A rainy-day forecast for college football to start the day Monday ended with sunshine and rainbows spanning the horizon as the SEC -- for now at least -- appears on track to play this fall.
Numerous media reports, citing sources, indicated that the Big Ten would announce Monday that it had canceled the season because of continued complications controlling the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. One outlet even reported the league’s commissioners voted 12-2 in favor of cancellation. That action was expected to precipitate the rest of Power 5 to follow suit.
By the afternoon, though, those same outlets were issuing retractions. Meanwhile, SEC leaders, who also met via digital conference call Monday, were gushing positivity via their social media channels after their meeting concluded.
“Can we play? I don’t know,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey wrote on Twitter. “We haven’t stopped trying … and will continue to do so.”
Similar social-media messages were shared by University of Tennessee Chancellor Donde Plowman and Ole Miss Athletic Director Keith Carter. Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek was almost defiant when he spoke to the SEC Network on Monday as a guest on Paul Finebaum’s show.
“We’re not going to panic because another Power 5 conference may be making a different decision,” Yurachek said. “... There’s no need to rush into making those decisions.”
Georgia Athletic Director Greg McGarity has not sent out a tweet on his Twitter account since 2014. But he was similarly optimistic that football will still be played this fall.
“I’ll just say I think Greg Sankey’s comment is spot on,” McGarity said after leaving UGA’s Butts-Mehre athletic complex Monday. “His statement says it all, and I certainly stand by it. It summarizes where we all stand.”
Meanwhile, UGA athletics staffers returned to work Monday for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic shut down the campus in March and preparations continued for a delayed start of the 2020 football season. Originally scheduled to begin Sept. 5, the SEC voted to adopt a conference-only, 10-game schedule that’s now set to start Sept. 26.
On Friday, the league announced the additional SEC opponents for each school. Georgia drew Arkansas and Mississippi State. Monday’s meeting was scheduled primarily to discuss the finalization of the SEC’s football schedule. Instead, more time was spent on the weekend’s developments, which included the MAC cancelling football and the Big Ten convening an emergency meeting.
Nationally, leadership from the Big Ten and Pac-12 are thought to favor canceling the season, while the ACC and SEC are leaning toward playing. The Big 12, which has not yet announced a start time or its schedule plans, is considered the swing vote among the Power 5 conferences.
While the preference is for all five leagues to work together, indications are the SEC and ACC are willing to forge on without them.
Meanwhile, the University of Georgia has reopened and is preparing for face-to-face instruction in the fall. Students are scheduled to return Aug. 20. A COVID-19 testing station and contact-tracing app are among modifications being implemented to facilitate on-campus instruction amid the pandemic.
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