MARLER: Greg Sankey isn’t ruining college football
05/27/2025
By Chris Marler
Greg Sankey isn’t ruining college football. However, that narrative is slowly building steam and may very well be exactly how it’s penned in the history books.
Revisionist history isn’t anything new, especially in college football.
We are just five years removed from Greg Sankey arguably being the hero who saved the 2020 college football season. When then Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren wanted to cancel the season out of fear of COVID it was Sankey who put on his cape and saved the day.
Now, the landscape of college football has seen more changes than puberty, and that cape Sankey once donned has been tattered and torn from the frustrations of the masses that surround the sport.
Admittedly, I haven’t always been the biggest fan of Sankey’s decisions. I have been very critical of his lack of improvement in SEC officiating across all sports. And, the disparity and inequity in scheduling for newcomers like Texas and Oklahoma in year one of the league were more than obvious.
But, ruining the sport? Nah. That’s super dramatic. And, that’s coming from someone who still listens to Taking Back Sunday at 39-years-old.
Sankey isn’t ruining the sport. Greed is. Blaming him or the SEC is about as misguided as saying UCF won that 2017 national championship. Both come from the same place – SEC fatigue.
Sankey fought for his conference to get four teams in the playoff moving forward. Why wouldn’t he? It’s his job to better the conference and make the conference as present and profitable as possible. If that level of logic and reason isn’t enough for you, then also remember that the SEC has dominated the sport for the last 20 years.
Today was as pissed off as I’ve seen Greg Sankey in a public setting.
He understood the subtext of the “good of the game” question quite clearly, and he came back swinging. pic.twitter.com/IqNeghFAH5
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) May 27, 2025
In case you forgot, here are the numbers:
- At least one SEC team played for the national championship in 16 of the last 19 years
- An SEC team won the national championship in 13 of the last 19 years
- Two SEC teams have played each other for the national title three times since 2011
If you’re tired of the SEC, I get it.
I hate the Yankees. Growing up in Atlanta in the 90s and having been a Red Sox fan since I was 10, I got Yankees fatigue before I even got braces. I got tired of seeing them win at a very early age and their fans are obnoxious.
That’s what’s happening here: frustration, fandom, and, more than anything, fatigue.
Get mad all you want at the SEC getting four teams in the playoff moving forward. Just make sure that same anger is being allocated evenly to the Big Ten getting four. Make sure you get just as upset at forcing in two Big 12 teams and two ACC teams.
That seemed to go over super well last year with SMU getting in as an at-large team despite playing a strength of schedule ranked 75th nationally. That seemed fair.
While we are on the subject of the cries from the masses about how unfair college football has become, let’s not forget:
- Indiana made the CFP without a win over a ranked team and the 65th ranked strength of schedule.
- SMU made the CFP without a win over a ranked team and the 7th ranked strength of schedule.
- Boise State and Arizona State didn’t have a win over a ranked team until their conference championship games and had the 86th and 72nd ranked strength of schedules – and those teams both got a first round bye and top four seeds.
Does that seem fair? Did you watch that and say, “Yep that’s fair!” Or, did you watch that and say, “Thank God they gave it to anyone but the SEC, despite them having two teams ranked in the top four by the actual selection committee.”
You can be mad at Greg Sankey all you want, but that’s not going to keep him from doing the right thing for college football – just like it’s not going to keep the Yankees from winning.
Only time will tell whether or not history remembers it that way.