Early on during SEC spring meetings, commissioner Greg Sankey said he had heard from athletics directors questioning why the league hasn’t made a move that would rattle the studs of college sports.

“I’ve shared with the decision-making working group that I have people in my room asking ‘Why are we still in the NCAA?’” Sankey told reporters Monday in Miramar Beach, Fla.

As the meetings came to an end on Thursday, Sankey had an update. The league prefers to remain in the NCAA moving forward.

That is, of course, with a group of “autonomy” conferences, which have more power to make decisions then the rest. Sankey had said earlier in the week that the league hopes that the group including itself, the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC could get 68% autonomy moving forward.

“You can’t just have somebody walk away on that level, among the four, and everything stops,” Sankey said of the hope for 68% on Monday.

A recent NCAA working group proposal would give the autonomy leagues 65% voting power.

“We very clearly continue to think that, I’ll call a division of the four autonomy conferences within the NCAA structure, connected through Division I championships as we know them, is our preference,” Sankey said Thursday. “We’ve looked at the decks. I think there were two decks that were provided for membership consumption around voting thresholds, around elements to national standards.

“We’ll continue in the conversation. But our view, and we’ve shared this back with the NCAA in recent weeks, is we really need more development of this opportunity for an autonomy division to operate, and come together on championships.

Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne was asked on Tuesday what he thought of the potential for the SEC to leave the NCAA. Byrne pointed out the organization’s ability to put on quality championships, and said it would be a sad day if college athletics were to fracture in such a manner.

Still, even he didn’t totally dismiss the future possibility.

“Because of the legal pressures we’re all under, we’re just getting attacked,” Byrne said. “There’s a lot of things I’m going to say, but I’m not going to. We’re getting attacked regularly, that it’s making conferences at times, having to make decisions to make sure that the right ones are being made for long-term survivability. And so I hope that can continue, where we’re all together under one umbrella.”