RELATED: Why isn\u2019t Kirby Smart getting more attention at SEC Media Days<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWhat does Mike Elko want? 40. Then I won\u2019t get fired,\u201d the Texas A&M coach said, speaking tongue in cheek and in third person. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to find a number that allows everyone to get in \u2014 it\u2019s OK for it to be hard to get into the playoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of us (coaches) are answering for the good of the sport. We are answering for the good of ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sankey said he\u2019s open to to the 24-team expansion, but the SEC \u2014 which is a broadcast partner of ESPN \u2014 is contracted to play the SEC championship game through 2031.<\/p>\n
A 24-team playoff could lead to the elimination of the highly-rated \u2014 and financially lucrative \u2014 SEC championship game along with those in other conferences.<\/p>\n
Sankey acknowledged it\u2019s a major question without providing any further speculation or answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe calendar is challenging; there is a line embedded in the current version of the Protect College Sports Act (bill) that the football season be fully completed by January 8th,\u201d Sankey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think through the implications of particularly that date \u2026. you have to find places to play the games, (and) you have to think about whether overlap of those games when they\u2019re played is acceptable or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, who\u2019s on record supporting a 24-team field, noted the same scheduling challenges with field expansion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been vocal about the idea that if you have a championship, and you have teams that truly could win a championship, and they\u2019re not invited, which we experienced a few years ago, and others have experienced the last couple years, you don\u2019t have the right format,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it is about greater access \u2026. I have continued to advocate that we should increase,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would absolutely have to alter the regular season, when we start, and the calendar is really compressed. We\u2019d have to deal with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brett Yormark, the Big 12 commissioner, addressed their financial piece of the puzzle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do need to understand the economics \u2014 is there a marketplace to go to 24?\u201d Yormark said. \u201cWe have to understand the scheduling dynamic and what that means and the unintended consequences \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti will address the CFP field issue when the league holds its media days event July 28-30 in Chicago<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has heard all the talk of college football moving to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[247452,399,121758,247453,331272,253135,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-777114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-cfp-2025","tag-football","tag-football-2025","tag-football-2026","tag-georgia-offensive-lineman-malachi-toliver-51","tag-georgia-quarterback-gunner-stockton-14","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}