The SEC may have ignited a wave of conference realignment by adding the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners to the conference, but don’t expect the conference to continue pursuing expansion anytime soon.
During the SEC’s spring meetings this week, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was asked if the conference would consider expanding at some point in the near future. And Sankey had a pretty blunt response.
“It’s not been at the forefront at all,” Sankey said according to On3. “Thinking back to my past expansion moments, nobody wanted to write about the Southland Conference power play in July of 1996 when we added Lamar and Southeastern Louisiana and did not add Centenary or Oral Roberts and UT Pan American at the time, and I never had to think of it again really in that league.”
Obviously, adding Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC was a bigger dealing than adding Lamar and Southeastern Louisiana to the Southland Conference when Sankey was commissioner back in 1996, but he made his point: the SEC thinks they’re strong enough at 16 teams.
“And here we had opportunities presented to us, but it’s really not an active thought process, period on the end of the sentence. We are though highly attentive to what’s happening around us,” Sankey said. “Those of you who were in Atlanta heard me say very clearly our focus is on 16 (teams).”
So while other conferences may pursue expansion, the SEC seems content to stay put.
[On3]
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