Greg Sankey explains importance of maintaining, restoring historic rivalries with SEC expansion

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey had a major challenge recently with the conference’s football schedule with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma. But it wasn’t just that those teams coming in that changed the need for the football schedule.

It also impacts other sports, where the conference has to rearrange the schedules to keep those rivalry games in place as well.

Sankey said at a Texas High School Coaches Association press conference that it is important for the conference to keep historic rivalries in place and also try to bring back old battles as new teams return.

“Georgia Tech left and we have a Georgia Tech-Georgia game every year. We’ve got a track record of facilitating those in-state rivalries,” Sankey said. “Sometimes, you’ve seen it here, those decisions drive people away. Uniquely, the Southeastern Conference expansion restores rivalries. Obviously, Texas A&M and Texas will be played next fall. But the Arkansas-Texas series, having been there in 2004 in Fayetteville, Arkansas, I saw more private planes in the airport than I’ve seen in my life…Oklahoma-Missouri, their wrestling programs have a storied level of competition. But we’ll now have a quarter of the old Big Eight in the SEC, which people were 30 or 40 years ago but we’ve got an opportunity to restore some of those really special games.”

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