the way the sport is going these days, it could have a trickle down effect on the high school game. NIL is the biggest question moving forward. It’s complicated enough in college football.

Sankey doesn’t want any potential missteps in the college game to vastly affect kids in high school.

“I go back to my central New York days,” Sankey said. “There were a couple of high schools that were the powers back in my younger days and now either don’t have programs or have one combined program between two high schools.

“(We also have) colleges playing on Friday night for TV … we better think carefully about our impact on high school football when in fact, I encourage more attention to high school football, we’re doing that in recruiting.”

High school coaches at premier institutions talked to Sankey and vice versa. There’s concern at the high school level.

“I just asked my high school coaches, what am I going to do about name, image and likeness migrating to the high school level, the promises being made, that aren’t verifiable with no indication of what’s real,” Sankey said. “That’s what’s now happening in high school football.

“And I think there’s a continuum of realities that we encounter that have filtered down. We need to take a step back and think whether it’s TV, recruiting, NIL, this transfer mentality, about the long term impacts of our decision.”

When you look at NIL, each state makes its own rules and legislation regarding NIL. Not only that, each state has its own transfer portal rules, based on the scholastic association in a respective state.

For example, the NJSIAA in New Jersey would set the rules regarding transfer eligibility throughout an athlete’s options in high school football, and other sports.

Future SEC member and Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione echoed comments his current Big 12 commissioner, Brett Yormark, made to On3 that it’s necessary for stakeholders to explore a backup plan because federal legislation is “not a slam dunk.” Basically, get started on a Plan B.

“Exactly,” Castiglione said. “And [a Plan] C and D and E. There has to be scenario planning. We always talk about something after it is passed. Why are we letting that happen? Get in front of this.”

This is a different ball game, no pun intended, from the pros. Especially in the cases of football and basketball. But high school and college are directly linked on how NIL and the transfer portal move forward.