SEC Commissioner On Conference Expansion: ‘We Don’t Need to Be in Four Time Zones to Generate Interest on the West Coast’

In a busy week for conference realignment, the SEC is not looking to add any more teams, Commissioner Greg Sankey said on "The Paul Finebaum Show."

In the podcast episode, which dropped Tuesday, Sankey reiterated that the SEC is focused on the addition of Texas and Oklahoma, which will begin in 2024. With the inclusion of the two former Big 12 teams, the SEC conference will grow from 14 to 16 institutions. Otherwise, he said, the conference is not actively recruiting other schools.

"We're in an enormously healthy place," Sankey said.

In the episode, Sankey criticized the role of money in many of these decisions, saying: "Money should follow that shouldn't be in the lead."

As for the SEC: "We have this contiguous group that has a national platform. We don't need to be in four time zones to generate interest on the West Coast," Sankey said.

Texas and Oklahoma's move, along with last summer's announcement that USC and UCLA would switch from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten, were the first dominos to fall in a flurry of realignments. The latest wave has left behind a decimated Pac-12 and a bloated Big Ten and Big 12.

On the podcast, Sankey said the SEC's acquisition of Texas and Oklahoma, despite the initial surprise of the announcement, involved order and respectful communication. "I think the speculation and some of the pronouncements we've seen since that time about growth and directional growth is problematic," Sankey said.

Sankey also expressed concern about how conference realignment will affect the newly reorganized College Football Playoff, which will be expanded to 12 teams potentially as soon as 2024.

"We've not seen a west of the Rockies participant in the playoffs since I believe 2016. And so the expansion was about making sure we brought in western football," Sankey said. "Well, now what's happened is western football has come into other conferences."