Greg Sankey caved to public pressure…again. SEC football is the premiere college league in the nation and holds a ton of cards with any negotiation in the NCAA, but Sankey has a bit habit of playing his hand well before he should and getting outsmarted by everybody else.

He leapt into a 10-year $3 billion deal with ESPN five years in advance, only to see the Big Ten ink a seven-year $7 billion deal just two years in advance. Those deals happened at the same time. Now, Sankey is going to a nine-game SEC football schedule because of fans’ desire to see more marquee games and demands from the Big Ten to do so for College Football Playoff negotiations.

However, the league gets nothing in return.

Sankey pushed the league to nine games while still mandating a non-conference Power Four game for each team, no guarantees of how strength of schedule would be factored into the CFP committee rankings in the future and without reports of demanding any extra money from ESPN. How could anybody agree to that?

This nine-game schedule was a rub for what to do with CFP negotiations next year. The Big Ten wanted an automatic qualifier model where, regardless of whether 12, 14 or 16 teams go, there are a slotted number of guaranteed teams per league. Meanwhile, the SEC wanted the current model with just more at-large teams if the event expands.

What left the Big Ten upset was they played nine league games while the SEC played eight. Never mind the fact that by any metric, SEC football teams still played tougher schedules. They were not going to agree to the CFP format the SEC wanted unless the league went to nine games too.

Somehow, though, the SEC, while already playing tougher schedules than the Big Ten despite the eight vs. nine argument, made their schedules even tougher with this demand of a non-conference Power Four game. That’s not a demand by the Big Ten. The Indiana Hoosers played two Group of Five schools and an FCS school last year, all with losing records, for non-conference play.

Why would the SEC, when it needs to maximize its number of teams in the CFP and bowl games, reduce that window with the non-conference Power Four demand. All of a sudden, the path to 6-6 is much tougher for programs like the Kentucky Wildcats, meaning mid-tier schools will rely a lot more on the payouts from the league, which are less than the Big Ten.

If the CFP model turns into what the SEC wants, things could work out. After all, the SEC wants the top five conference champions and then the next 11 at-large teams, and if the committee keeps its word by more heavily valuing SOS, that would easily propel a significantly larger number of SEC teams into the event. Why should anybody believe the commitee, though?

They shouldn’t. Last year, SOS wasn’t taken into account at all, and it cost the SEC. Even if it does go more into account this year, will the increase in weighing it outweigh just how much tougher the SEC football schedules got when you consider the Power Four non-conference game demand still there? That’s an easy call. It won’t.

Beyond all of this, though, money should have been another reason. By moving to nine SEC games, the total number of games involving SEC football teams in a year reduces from 128 to 120. For ESPN, that’s a worthy sacrifice, as a marquee conference game on one of their primary channels is worth more than a game against an FCS school on SEC Network Plus.

That same truth isn’t there for the SEC teams, though. They get the same revenue from ESPN no matter what, and they just reduced revenue they could get via attendance numbers with eight games. Those will all have been eight home games as well given what they are relinquishing, so on a rotating basis, eight SEC teams each year will have one less home game.

Why, when the league is already behind the 8-ball relative to the Big Ten, would they agree to this? Sankey should’ve demanded a new deal with ESPN before giving them more marquee SEC football games. Instead, he gave it away and rushed into what he wanted, as he always does, and the league will pay.

This nine-game slate may be entertaining, but it’s stupid. Fans who want it don’t realize how much more difficult it could make things for their programs in the league. However, it’s not their job to know that. Sankey’s job is to know that, and he failed miserably.