With LSU-Florida Postponement, SEC Faces Challenging Decisions After Spike in COVID-19 Cases

The SEC faces its toughest task over the next few days as it looks around at a COVID-19 world starting to break the structure of its 2020 season.

First there was postponement of Vanderbilt-Missouri on Monday, followed by LSU-Florida on Wednesday. Along the way, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin announced the Rebels were dealing with COVID-19 issues after its most recent 63-48 loss to Alabama.

"We could play today. We'll see," Kiffin said. "For the first time we are having an issue with that. I'm not going to get into the numbers. It's very difficult moving people around, and we're already beat up from high play count Saturday vs. great team."

Speaking of Alabama, a tough day in the SEC got even tougher when the athletic department announced that coach Nick Saban and athletic director Greg Byrne tested positive for COVID-19.

“I informed our team of my positive test at 2 p.m. today on a Zoom call and let them know offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian will oversee preparations at the complex while I work from home," Saban said in a statement.

Just spoke to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey about Georgia/Bama: "We’re still moving forward. We have testing Thursday and results on Friday. I describe that as the 'hold your breath' moments. We’ll continue forward."
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) October 14, 2020

Even if the Ole Miss COVID-19 count is low, these are still the exact types of "Doomsday" scenarios the conference was hoping to avoid when orchestrating the 10-game all conference schedule. The most recent "issues" that Kiffin alluded to now affect the Rebels matchup this week with Arkansas as well as Alabama's matchup with Georgia.

Same goes for Florida's opponent last weekend in Texas A&M, who is set to play Mississippi State on Saturday but will now have to worry about positive tests popping up within their program as well. Florida is currently dealing with 21 positive tests among its players, 18 of which are on scholarship.

Athletic director Scott Stricklin said in a press conference on Wednesday that some players started showing symptoms on Friday evening before the Texas A&M game but didn't report them to the medical or coaching staff because they thought they were allergies. Frame it anyway you want but that's a big problem, particularly if those players were on the field and around other Texas A&M players.

"Really have no obvious answers about the origin of the spread, but there’s suspicion that the trip this past weekend to College Station probably was at the root of it," Stricklin said. "Again, a lot of this is anecdotal but from talking to our sports health staff, a couple of our athletes who have tested positive since coming back from that trip subsequently reported that late last week they had what they thought were allergy type symptoms."

Events over the last 48 hours have affected most of the conference in one way or another which is exactly what the SEC and commissioner Greg Sankey don't want to see. There is a small window contingency plan in which games can be played if cancelled during the week of Dec. 12. It's the week before the SEC Championship, which is currently a "tentative" date to reschedule the LSU-Florida game.

The next few days will be critical for the SEC and how it handles all of these recent spikes.

"You don't know how many guys are going to test positive during the week," LSU coach Ed Orgeron said Wednesday. "If you have an outbreak like that, you gotta look at all of the guys that are in quarantine it makes it very difficult."