There’s an idealism about late May on the gulf coast.

School’s out. Summer’s here. Anything’s possible and the Southeastern Conference is setting up shop in Sandestin for its annual beachside conclave.

SEC spring meetings went from a sleepy week of governance tedium to shifting the trajectory of the collegiate sporting model as we know it.

Like the future of everything we know and love is up for discussion in these drab resort conference rooms.

Not to be dramatic, but the boulders have been rolled to the hilltop and gravity’s about to fulfill its destiny.

The bulk of Greg Sankey’s 45-minute press briefing Monday evening centered on the future of the College Football Playoff. The current deal ends after the 2025 season the event will likely look quite different after next season.

To be frank, there was an abundance of industry talk that’s not always easily digested unless you’re following every twist of these interwoven soap operas.

Essentially, there’s a struggle for power and dominance among collegiate athletic power brokers and it’s winning/losing time.

The future of the CFP consumed the majority of Sankey’s sometimes contentious meeting with the press. Though mostly indirect, the commish’s comments offered insight on which way the wind’s blowing on arguably the most impactful branch of this sport unique power structure

Sankey was unhappy with leaks and plans for how teams/how many are selected for postseason play. Models are being discussed that would give the SEC and Big Ten as many as four automatic bids beginning with the 2026 season when the 12-team field could swell to 14 or 16 teams. Most in the SEC want 16.

Sankey said the SEC wasn’t committed to any one plan for the new deal but the league is interested in “a different model” from the current selection process.

It’s clear Year 1 of the expanded postseason will have consequences. Turns out the much-anticipated bracket expansion had objective flaws in the seeding process and subjective flaws in the selection process.

That led to the much-discussed idea of automatic qualifiers being weighted heavily in favor of the SEC and Big Ten, according to reporting from Yahoo Sports and others. Four each for them, two each for the Big 12 and ACC in a concept that could reshape most of wht we know about the sport.

That’s obviously drawn considerable backlash from everywhere outside the footprint of those two leagues. Understandable, too.

But it’s complicated.

Far messier because all the deals are made behind the scenes and it’s never as simple as it seems.

And with a decentralized model of governing such matters — one that gave the SEC and the Big Ten almost all the power after a threat to break away — not all voices are heard equally.

Sankey had something to say about critics who say the SEC and Big Ten would be hurting the sport by weighting automatic bids in their favor.

Without naming names, Sankey smacked back at commissioners of the ACC and Big 12 who said their alternate plans for straight seeding were better for the overall interest of the sport.

“I don’t need lectures from others about good of the game,” Sankey said. “I don’t lecture others about good of the game and coordinating press releases about good. OK, you can issue your press statement but I’m actually looking for ideas.”

In fact, Sankey said the model with four auto-qualifiers from the SEC would have cost the league bids in theoretical expanded playoffs in years past.

The commissioner’s messaging isn’t always direct but his intent is easily decoded.

In Year 1 of the 12-team model, the SEC got three teams in — one fewer than the Big Ten and one more than the objectively weaker ACC. Sankey clearly didn’t think strength of schedule was considered as much as he preferred in a process that currently relies on a 13-member selection committee to pick the field.

“You have a team that played four games against teams with 6-6 records last year that got in,” Sankey said. “Another team didn’t play really anybody at the top of its conference was selected in.

“And it’s clear that not losing becomes, in many ways, more important than beating the University of Georgia, which two of our teams were left out (Alabama and Mississippi) did.”

There was no direct attack on the selection committee and Sankey went out of his way to say they did a good job. Its the process that’s flawed.

“And I think where we are right now is we have used a political process inside a room to come to decisions about football,” Sankey said. “We should be using football information to come to football.”

Sankey also said SEC athletics directors said “we’ve given too much away to arrive at these political compromises” in a statement that’s ominous for those who disagree with where the league might direct things moving forward.

Ultimately, the SEC and Big Ten don’t need the others to agree with the structure of the CFP beginning in the 2026 season.

Sankey made the point the SEC didn’t need the playoff to move past four teams given its dominance of that playoff era. And the fact it would have had two of the four teams last year if nothing changed.

It did.

And it will again. A few more times after that, probably.

There have been mistakes along the way, and everyone can make a compelling argument in the best interest of their league.

“The process of change is really exciting at the start,” Sankey said.

You could say it’s like a pristine beach on the first weekend of summer.

“But the middle is messy,” he continued. “But it’s a marathon. Whether it’s decision making, whether it’s change.

 “We are in the middle and it’s messy.”

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.