So, I see this Matt Hayes piece, entitled “Greg Sankey has the power to save college football. It’s time to wield it”, and figure it’s about offering the 12-team CFP expansion plan as a way to cool things down on the realignment front. (It probably wouldn’t work, although I expect Sankey’s got more buyers for that than he did before.)
Wrong, bacon breath. Matt’s gone way out there with this:
It’s time for SEC commissioner Greg Sankey to seize control of the sudden uncertainty in college football expansion with a definitive declaration.
The SEC is sticking at 16 teams.
Forget everything you’ve heard or read or seen. Forget about the ACC being raided, or a flirtation with Notre Dame or one last dip into the state of Texas.
The SEC is sticking at 16 teams.
Sure, man. ‘Cause Greg Sankey.
Knowing all that, and knowing he and the SEC are standing on the cliff as the tip of the spear, Sankey should declare loudly and proudly that college football as we know it isn’t dead. The Playoff isn’t dead, and NIL and the transfer portal won’t take it down, either.
Embrace the moment, embrace the power of the position he built and earned — and the bully pulpit where he stands — and declare the SEC, the one true stabilizing force in all of college football, stands behind the current structure of the game.
Yeah, that’s it, Matt. The one true stabilizing force in all of college football is the conference that unlatched the barn door that’s led to the latest free for all conference realignment farce we’re watching play out. But I guess since Sankey’s got his, that gives him the gravitas to shut the door before any more ponies decide to bolt for greener pastures.
The truly detached from reality part of this is his belief that such a move would somehow — and I’m quoting here — “force the Big Ten to follow”. Seriously? As if either the Big Ten or SEC would turn down an overture to join from Notre Dame for the greater good of college football.
It’s amazing that anybody could post crap like this with a straight face. It’s as if Hayes has completely forgotten how Sankey’s last shot at the bully pulpit was strangled at birth by three other P5 commissioners, including the one he apparently believes would now have no choice but to follow Sankey’s lead. Genius take, dude.
Get The Picture 
Matt Hayes. I would say “he’s got some nerve” since he was one of the loudest whiners in the media about the BCS, but I won’t. I’m pretty sure he knows very few will even remember that ten years ago he was clamoring for the Playoff which is the single greatest destabilizer the sport has seen.
Sportswriters are the worst. Hayes gets paid to bitch about the system regardless of his arguments’ merits or their results. I guarantee that after the sport looks exactly like the NFL he will waste tons of space pining for the old BCS. Shameless.
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Whenever I see a Matt Hayes byline I always skip the article because I know reading it will make me lose IQ points and I don’t have many to spare.
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I think going beyond 16 is just stupid for many reasons – scheduling for all sports being the main one. Sure, there are some schools/brands that are valuable that aren’t in either the SEC or Big 10. It doesn’t mean the headaches are necessarily worth the additional revenue they potentially bring in.
If you go beyond 16, the scheduling challenges become unsolvable. You either have to decide every school won’t play in each other’s stadium over a 4 year period or rivalries will go down the tubes as annual games.
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Both rivalries and playing everyone in a four year period will be scrapped. NFL lite model will be two conferences, each with 4 five-team divisions. We’d keep the gators, lose Auburn in rotation, and Tech might be left behind on the island of misfits.
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I have no idea how this will work. All I know is that we’re probably not going to like the result.
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You take ESPN/Fox up one side and down the other and they do just as much harm as good.
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Totally against expanding just for expansion’s sake, but I’m at the point now where I’d like to see the SEC take four more teams. Keep the OG SEC 10 on one side, have the last six expansion schools and the four new schools on the other. Have the two sides champs play in the SEC championship game. Schedule wise I wouldn’t know how to make it work other than have a priority of playing the schools on your side more. Grasping at straws at this point, but would love any attempt to keep some of the rivalries that I grew up with going.
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Stabilizing force? Say what? Didn’t the SEC start the latest battle by admitting Texas and Oklahoma?
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Pretty soon, the SEC will be as southern as Southern Living magazine. Everything south of Minnesota is southern.
I like the house plans though.
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Matt has yet to embrace the true power of the “dark side”. Use your anger Matt.
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