College football is at a precarious point over CFP expansion talks. While SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is up against the other three conferences, veteran sports commentator Paul Finebaum is on the SEC’s side. 

While discussing the push for the 24-team model and the ongoing SEC spring meeting, Finebaum shared a conversation he had with one of the conference heads.

“Jere Morehead, the President of Georgia, told me, ‘We are in anarchy right now.’ And by the way, this is a good place compared to where it will be a year from today,” he said. 

The long-time ESPN analyst made an appearance in the May 27 episode of Get Up and weighed in on college football's structural issues. Sankey and the SEC are currently lobbying for a 16-team CFP, while the Big Ten leads the expansion push. 

While the tug between Sankey and his Big Ten counterpart, Tony Petitti, is heating up, Finebaum believes that the CFP will remain at 12 teams. According to the SI report from May 27, the reason is the “stalled” debate between the two heads, who “cannot find a common ground.”

However, when asked about the possibility of the SEC branching out on its own, he said: “I don't think it's realistic right now, but there’s so many people here unhappy with where we are.” 

One obvious name is Morehead. He has been a prominent voice for the SEC in establishing its rules. 

“I think we’re getting to the point where the Southeastern Conference is going to have to create its own set of rules, enforce them against our members, and hope that we can set an example that the other Power 4 conferences will then follow,” he said on January 30, per Athens-Banner Journal. 

Kirby Smart has echoed Morehead’s sentiments.

“I've been a huge advocate that if we can't find rules that everybody plays by, then we should play on our own,” Smart told reporters. 

While this could be a significant change on the collegiate level, a plausible change is not entirely unbelievable. 

Greg Sankey Shares The SEC’s Standing Compared To Other Conferences

As the SEC continues its discussions around 16-, 20-, and 24-team models, Greg Sankey addressed a potential divide in the conference over the expansion plans. 

“It varies,” he said. “We never had a unanimous vote. I don’t think you’d have a unanimous vote right now.”

However, he is not concerned about the division in the conference or that his three counterparts are teaming up in favor of doubling the CFP size. Recently, Sankey doubled down on the SEC’s supremacy as a conference compared to the other three. 

“If you look at the entirety of our league, we are by far the most competitive, the strongest football league by far,” he said per a May 28 X post. 

The SEC also has the highest viewership. Last season, the SEC averaged 4.9 million viewers in the regular season while the Big Ten stood at 2.8 million, Sports Business Journal reported. 

As the conferences are at a crossroads over expansion, the future of college football has left many concerned. Do you agree with Finebaum? Tell us in the comments.

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Written by

Akanksha Biradar