Greg Sankey says SEC not eyeing more expansion. Should we believe him? | Toppmeyer

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. – Before the SEC and Big Ten became the first 16-team super-leagues of the College Football Playoff era, there was the Western Athletic Conference.

A conference ruled by BYU in the 1980s and ‘90s, the WAC became 16 teams deep in 1996, aided by the infusion of former Southwest Conference teams. The conference spanned from Honolulu to Houston up to Laramie, Wyoming.

The union didn’t hold. By 1999, the WAC had halved to eight after the Mountain West Conference formed. In 2012, it played its final FBS season with seven members.

The WAC serves as a cautionary tale about a conference growing in number while neglecting vision.

So, don’t try to convince SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey that bigger is automatically better in the conference expansion wars, even though his conference set this carousel in motion in 2021 with its seizures of Oklahoma and Texas.

And, don’t assume the SEC itches to sprint toward additional expansion, even as the Pac-12 wobbles, the ACC squabbles and the Big 12 tries to gobble.

“Our focus is on the 16,” Sankey said this week at SEC spring meetings. “Others have taken approaches behind microphones to say, ‘We’re pursuing members. We’re pursuing members in this region.’ I’ve not done that. I think I have a responsibility to actually not do that. … Go back to those who have spoken and the tumult that causes.”

Indeed, while the Pac-12 remains in hurry-up-and-wait mode for a media rights deal, speculation bubbles over whether Colorado will stay put or return to the Big 12.

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The Big 12 has been open with its goal of expansion. As it stands, the Big 12 will be at 12 teams in 2024, following the additions of BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF and the exit of OU and Texas.

For now, the realignment spotlight is brightest west of the Mississippi River. Conferences with expiring media rights deals are vulnerable to raids. Exhibit A: The Pac-12, which has a deal expiring in 2024 and became weakened after the Big Ten peeled off Southern Cal and UCLA.

If the Big Ten covets additional members, it could surpass the SEC in number.

“Why would we be concerned about that?” Sankey told me this week, when I asked whether another conference surpassing the SEC in membership would be a concern. “We’re not playing catchup to anyone. … We’re not going to make decisions based just on somebody else’s actions.”

At 15 members, the ACC had outnumbered the SEC before the Oklahoma and Texas additions, although Notre Dame football remains independent, making the ACC a 14-team football league.

The WAC once had four more members than the SEC.

“For those who say you should just go to some number, I’ve never seen a sophisticated analysis of why,” Sankey said. “If you’re going to have 20 members, are you going to play 10 (conference) football games on a Saturday? Where are those going to be? Are you going to play Thursday, Friday and Saturday and crush high school football? I think the notion of a number is a completely incorrect objective.”

So, if not growing in number, what’s the objective?

Money is a key driver of expansion. The 1992 arrival of Arkansas and South Carolina allowed the SEC to conduct a conference championship. The SEC foresaw its trendsetting conference championship as a revenue windfall. Then arrived revenue giant Texas A&M and Missouri, as the SEC extended its media market territory in advance of the SEC Network’s successful launch. OU and Texas provided the SEC with two of college sports’ biggest brands not already stationed in either the SEC or Big Ten.

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But those past additions also share a commonality of the SEC’s methodical growth into contiguous-state terrain, while preserving the conference’s well-manicured Southern identity. Its members mostly mesh in culture.

You don’t need to be a cartographer to see that North Carolina would expand the SEC into a contiguous state without betraying the conference’s brand. If UNC were added to the SEC footprint, then Virginia or Virginia Tech could snap into place as the next puzzle piece on the map.

However, ACC members’ movements are hindered by a grant of rights deal that runs through 2036. The ACC is the only Power Five conference that hasn’t been involved in this round of realignment, and its long-term media contract serves as a firewall against members exiting.

The SEC cloaked its plunder of OU and Texas until the final hour, so Sankey’s vow that additional expansion has “not been at the forefront” of the conference’s outlook may provide little comfort to leagues guarding against raids.

But, the SEC’s past maneuvers suggest it will remain uninterested in adding further turbulence to the Pac-12’s choppy waters, and the ACC’s membership remains glued by contract, if not harmony.

That makes 16 the number – at least for now.

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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