If you put yourself in their shoes, they are worried about their survival as a conference. This is all about that.
True. I get that. However, back to Greg Sankey. He didn't do this on his own. I would bet my mortgage that Oklahoma and Texas initiated this and in fact, I would also bet they initiated when ESPN let the Big 12 know they would not be open to renegotiating their tv deal. In essence, ESPN let them know that as a conference they had maxed out their value.
So Texas and OU reached out to the SEC. And then Greg Sankey had a decision to make. Proceed with invitations, or I guess he could have been a "team player" as it seems these other commissioners would define that, and tell Texas and Oklahoma I'm sorry but I don't want to blow up college football. And then, Texas and Oklahoma goes to the Big Ten or the ACC.
So at the end of the day, perhaps Greg Sankey was taking the survival of his own conference into account.
As for the playoff, however, please do stall it. I doubt Greg Sankey cares. In fact, he was trying to pump the breaks on the thing already. Of course, he was doing so because he knew what was going down with OU and Texas.