DESTIN, Fla. — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey mentioned he talked with the league soccer coaches at size Tuesday concerning the significance of the convention championship sport and a 16-team Faculty Soccer Playoff mannequin that would come with the 5 highest-ranked convention champions and 11 at-large spots.
“They talked about — I am going to name it a 5+11 mannequin — and our personal potential to earn these berths,” Sankey mentioned on the conclusion of the second day of spring conferences. “… On the teaching degree, the query is, why would not that be positive? Why would not we do this? We talked about 16 with them. So, good dialog — not a vacation spot — however the first time I’ve had the flexibility to go actually in-depth with concepts with them.”
It was a major pivot from the highly-publicized push for automated qualifiers, significantly from the league’s athletic administrators and coaches, and introduced an surprising different. Sankey and the opposite FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua want to find out the playoff format for 2026 and past by Dec. 1.
It is a deadline Sankey mentioned is not excellent for the league’s timing to determine if it desires to stick with eight convention video games or change to 9.
“I must make a scheduling choice in 2026,” he mentioned, declining to offer a selected date.
“So after I specific frustration about delays which are occurring for selections not made, these manifest themselves each in that room. We did not spend time on the query what is the standards [for selection] seem like on this new period? We simply sort of sat round and it results the timing of different selections. We are able to management our scheduling choice. We will not management each different component round this.”
Sankey mentioned he is constructed some flexibility on the deadline, however added that he believes it may be made impartial of CFP format and the idea of play-in video games.
“You can also make selections about what you possibly can management then you possibly can have affect over different selections you do not management — you take part in,” he mentioned. “However the timing isn’t what I might have designed from an optimum standpoint.”
Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin mentioned he cannot assist a nine-game league schedule with out assured playoff entry for the SEC.
“That is onerous for me,” he mentioned. “… there’s not a assist that our league competes in the place lower than half of our members should not within the postseason aside from one, and it occurs to be the one all of us pay probably the most consideration to. Final 12 months three of our 16 groups had been within the playoff. I feel that is an issue systemically with the construction of what we’re attempting to do.”
Not everybody within the SEC is offered on automated qualifiers — for anybody. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin mentioned that after seeing the entire knowledge and analytics about who could be overlooked in a number of fashions, he thought “there’s nonetheless flaws in each system.”
He recommended a 16-team playoff with the 16 greatest groups and no ensures for anybody — together with convention champs.
“One of the best system needs to be 16,” he mentioned, “and needs to be the 16 greatest.”
