TAMPA, Fla. -- SEC commissioner Greg Sankey on Wednesday reiterated that his conference leaders have had conversations about self-governance, but told ESPN the idea of the SEC creating its own rules is "not new" and "it's not a breakaway" from the NCAA.
Frustrations throughout college athletics have reached a boiling point at every level, but the preference within the SEC and other leagues remains getting help from Congress in the form of federal legislation. With the clock ticking on Capitol Hill, though, SEC leaders for months have been talking about other options.
"Those frustrations are real," Sankey said. "What we want to do is make the system better, and if people want to focus on breakaway on the outside, fine.
But we focus on different things internally." Following Sankey's opening comments at the lectern Monday at the beginning of SEC media days, multiple sources confirmed to ESPN that there have been additional conversations about the SEC considering playing entirely conference games in all sports. Sankey, though, warned of broader national implications, including potential legal problems for the conference.
He pointed to the importance of the NCAA-run championships in all sports except football, which is run through the College Football Playoff. "American culture expects March Madness to happen," he said.
"They expect a Cinderella story. They expect whatever it is, 30 automatic bids to exist.
They expect the Southland Conference to have a seat at the table, and we have to be sensitive to that. We have HBCUs in our footprint that are attached to Division I, and I communicate with my colleague from the SWAC regularly.
"I know that if there was just a breakaway, we'd be in front of Congress explaining ourselves there, and so that is not a leading issue," he said. "Has it been talked about?
I was honest in answering that: Yes. But why do they talk about that?
Because there's frustration." In early March, SEC commissioners and chancellors met in Nashville, Tennessee, to begin early discussions about self-governance options for the league if Congress doesn't enact federal legislation that standardizes rules. Sankey used the NCAA's challenges with enforcing player eligibility rules as an example, pointing out that the SEC has its own rules about eligibility -- based on the NCAA's.
"But because of waivers, because of lack of clarity that seems to exist, that causes people to say, 'Should we be more specific about our own eligibility rules?'" Sankey said. "I think those are reasonable outcomes from the frustration that exists." A major decision could be looming: Settle for federal legislation the SEC doesn't entirely agree with, or move forward with no legislation at all.
"We'll have to make that decision when we see what's produced from the ongoing conversation," Sankey said. "We've identified what we think are common sense improvements ...
we'll see if adjustments are made, and then consider our position based off of the legislation we can actually review."