Matthew Stevens

Montgomery Advertiser

DESTIN, Fla. – Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey doesn’t want to hear any further talk about realignment with any schools.

And this means you especially, Gus Malzahn.

Auburn’s head football coach had suggested to ESPN.com college football reporter Chris Low in April that his program could be moving to the Eastern Division and anticipated that topic would be talked about at the conference’s spring meetings.

In his annual spring meeting media session Tuesday night at the Sandestin Hilton in Destin, Fla., Sankey refused to elaborate on any hypothetical move and declined to comment further on the issue of realignment.

“I’ve read those stories,” Sankey said.

Since Malzahn’s comments to ESPN.com became public knowledge last month, the Auburn University president’s office released a statement saying “we’re not involved in or aware of any discussions on conference realignment.”

Sankey was asked specifically about Malzahn’s approval and support for the idea Tuesday and deflected the question with “I don’t answer hypotheticals, so we’ll continue that tradition as well”. Sankey’s non-answer echoed the refrain of a popular tactic used by his predecessor, Mike Slive, during his tenure as SEC commissioner.

Malzahn, who in three years at Auburn is 13-11 in league games and 9-9 against SEC West teams, has never clarified whether he was just telling a reporter an idea he would support or if he was speaking with knowledge of talks on the agenda for the meetings. However, Sankey’s 25-minute question and answer period with the media seemed to indicate no movement on the issue has developed this week in Destin, Fla.

Malzahn is scheduled to speak to reporters Wednesday afternoon and will likely be asked to clarify his comments on the matter before he leaves the spring meetings.

Sankey did comment on the league office’s preference for keeping the two divisions in football and said the SEC continues to not support any proposals at the national level that would eliminate divisions to determine conference championship participants.

“We have a long history of divisions,” Sankey said. “It’s worked incredibly well. I think they have meaning for us.”

The SEC has not had any realignment occur since the implement of the SEC Championship Game in 1992 and only the expansion of Arkansas (in 1991) along with Texas A&M and Missouri (in 2012) have changed the dynamic of the league.