SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey Gives Subtle Warning on Satellite Camps

Greg Sankey, the newly elected SEC commissioner, had a few things to say recently about the Big Ten invasion in the form of satellite camps in SEC territory.

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The Big Ten has begun using the tactics of setting up football camps in the back yard of SEC schools. The SEC, along with two other Power-5 conferences, have rules prohibiting their coaches from setting up these so-called satellite camps, but Sankey isn’t going to take the invasion lying down.

SEC schools can only host camps within a 50-mile radius of their campus, but football staffs around the country from other conferences are becoming bold in the placement of their satellite camps, such as the one James Franklin held in Georgia last year.

New Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh has a camp planned in Prattville, Al. on June 5 of this year, and Gus Malzahn is none to happy about the Maize and Blue plague coming to SEC territory.

In a recent interview with the Montgomery Advertiser, Sankey spoke on the subject of the SEC and these camps:

"“We just had a conversation with our coaches. We said look, there are two options. One is you can remove a conference rule and free yourselves up to engage in that behavior. Or, you can introduce a national rule to say camps are camps that are on campus, like we have in basketball. Our coaches said, we’d like national legislation that says run your camps on your campus. We will have that conversation in Destin.”"

"The next observation is I’m not sure that the others want out coaches going to places like State College, Pennsylvania, because very clearly, if we do take the approach others have, they will go places and run those satellite camps, and it will certainly I would expect change the tone of the conversation. Part of what I appreciate among our coaches is they view the responsible thing to do is to focus our camps on campus. That’s what we’re going to pursue at this time.”"

The ACC is another conference who forbids their coaches from running camps outside of their home cities, and it’s doubtful that the coaches in the Big Ten would welcome the likes of guys like Nick Saban, Jimbo Fisher, Mark Richt, Dabo Swinney and others around their stomping grounds.

This could also be brought before the newly formed NCAA Football Oversight Committee for review as well if a nation-wide rule covering all conferences is thought to be the best option.

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