MARLER: Is it time for the SEC to govern itself?

By Chris Marler

It’s the SEC and then everyone else. It’s been that way for the majority of the last two decades. 

That could be the case in a much more literal way sooner rather than later. Much sooner. 

Earlier this week SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey appeared on the Paul Finebaum Show and addressed the potential of the SEC going to a more self governing model. In fact, while he’s in Nashville for the SEC Basketball Tournament, Sankey will meet with presidents from each SEC school to discuss the possibilities. 

Patience in decision making has been a key in most of the things Greg Sankey has done as commissioner for the league. He delayed as much as he could in 2020 to gather more and more information on the COVID-19 virus before making a decision on playing the season. He waited on implementing a nine game conference schedule nearly a full decade after the Big Ten and Big 12 went to that model. 

This time the patience has waned, and the frustration has set in. 

That doesn’t mean the SEC will rush into a decision. Waiting for the NCAA and/or the College Sports Commission to follow through with any remote semblance of leadership though? That ship may have sailed. 

NEW: SEC commissioner Greg Sankey acknowledges some members want to break away from the NCAA:

“I’ve acknowledged there are those who have said we should go our own way. I don’t think that’s the right decision. We have relationships and responsibilities within Division I.”

(via… pic.twitter.com/XnqkBbQCk1

— On3 (@On3) March 9, 2026

It will welcome scrutiny. It will be viewed as selfish. It will be ridiculed and mocked with ignorance and without the slightest bit of effort to objectively access the decision. That’s a common theme with outsiders, national media, and everyone outside the footprint of the SEC nowadays.  

It will also bring something else though – solutions. 

Those solutions may bring something else that everyone wants more than ever – guard rails. 

A solo entity governing itself apart from the other major conferences in collegiate sports will be a tough situation to navigate. But, similar to the decision to play the 2020 college football season, leadership and forward thinking from the SEC could be the push needed for fixing collegiate sports, maybe not all of the issues it has, but it would be a step in the right direction to fixing some of them. 

Having concrete guidelines in place for things like revenue sharing standardization, transfer rules, and tampering are things that desperately need fixing. 

That may not happen overnight, but self-governance for the good of the whole is at least a start.