SEC commissioner Greg Sankey defended the conference's officiating — notably officials reviewing replays — during a Monday interview on ESPN's "The Paul Finebaum Show."

In particular, Sankey lashed out at TV broadcasters who criticized officiating calls made during Texas' 34-20 win over Missouri on Saturday.

"I am highly disappointed in announcers and their criticism, and they're wrong," Sankey told Finebaum. "Some of the worst officials in America are those in the announce booth.

"We have officiating experts, who I turned on a game on Saturday, who was just flat wrong," he continued. "And what that creates is this narrative that we've done something wrong and that is unacceptable to me, and we have to address that."

"Some of the worst 'officials' in America are those in the announce booth."
"I am highly disappointed in the announcers."
Greg Sankey vehemently defends the SEC's officiating and details planned improvements: pic.twitter.com/eFCIQgWKzp

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) November 9, 2026

During the third quarter of that game as the Longhorns trailed 20-13, Texas quarterback Arch Manning threw what appeared to be an incomplete pass on third-and-10.

However, the play was ruled a fumble by the officials on the field, giving the Longhorns a 14-yard gain. Though slow-motion video appeared to show that Manning had the ball in his hand as his arm was moving forward, replay officials upheld the call.

They are ruling this is a fumble and Texas will get a 12 yard gain pic.twitter.com/lVhCA4wMwu

— gmannVOLS (@gmannVOLS) November 7, 2026

While ESPN's broadcast team of Joe Tessitore, Jesse Palmer and rules analyst Steve Shaw questioned the SEC officiating during the game, Sankey especially objected to criticism of a call from play-by-play announcer Matt Schumacker and analyst Aaron Murray during the broadcast of the Oklahoma-Florida matchup later in the day.

"Somebody on a Saturday night who's announcing a game between Oklahoma and Florida going back to something that happened at noon, that he's never called and asked a question about and being critical is unacceptable in my mind," Sankey said.

The SEC commissioner further defended replay officials by saying the conference plays all of its games on Saturday, rather than having individual matchups on a Thursday or Friday. Thus, officials cannot devote all of their attention to one game and have audio of the replay process available for TV broadcasts as seen with the ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten.

"We don't have the luxury of a Thursday night or a Friday night game, where you can do one game at a time and everybody's eyes and voices and minds are on that one monitor," Sankey said to Finebaum.

"We play on Saturdays with, at times this year, seven games happening at once," he added. "So you have to figure out how to manage that process so you continue to have the right outcomes."

However, Sankey acknowledged that the conference's system isn't perfect and will look at measures to improve officiating and the replay process.

"We'll take the responsibility, we'll take the heat, we'll work to continually improve, we'll work on how do we provide more transparency and access to a replay system," he said. "We'll do that collectively so that we have the best-in-class model."

Source: Yahoo Sports