Greg Sankey — SEC Commissioner

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey took the stage first, and he offered a glimmer into the future of college football. Sankey is one of the sport’s premier power players, and when he speaks on topics like NIL, realignment, and playoff expansion, his words matter. Before he could answer the questions of the assembled fourth estate, he spoke at length of the glories and accomplishments of the SEC. Sankey used a lot of time to eloquently deliver a message that can be distilled into four words: “It just means more.” 

Sankey’s comments about NIL were predictable: the spirit is good, but the letter of the law is weak, and we need uniform guidelines. Ditto for his thoughts on conference realignment: the SEC is comfortable in its strength and will continue to act in its own best interest. On playoff expansion, he was more illuminating, sharing that he is against automatic qualifiers for a four-, six-, or eight-team bracket, but offered AQs as a solution in a 12-team bracket in the last round of discussions. The implication is that the now-defunct Alliance squashed that offer because they were still in their feels about Oklahoma and Texas realigning.

The most important topic Sankey covered was hinting about the structural rot in the NCAA and its future as the governing body of college sports. This came during his prepared remarks, and he skirted specifics while still being pointed in his message: 

“The national issues, though, go beyond the Southeastern Conference, beyond the College Football Playoff, beyond conference membership changes, and include important conversations about the future of the NCAA and its ability to be effective at leading the overall collegiate athletics enterprise. So those issues include the need for a meaningful membership process, dealing with enforcement and infractions issues where college athletes face uncertainty and penalties related to actions that may have taken place when they were in junior high or elementary school. We’re going to have to determine how to make effective decisions in Division I. There are incredible disparities around revenue, around expenses, around support and around expectations in this division. It makes it difficult to ensure the presence of shared values and common purpose around supporting athletics programs.”

Sankey did not say it outright, but he is laying the groundwork for the eventual split from the SEC and, if other schools/football programs care to join, from the NCAA entirely.

Brian Kelly — LSU Head Coach

LSU’s new head man took the stage next and put on a clinic in coach-speak, giving artfully crafted non-answer answers to a series of questions. Brian Kelly’s most thoughtful and introspective moment came when he was asked by Chris Marler of Saturdays Down South about the best food he has enjoyed since moving to The Bayou (Kelly answered crawfish etouffee and grilled oysters, if you were wondering).

Lane Kiffin — Ole Miss Head Coach

Lane Kiffin delivered another half hour of beautiful coach-speak, although he did find time to rail against the perceived villains of the sport. He had choice words for the pervasive evils of NIL as recruiting inducement, for big money in conference realignment, for people talking too much about Alabama, for neckties, and for Tennessee fans. 

There was one actual interesting football question from The Action Network’s Collin Wilson, who informed Kiffin that his 2021 team had set an FBS record for attempted fourth-down conversions in a season. Kiffin was impressed with this information and spoke to using analytics to make decisions and the perils of doing so as the head coach of a high-profile football team. It was a thoughtful and illuminating answer to a good question. Oh yeah, and some zings about mustard bottles.

Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri Head Coach

Rounding out the day was Eli Drinkwitz, who topped them all with an absolute masterclass in coach-speak. The “Alpha Nerd” was asked a bunch of questions about nothing, and answered a bunch of questions with nothing. This was disappointing from Drinkwitz, who in the past has been more than willing to deliver some zingers in front of a microphone. Today, Drinkwitz took a piece of advice from Proposition Joe on HBO’s “The Wire,” who told Stringer Bell: “Keep it boring, String. Keep it dead f***ing boring.” 

Day 2 continues with more coach-speak and more NIL ranting with Nick Saban, Mike Leach, Clark Lea, and Shane Beamer. Hopefully The Pirate and The GOAT are willing to break the mold a little bit.