Greg Sankey on early NSD, A&M's SEC fit, hoops improvements & more

Key notes from Greg Sankey interview

• The weekend in Aggieland was good. I saw some baseball, it was raining at softball and then spent some time at the pool at the SEC Championship. I also got to spend time with Scott Woodward and President Young. It was a great weekend.
   
• This week's example of how great a fit Aggieland is in the SEC, I was up in a suite and saw a commemorative thing of the 2013 Cotton Bowl. I really knew A&M was right for the league when the Dallas Morning News had the picture of Johnny tip-toeing down the sideline against Oklahoma with the SEC patch on his uniform. There have been thousands of moments since then.
   
• There are not a lot of active coaches who have captured national championships. Every single one of the coaches who have one have direct ties to the SEC. I think that shows the point of influence with the conference. It may look easy from the outside, but that's not an easy thing to do. I think College Station and Texas A&M have the resources and desire to get to that level.
   
• It is fascinating to watch our coaches sit around and discuss the game when we get them together. A few years ago when we talked about the hurry up offense and the substitution rules, it was absolutely incredible to hear the different takes from each of the coaches. When you hear the head coaches speak in this league, it is very clear how much they know about the game of football.
   
• Why we bring our coaches together, especially with so many new guys, is it is good to learn what everyone's perspective is. We start talking about recruiting and how things are adapting and changing. With the early signing period, it looks like it is hear to stay. I'm not a fan of the date in December. I also think we are focusing more on kids that our sophomores and juniors than ever before. The coaches are recruiting three different cycles at once now. 
   
• The SEC signed 93-percent of scholarships during the early signing period while our coaches are trying to prepare for their bowl games. Our coaches will continue to recruit, but I think you will see us re-evaluate the rule nationally after two full cycles.
   
• We want to be able to get as many teams into bowl games as possible. We have also added the requirement for a high-profile non-conference game. You see A&M scheduling teams like Notre Dame which is great for college football. If we ever moved to a nine-game schedule, it would be a well-thought out decision and would have reasoning good for the conference behind it.
   
• I don't get a lot of emails on replay, but we are trying to get things right, specifically in regards to the length of time on reviews. We are not increasing the use of replay and this last year, on average, we shortened the length of time for replays. I'm not as worried about the length of games, but more so the pace. If we are going to have a review, lets get the correct call quickly.
   
• With basketball replay, we are setting the standard. We started this from scratch with the centralized replay center at the conference office. One of the ways we help back here at the office is knowing what feed has the best angle of the replay. That way, before the officials even get to the scores table, they know what needs to be looked at. It's not perfect but I think we are making progress.
   
• In basketball, we are in a much different position then where we were in 2016 when we only had three teams selected to the NCAA Tournament. I think all the changes we have made have showed our coaches that we are as committed to be great in basketball as we are in every other sport. I think the coaches really understand the expectation. To be honest, I think we are even a year ahead of schedule from where I thought we would be in terms of great play around the conference.
   
• When we added A&M and Missouri, we were intentional as a league to say we need to have big SEC events within those footprints, whether on campus or in the state. With St. Louis, we had a break in Nashville that gave us a chance to go somewhere different. We talked about moving baseball, but Hoover seemed like the best fit. In moving SEC Media Days, we looked everywhere including Texas and a lot of places in between. Atlanta seemed like the best fit for the first year away from Hoover. However, expect us to keep looking for other places to take SEC Media Days in the future.