Greg Sankey clears the air on what ‘SEC breakaway’ talk really means

Where can the NCAA draw the line when it comes to identifying and enforcing tampering as programs look to lure players into the transfer portal?

SEC leadership has been as frustrated with the lack of enforcement and consistency as any league, and that’s led to talk of a “breakaway” that some have apparently misconstrued.

Greg Sankey, the SEC’s commissioner, sought to clear the air with CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello in a recent interview.

“The headline developed that there’s some breakaway being considered, (and) that’s not actually what the answer was,” Sankey said. “What we actually talked about was conference-led change, like should we have different policies for ourselves that make more sense than simply saying we follow eligibility rules?”

In other words, Sankey indicated, the SEC does not have plans to “take its ball and go home,” so to speak.

“We also understand we have responsibly beyond just our 16 teams,” Sankey said. “America expects (college basketball) March Madness .... that’s part of American culture, (and) they expect Cinderella stories.”

Sankey pointed to the College World Series, where an Oklahoma team that finished under .500 in SEC play and tied for 11th in the league defeated North Carolina in the championship series.

“You saw it this year and last year in Omaha (at the College World Series), teams that you wouldn’t have expected to make it through it,” Sankey said.

Then there are the potential legal ramifications that the SEC would have to deal with if it stepped away from the rest of collegiate athletics.

“I think if we just walked away from the NCAA, whether we were frustrated or not, we’d be back in front of Congress in a conversation,” Sankey said. “My observation of our league is that’s not a priority.

“There’s frustration from us asking, there has to be a better way, and we’re trying to work to improve the system.”

Sankey spoke Monday at SEC media days and was asked about the SEC “potentially breaking away” from the college structure as we know it, and if that threat was being used as “leverage.”

Sankey said the threat was “real,” and SEC leaders are frustrated to the point of wanting to look “at something significantly different.”

Sankey noted the SEC has policed itself more aggressively than other leagues in recent history.

“We have regulated ourselves more progressively than other colleagues by choice, across our league,” Sankey said. “We’ve had different academic eligibility restrictions in the past. So, we have different transfer restrictions in the past.

“Some of what you hear comes out of a culture that we can regulate ourselves.”

Georgia president Jere Morehead first floated the “breakaway” concept last January, and football coach Kirby Smart has echoed that sentiment.

“If we don’t get federal intervention, in my opinion, we are going to have to do this conference by conference,” Morehead said at UGA’s board of directors spring meeting in May.

“We can’t allow the Wild West to continue any longer, so I’m prepared to next week in Destin (at the SEC spring meetings) to be ready to vote on creating an SEC mechanism and SEC rules, if that’s what we have to do, if Congress isn’t going to act as they should.”

The bipartisan Protect College Sports Act of 2026 is under consideration in Congress, but the SEC and Big Ten have issues with it.

“We believe changes to the act are necessary to make it most effective,” Sankey said, “and the changes we’ve suggested are both achievable and reasonable, and we’re committed to working with Congress to move the legislation across the finish line.”

One of the biggest parts of the bill the SEC is against allows leagues to pool their media rights. Another issue is a portion of the bill that addresses the formation of super leagues. The SEC and Big Ten have requested changes be made to the bill before they endorse its passage.