DESTIN, Fla. — There are two Greg Sankeys. The first one sometimes will say something that reminds you he was one of the people supporting the old ways and makes you wonder if someone who supported the old system can be trusted to build the new one.

The other Sankey, however, leaves hints that he does get it.

In his first public appearance since the historic NCAA vs. House settlement, on the eve of the SEC’s spring meetings, both sides of the SEC commissioner were on display. Which side wins out, and how quickly, will mean a lot.

The necessary background for those who need it: The NCAA has agreed to revenue sharing, directly paying its athletes, as part of last week’s settlement agreement. But it was merely one part of the larger whack-a-mole approach in dealing with college sports issues. The chaos of the transfer portal and NIL is left unresolved. And some stakeholders — media members, lawyers, advocates, coaches and administrators speaking privately — believe having a collective bargaining agreement with the athletes is the only way to do that.

But the first side of Sankey still sounded skeptical on Monday.

“To be in collective…

DESTIN, Fla. — The SEC convenes Tuesday for its annual spring meetings, and the good news for those involved is the future football schedule is not the main topic.

The bad news is the future football schedule is not the main topic.

Whether to go to nine conference games or stay at eight seems quaint now compared with the heavy reality that SEC presidents, athletic directors, coaches and commissioner Greg Sankey must confront this week: revenue sharing, roster limits and other results of the settlement in the House v. NCAA case.

SEC presidents voted unanimously — at least in the final vote it was unanimous — to approve the settlement terms, which if approved will result in around 22 percent of annual revenue being paid to athletes, starting next year. It’s a landmark agreement, and the timing is good for SEC administrators, who can start to hash out what comes next in Destin.

There are, of course, other things going in the conference: A quarterback at Georgia is suing Florida. Oklahoma and Texas officially join the league in July, and their coaches will be present in Destin for the first time. Nick Saban is no longer coaching football….

It could be an elevator, a hallway or a corridor this weekend at one of the Final Fours, the men’s in Arizona or the women’s in Cleveland. Greg Sankey, commissioner of the SEC, has a team in each, so doubtless he will be at both. Len Perna, meanwhile, has an idea, and if he sees Sankey he may do everything in his power to get a minute.

At most, Sankey will smile politely, nod and keep the conversation short. For now, the chances of Sankey and his conference wanting any part of Perna’s idea are about as good as the SEC giving up football as a varsity sport.

Because that’s essentially what it would be doing here.

The notion of a college football “Super League” has been percolating for a while, and one idea finally went public on Wednesday, when The Athletic reported that a number of power brokers, including the presidents at Syracuse and West Virginia and Perna, the CEO of TurnkeyZRG, were pushing for a 70-team permanent group, employing athletes as players, making its own rules and leaving non-football sports to the existing conferences, as is.

Publicly, the reaction among SEC power brokers was crickets: Sankey and the presidents at…

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Since Florida repeated as national champs in 2007, no defending champion has advanced past the Sweet 16. That ends this year.

 

Connecticut is the most complete team in college basketball, and it’s going to end that streak and repeat as national champions. That was my pre-bracket prediction and I’m sticking with it, but the selection committee really has me uneasy about that prediction. The Huskies received no favors as the top overall seed. You could argue that UConn has the toughest path to Phoenix as any of the top seeds. Iowa State has the best defense in college basketball. Illinois has one of the best offenses and was a team pre-bracket that I was pretty sure I would push through to the Final Four, and Auburn is the candidate to be this season’s UConn.

My other pre-bracket rule: Fade the Big 12. The league is the most physical in the country and its teams, outside of Iowa State, are entering the NCAA Tournament bruised and battered. And if you look through the all-conference teams in the Big 12, the talent is not comparable to past years. There aren’t a lot of pros, and the…

The SEC is closing in on being a billion-dollar conference: Revenues continued to go up in the most recent fiscal year and are expected to keep climbing amid a new TV deal, College Football Playoff expansion and the addition of Texas and Oklahoma.

The SEC announced Thursday that it distributed $741 million to its 14 schools in the 2022-23 fiscal year, meaning an average payout of $51.2 million. That’s up from the average payout of $49.9 million during the previous fiscal year.

That revenue comes mainly from television deals (CBS and ESPN up until this year),  football bowl games, the Playoff, the SEC Championship Game, the SEC men’s basketball tournament and NCAA championships.

The current fiscal year largely will feature the same sources of revenue, so the average payout may only go up slightly. But starting with the 2024-25 fiscal year, the new TV deal with ESPN will kick in, and it’s expected to be worth around $811 million. There will be the 12-team Playoff, which will pay out more in television and other revenue to all conferences. And the addition of the Longhorns and Sooners should help attendance and other revenue.

The SEC still would be short of the Big Ten, with its new $1.1 billion TV deal and addition of four schools (USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington). But the…

Last month, about an hour before Kansas State faced Texas, one of the members of the game crew came over to me to share a story. Well, actually, Billy Schott wanted to show me something.

The 71-year-old Schott — the game’s “Red Hat,” or more specifically the TV timeout coordinator — pulled up the left sleeve of his shirt. There it was tattooed across his biceps, a black pirate flag with the words “Swing Your Sword” above it and Mike Leach’s name below it.

Schott first met Leach in 1990 in Wichita Falls, Texas. Leach was an assistant at Iowa Wesleyan who was playing Midwestern State that day. Schott was the side judge.

“He had me cracking up the whole game,” Schott remembered. “I guess he liked me because I laughed at his jokes and because I was listening.”

About a month later, Schott was reffing a game in Sherman, Texas, when he got a tap on his shoulder pregame. It was Leach, who recognized him from earlier in the season. “He said, ‘By the way, my name is Mike Leach — not that it’s gonna mean anything in the long run,’” Schott recalled. “We just hit it off from there.”

Schott, a former Texas kicker, married his wife in Key West. They’d go back down there every year and hang out with Leach and his wife, Sharon. By the end of the night, or…

Most SEC teams are a few weeks into spring practice, and Auburn has its A-game this week. The future scheduling format is closer to being announced (presumably) and the SEC just claimed its second consecutive NCAA women’s basketball title. So, it’s a good time for an SEC mailbag: Post your submissions below and selected ones will be answered later this week. Fire away!