Paul Finebaum reveals what he expects to hear from Greg Sankey at SEC media days

There’s light at the end of the offseason tunnel. SEC Media Days get underway July 17 as all 14 teams converge on Nashville as the season gets closer.

It also means commissioner Greg Sankey will take the podium. SEC Network host Paul Finebaum is preparing for some forward thinking from arguably the most influential person in college sports.

Finebaum shared his expectations for Sankey’s address at Media Days. Although conference realignment is sure to be a big topic with Texas and Oklahoma entering the league next year, Finebaum doesn’t expect the commissioner to dive too far into it.

Instead, he expects more big-picture subjects such as NIL.

“Well, the positives write themselves,” Finebaum said on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “All you have to do is look at look at a Twitter feed and there’s something about the SEC, whether it’s last night in baseball or a couple weeks ago or whenever. But I think he’ll look ahead. He is a visionary commissioner. I don’t think he’ll get too deep into realignment, because that is really for next year. But I think I’ll talk about the future of the game and the issues that encompass that. I do know that the commissioner spends a great deal of time preparing for this moment.

“It’s a big moment. Because not only are the people in that room paying attention, the people watching on television, but everyone in college sports is looking for a signal, a sign, three puffs of white smoke from from Greg Sankey into, really, what is his thought process in relation to the biggest issues in college sports? Which are NIL, safety, alignment and down the road. So that is always something that you can’t always very easily predict, but you know you’re going to get it”

There are sure to be plenty of storylines at SEC Media Days, and Finebaum pointed out a few he thinks fans will hear a lot about. One is at Georgia as Kirby Smart deals with some off-the-field issues after winning a second consecutive national championship. Another is with Alabama and Nick Saban after the Crimson Tide missed the College Football Playoff a year ago.

The college football world will be watching as media days get underway. Monday morning, the SEC announced which players would be in attendance for the event. SEC Media Days run July 17-20 from the Grand Hyatt in Nashville.