The 2025 edition of theSEC Media Days is officially underway as commissioner Greg Sankey kicked the annual event off Monday morning. Kirby Smart and Georgia are scheduled to participate on July 15, but there are a lot of important topics Sankey will comment on that will impact the SEC and all of college football.
Similarly to Sankey, Smart will also play an important role with these topics as well as his voice and opinion is respected by everyone in the college football world. So knowing how much weight Smart carries, here are three topics Smart would be wise to voice his opinion on during his session at Media Days on Tuesday.
1. Adjustments to Transfer Portal window
The Transfer Portal window this past year was one of the most talked about topics in all of college football. A lot of the discussions had to do with when the portal was open because the dates seem very random and don’t make a lot of sense with respect to the athletic and academic calendars in place.
Sankey has shared that he wants only one Transfer Portal window at the beginning of January while the Big Ten has said they want only one window after spring ball. There’s no guarantee the NCAA will make any changes in the first place, but Smart’s opinion on this could help sway the NCAA to make a change where it’s obviously needed.
2. Potential SEC schedule changes
There is a lot of outside pressure on the SEC to increase their conference schedules to nine games. This is something the Big Ten has been doing for a few years now, but the SEC has stated they wish to remain at eight games for the time being.
This is a topic Smart has not publicly discussed much up to this point, and who knows how much he actually cares. However, Smart has shared in the past that he is in support of keeping space on their schedule for marquee non-conference games, so in order for that to remain possible Smart may opt to share that he wants the conference schedule to remain at eight games instead of moving to nine.
3. College Football Playoff expansion
Changes are likely coming to the College Football Playoff ahead of the 2026 season. It seems like a guarantee at this point that the field will expand from 12 to 16 teams, but the makeup of those teams is still up for debate.
There are a few different models being floated around with respect to how many automatic qualifiers there should be. The “5+11” model is popular as it would give the five highest ranked conference champions an automatic bid with the final 11 spots going to the next 11 schools in the final CFP rankings. There is also discussion around giving each conference a certain number of automatic qualifying spots as well, with the SEC potentially getting four guaranteed spots each year.
A lot of conversations still need to take place for these decisions to be made, but Smart’s opinion on the matter could carry a lot of weight due to his influence on the sport.