SEC might breakaway from NCAA

Summary

Payne & Pendergast – "SEC Might Breakaway from NCAA"

Date: July 21, 2026
Main Theme:
In this episode, Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast dive deep into the swirling rumors of the SEC potentially splitting from the NCAA, examining the origins, implications, and future possibilities of such a seismic shift in college athletics. With their trademark candid banter, they discuss what a breakaway could mean for fans, the sport’s tradition, rivalries, and the very structure of college football, all set against the backdrop of SEC Media Days.

---

Episode Overview

• Focus: ESPN's SEC Media Days spark widespread discussion after SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey states that breakaway talks are “real and not a leverage play.”
• Hosts’ Approach: Seth and Sean offer historical context, personal takes, and predictions while questioning how this development might impact college football’s fanbase and identity.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why SEC Media Days Matter

• Media days provide college coaches with a platform to be outspoken, unlike the typically guarded NFL coaches.
• [00:10-00:55]
  • Payne: “College coaches… are really petty, egotistical people… they just let it go.”
  • Pendergast: "NFL coaches are annoyingly boring... college, they just let they go for it."

---

2. The Breakaway Rumors: Real or Just Posturing?

• Discussions of the SEC forming its own league are intensifying, with Sankey suggesting it’s more than just negotiation tactics.
• [01:57-02:50]
  • Pendergast sets the scene: “SEC is hinting that they might be open to breaking away, starting their own deal.”
  • Pain: “SEC commissioner Greg Sankey reiterated… the talk of the conference breaking away is, quote, real and not a leverage play…”

---

3. Playoff Expansion, Fan Interest & Realignment’s Ripple Effects

• Despite fan frustration over realignment, popularity and viewership continue to climb.
• [03:19-03:42]
  • Pendergast: “Nil, transfer portal, combining of conferences... it hasn’t hurt the product. In terms of popularity... it’s been the opposite.”
• Pain expresses concern about realignment’s impact on rivalries and tradition.
• [03:52-04:10]
  • Pain: “The one for me that does still affect my enjoyment… is all the realignment that’s just destroyed all the rivalries that used to exist.”

---

4. The Heart of the SEC Breakaway Debate

• Would an SEC-only championship have national relevance?
• Has recent parity lessened the SEC’s sway?
• [05:00-06:07]
  • Pain: “If they break off altogether… what is the care level of the average fan for an SEC championship they’re treating like a national championship—especially… they haven’t won a national championship as a conference in a few years now. That’s the irony.”
  • Pendergast: “A little bit soft, IMO.”
• Hosts debate whether this could kill the sport or merely mark another stage in college football’s evolution.

---

5. The Inevitability of Consolidation

• Would an SEC breakaway force even larger super-conferences and a new national playoff?
• [06:07-06:56]
  • Pendergast: “SEC would start expanding to the point where it almost just becomes... and then you end up with the same debates: How many SEC teams in the playoffs? Then, ‘What if we had the champion of the SEC play the champion of the Big Ten?’... I don’t know if there's ever going to be a point of stability anymore.”
• Pain contends that fragmentation would eventually force everyone back to the table.
  • Pain: “That damages the sport, which then forces everybody to come back to the table.”

---

6. NCAA’s Dwindling Authority

• The hosts frame the NCAA as outdated and overwhelmed by recent changes.
• [09:32-10:06]
  • Pendergast: “The NCAA has become antiquated in so many ways… They might just not be capable of containing and managing all of this.”
  • Pain: “They've shown they're not capable of. They tried to create that clearinghouse for all the Nil stuff and that's been kind of a mess.”

---

7. Historical Parallels & The Future Structure

• The current chaos is compared to MLB's old AL/NL split; speculation about super-conferences dominates.
• [10:14-11:54]
  • Pendergast: “Baseball was very popular then… I think it would be very short lived [to have permanently separate football leagues]. At some point… You get right back into, okay, let’s have the super-conferences play each other.”
  • Pain: “The whole thing’s like an amoeba. It just keeps changing shapes—geographically, functionally and everything else.”

---

8. The New Reality: Pay-for-Play and Division Restructuring?

• Hosts agree that player unionization and class separation in college football feel inevitable.
• [12:00-12:56]
  • Pain: “For years, [I was] in denial about things like unionization of the players… I feel strongly that student athletes as employees, at least football players and maybe basketball players… is coming.”
  • Pendergast: “There’s like an FCS and a mid-FCS… the FCS tiers and then people care about those championships…”

---

9. How Likely is an SEC Breakaway – and What Comes After?

• Both agree that a split is possible, but remains a long-shot and would likely trigger further consolidation.
• [13:02-13:14]
  • Pain: “[Likelihood of SEC breaking off?] Not zero, but I think it’s… the underdog.”
  • Pendergast: “I think ultimately they all look and say, okay, we got to work together.”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the SEC’s Power Move:
  Pain (02:08): “SEC commissioner Greg Sankey reiterated… the talk of the conference breaking away is, quote, real and not a leverage play.”
• On Change vs. Tradition:
  Pain (03:52): “All the realignment that’s just destroyed all the rivalries that used to exist… that does still affect my enjoyment of college football.”
• On NCAA’s Fading Relevance:
  Pendergast (09:32): “The NCAA… become antiquated in so many ways… trying to wrangle a tornado here.”
• On the Cycle of College Football Evolution:
  Pendergast (11:23): “The whole thing’s like an amoeba. It just keeps changing shapes.”
• On the Potential for Consolidation:
  Pain (12:01): “Student athletes as employees… is coming.” Pain (12:49): “That’s the first salvo of kind of trimming the fat off of the 130 teams… It would suck for those 60 or 70 schools… but this is where the money is leading.”

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:10 – Media Days and outspoken coaches
• 01:57 – Initial discussion of SEC breakaway rumors
• 03:19 – How recent changes (NIL, portal, realignment) impacted the sport
• 04:10 – Realignment’s effect on rivalries and scheduling
• 05:00 – What an SEC-only championship could mean
• 06:07 – Could a split just set up new super-conferences?
• 09:32 – NCAA’s inability to govern the modern game
• 10:14 – Comparing potential split to MLB’s historical league setup
• 12:00 – Inevitability of pay-for-play and league restructuring
• 13:02 – Assessing actual likelihood of an imminent SEC breakaway

---

Conclusion

This episode gives listeners a thorough, passionate, and often funny look at college football’s uncertain future. Payne and Pendergast underscore how every new shift—transfer rules, NIL, conference moves—only seems to fuel college football’s popularity, but warn that an SEC breakaway could threaten its soul. They ultimately see fragmentation as a probable detour on the road to inevitable consolidation, with the NCAA increasingly sidelined by inertia and money. For Houston fans and national observers alike, the message is clear: don't blink, because whatever college football looks like now, it's bound to morph again soon.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

I want to tell you about a new podcast from Odyssey called Family Lore. It's about interesting family stories and the truth behind them. It's available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.

[Pain]

Sugar Lamb Studios. Here's Pain and Pendergast. All right, there was big news in college football yesterday. At least. Rumors and speculation and innuendo. SEC media days are going on. I think media days around college football. Very underrated. Time of the year on the calendar. Because as we know, college coaches and college basketball coaches have been the one that in the past couple years have really popped up on the Pain and Pendergast radar as. Wow, these are some very petty, egotistical people, these coaches.

[Pendergast]

They let it go, man.

[Pain]

Yeah.

[Pendergast]

NFL coaches are annoyingly boring.

[Pain]

Yeah.

[Pendergast]

Always very diplomatic about every little thing. Very rare that they take a shot now that Rex Ryan is gone. Especially not a lot of shots taken.

[Pain]

No.

[Pendergast]

But college, they just let they go for it.

[Pain]

Ain't scared, man.

[Pendergast]

All right.

[Pain]

But there. There's big doings yesterday. SEC media day.

[Pendergast]

Seth, do we want Kiffin basically acting like it's 1967.

[Pain]

But the conferences. You know, the College Football Playoff has really started to create the potential for a riff.

[Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Pain]

Between conferences here.

[Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Pain]

To where certain conferences think the playoffs should look this way, certain conferences think the playoffs should look that way.

[Pendergast]

They all get disgruntled about every single one of them things. One more team from their conference should have invited the playoffs. Yeah.

[Pain]

And in the end, here's the thing. Business is good. Even without how they may feel the playoff is flawed or we think we disagree with what the Big Ten thinks the playoff should look like. Fans are scooping it up, man. Fans are lapping it up right now.

[Pendergast]

Yeah. Even if they hate it. Even if they hate all the discombobulation and the joining of. And everything, they're still watching in trust,

[Pain]

at least on the aggregate. They are. Yeah. For sure. So do we want to set the mood for this story right here?

[Pendergast]

Yeah. This is. Let's. Let's play a little Kelly Clarkson breakaway because the SEC is hinting that they might be open to breaking away, starting their own deal.

[Pain]

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey reiterated. That's a good tune, man. Reiterated Monday the talk of the conference breaking away is, quote, real and not a leverage play. The idea of an SEC breakaway has been simmering within the conference for a while. We've heard them talking about it. Then became a talking point at the spring meetings back in May. Sankey didn't directly address the possibility during his opening comments on Monday, yesterday at the start of SEC media days. But the first question out of the shoot when the Q and A part started was about break, about breaking away. And he did not downplay.

[Pendergast]

Yeah. That it's a possibility. And they've discussed it. It sounds like there might be a few schools or presidents or whomever that are more into it than others are. Yeah, I'm just. This is the kind of thing where I don't know anymore what I have a really hard time predicting that anything in college football is going to be a disaster because every single time I think that or the consensus is that it's going to be a disaster, it actually ends up increasing the popularity this sport.

[Pain]

Yes.

[Pendergast]

Nil transfer portal combining of conferences, the. All of these things that just. It hasn't hurt the product. You know what? You could argue that it's hurt the product in virtue of like the actual play on the field and having every coach has to basically create a new team every single year. Yeah, yeah. But in terms of the popularity of the sport, it hasn't really dealt it any kind of a death blow. It's been the opposite.

[Pain]

No, no. I, to me, of all the things that have happen, happened and I, I have a mind that this, this is the thing that could potentially really damage the sport.

[Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Pain]

I don't think anything's going to kill it dead, but really damage it. I'll explain why in a second. The big, the biggest thing I thought of all the things that have come up in the last, say 15 to 20 years, the one for me that does still affect my enjoyment of college football is all the realignment that's just destroyed all the rivalries that used to exist.

[Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Pain]

Teams not playing rivals they used to play either because A, they're not in the same conference anymore. B, they're in different conferences. But one of them is not willing to play that whole Texas, Texas A and M dynamic for years till they both got back in the same conference. And C, now with the playoff teams are very. With the 12 team playoff teams are nervous about over scheduling.

[Pendergast]

Maybe. Yeah.

[Pain]

They feel like, hey, maybe we'd be better off. I mean that was the, that was the battle cry for. I forget which team it was last year. Oh, it was Texas. Like if we just didn't play Ohio State and we played Sam. Yeah, I think they played Sam. But if they played Stephen F. Austin in week one instead of Ohio State, we'd have been 10 and two and in the playoffs. Yeah, that's bad for the sport. It hasn't killed the sport. The reason why, I think. And again, the talk of the SEC is talking about breaking away and basically conducting their own season unto themselves would be.

[Pendergast]

There would be no competing for the national championship. It would be the SEC championship, which. Go ahead.

[Pain]

Well, just so. So that's where I'm kind of going with this.

[Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Pain]

Is that if they break off altogether, what. What is the care level of the average fan for an S. Aside from those schools for an SEC championship that they're treating like it's the national championship. Especially when the SEC has come back to the pack a little bit here. These last. The nil and the transfer portal have brought the SEC back to the pack a little bit. They haven't won a national championship as a conference in a few years now. That's the irony in the whole thing. You're creating your own national championship and the Big Tens won the last few of these.

[Pendergast]

A little bit soft, imo.

[Pain]

Ohio State, Michigan, Indiana. These are the team.

[Pendergast]

Right.

[Pain]

So. So I think if. If you have the SEC over here creating their own championship and almost declaring it a national championship of some sort, then you've got the rest of the schools where the average fan is going to go, well, the SEC is not part of this. That's not a real championship. I think, as opposed to having one real champion, having two kind of fugazi champions. I. I think I'm a say it. I think that would damage the sport.

[Pendergast]

I think that. I don't know if it would because what, you know, what happens immediately is, for one, the SEC would start expanding to the point where it almost just becomes

[Pain]

probably the next step starts expanding

[Pendergast]

and then you're going to end up with the same debates and arguments about like, well, how many teams need to be in the SEC championship playoffs. And at some point, hey, you know what, you know, we should do 20 years from now. Hey, you guys ever think, what if we had the champion of the SEC play the champion of the Big Ten, which now comprises 40 teams?

[Pain]

Yeah.

[Pendergast]

And you end up with a national championship that way. I don't know if it's ever going to end or stop. I don't know what. I don't know what that. I don't know if there's ever going to be a point of stability anymore where it feels like, oh, okay, college. College football is what it is and this is the way it works.

[Pain]

Okay, so I'll stand by this then, I think, as constructed, the way you and I just described it and the way it would look initially, I Think that damages the sport, which then forces everybody to come back to the table or the SEC to do what you're talking about. Just all right. If this is going to be a national champion. If our entity that we've created is,

[Squarespace Advertiser]

Squarespace is not only the best place to build your website, but to discover new domains too. Something like topfootballcamp.com for your top football game. Whisperingbloom.com for your silent retreat. Or whisperingboom.com for your shouting retreat. Maybe velvetcords.com for your music studio. Or existentialglitter.com for your artist studio. With a website from Squarespace, you can build your brand and your business [e-mail] get your domain before they're gone. With offer code, make it real for 10% off your domain or website.

[Pendergast]

Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word.

[Carvana Advertiser]

My champions, I have sworn. Sold my chariot on Carvana. Twas a lovely suv, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight we feast. An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply.

[4 Patriots Advertiser]

Your whole neighborhood goes black in seconds, except your house. The Patriot power generator, 2200x from 4 Patriots keeps your lights on when the grid goes down. It's the most powerful generator 4patriots has ever built. Only 4patriots gives you backup power without gas fumes or a loud engine. Just lights a cold fridge and peace of mind when the power fails. Right now, save $500 and get two solar panels free. That means you can recharge twice as fast, but only while supplies last. Keep your lights on, your food cold and your family calm when the grid goes down. Don't wait for the next blackout. Visit four patriots.com today. That's the number four P A T R I O T S.com and see why families trust four patriots to stay ready.

[Pain]

It's going to be a championship that's viewed by college football fans as a real national champion. Then we, we can't just be 16 teams in the southwest southeast quadrant of the United States. We've got to be more of a national thing and that's what gets everybody back to the table. This might be the detour on the way to the 64 Team Super Conference that everybody talks about being inevitable, right?

[Pendergast]

This just boils down to flat out that the, that if the ncaa, because the NCAA has become antiquated in so many ways and it's like it's easy to Bag on the ncaa. But man, they're trying to. They're trying to, you know, wrangle a tornado here and operating as this gigantic organization that had a certain set of rules forever and now all of a sudden it's been blown out of the water. Well. And they might just not be capable of. Of containing and managing all of this. Where smaller organizations might feel that they are.

[Pain]

They've shown they're not capable of.

[Pendergast]

Right.

[Pain]

They've shown that they tried to create that clearinghouse for all the nil stuff and that's been kind of a mess. Yeah, yeah, it's.

[Pendergast]

I think there's. If you go back to like, let's see baseball when baseball was America's pastime and I know you can never go back and do everything in the exact same way. I mean it would like it used to be that you had two separate leagues and they were separate and met

[Pain]

in the World Series.

[Squarespace Advertiser]

Right.

[Pendergast]

They met in the World Series and kids, there wasn't even a playoffs back in the day. It was the only time, the only time that you would, you'd have the best team from the AL and the best team from the NL in the. Then they would meet in the World Series and that was it. No playoffs. Anything else like that. Like, I'm not saying that that's. That was the best way to do it or anything, but baseball was very popular then. So I don't know. I don't know if there's a. If all of a sudden it went back to like, the SEC is its own conference. The, the Big Ten is its own conference. They only play within each other. I think it would be very short lived. I think at some point then they get. You get right back into, okay, you know what, oh, let's have the. We got two or three super conferences. Let's have those teams play each other at the end of the year.

[Pain]

Right.

[Pendergast]

And then you know what happens.

[Pain]

Yeah.

[Pendergast]

You know what? Four teams really isn't enough. I think. What if we go. So I, you just have this with a different governing body. Body than the ncaa.

[Pain]

The whole thing's like an amoeba. It just like keeps like changing shapes.

[Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Pain]

Geographically, functionally and everything else.

[Pendergast]

The difference would be that it would be whoever was the governing body would maybe be more adept at handling everything and because I would imagine at some point I would. I'm about to say the nil and everything will settle down. I don't. Boy, if teams are splitting off, it's going to be different in each conference in. At some point they're like, for it to settle down, there'd have to be some kind of a salary cap. And I just don't know how you put all of this back into the.

[Pain]

I was one of those traditional college football fans that for years was just in denial about things like unionization of the players.

[Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Pain]

64 Team Super League, things like that. I've flipped. I know. I think it's going to be a while. Do I see it in my lifetime? Yeah, probably, you know, depending on, you know, if I keep walking four miles a day and whatever. I. But I feel like this. Like, I feel strongly that student athletes as employees, at least football players and maybe basketball players as employees of the school is coming. And I feel like if this, if the SEC especially were to break off, that to me, isn't permanent. Where it's the SEC over here and everybody else, that's the first salvo of kind of trimming the fat off of the 130 teams that there are. And it would suck for those 60 or 70 schools that get trimmed off into some separate tier between D1 and D1, A double A, you know, but this is where the money is leading.

[Pendergast]

There's like an FCS and a mid fc. The fcs tears of the fcs, and

[Pain]

then people care about those championships and things like that.

[Pendergast]

I don't know.

[Pain]

I don't like all. I like it the way it was, but I. But I'm not dumb enough to.

[Pendergast]

What. Well, what's the likelihood that this actually happens?

[Pain]

The SEC breaking off.

[Pendergast]

Yeah. Anytime soon or any of the other conferences breaking off?

[Pain]

Not zero, but I think it's. It's the underdog. Yeah, I think it's the underdog.

[Pendergast]

I think there's. I mean, I think ultimately they all

[Pain]

look and say, okay, we got to work together.

[Pendergast]

I don't know how, like, I don't know the finances of it or anything, but the fact that all of these teams in the Big Ten have to travel so far for all the other sports as well, it's like there's got to. There's got to be people there that are saying, like, look, we can make this work, but we could make it work a lot better if we didn't have to take. If our cross country team didn't have to fly across the country five times.

[Pain]

That's exactly right. All right. NFL top 100. I think we finally got the stamp that C.J. stroud is not making it. Another quarterback made it yesterday that. I'm actually a little angry about this. I don't normally get worked up about the NFL top 100. I'm a little worked up about this one. We'll tell you who.

[Podcast Host]

Why does it feel like nobody really gives us the inside scoop? Join us on the Powers that Be, the podcast where inside insiders from Puck break down who has influence, how they use it, and what it actually means for you. New episodes every weekday. Listen to the Powers that Be wherever you get your podcasts.

[4 Patriots Advertiser]

Mom, can you tell me a story?

[Carvana Advertiser]

Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car.

[Pendergast]

Was she brave?

[Carvana Advertiser]

She was tired, mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required.

[Pain]

Did you have to fight a dragon?

[Carvana Advertiser]

Nope. She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually.

[Pain]

Was it scary?

[Carvana Advertiser]

Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be.

[Pain]

Did the car have a sunroof?

[Carvana Advertiser]

It did, actually.

[4 Patriots Advertiser]

Okay, good story.

[Carvana Advertiser]

Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.