The Major Takeaway from the SEC Meeting: No Major Changes
With multiple Division I conferences cancelling fall sports altogether and others moving forward with conference-only slates for the fall season, the Southeastern Conference met on Monday in Alabama do determine their best path forward.
The biggest change from the meetings was simply that there were no major changes.
To this point, on July 14 following the in-person meeting yesterday of officials from all 14 member institutions, the SEC has not cancelled fall sports or made any declarations as to how schedules could shift.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told Paul Finebaum Monday on The Paul Finebaum Show that they will continue to move forward in a "wait-and-see" format.
For Sankey, all decisions on the efficacy of fall sports will depend on public health trends surrounding COVID-19, and how they continue to improve or devolve over the course of the next handful of weeks.
"We're going to be patient," Sankey said. “If we can wait to make major decisions, we’re going to have better information.”
While all other conferences around the country seem to be making major decisions in mid-July, the SEC is content sticking in a holding pattern.
This all presents one significant question: what changes, positive or negative, over the course of the next month will dictate whether or not fall sports will be played?
According to a report last week by Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger, a doctor advising the commissioners of all conferences has said that COVID-19 cases will have to plateau or fall in order to have a college football season.
According to Sankey's discussion with Finebaum, available and reliable testing is also paramount.
"The ability to have reliable, available and timely testing is at the top of the list. Testing is going to be very important," Sankey said. "If I can’t have a vaccine, that testing ability is going to be critical to us moving forward."
Some changes have already been made for the conference. The Pac-12 and Big Ten announced over the course of the past week their intent to play a conference-only slate of football games. No SEC schools have games scheduled this season with Big Ten schools, but there were two Pac-12 vs. SEC matchups that have had to be cancelled.
Other decisions are still squarely in the conference's hands.
Sankey admitted that rising case numbers, particularly in states like Florida and Texas, both of which house one SEC program, are "problematic." However, he also stated a "responsibility not to just say, we’re done."
In the end, Sankey says the next two or three weeks will be the major turning point in the conference making a decision one way or another. Again, this decision primarily hinges on public health data over these coming weeks.
There are multiple avenues to move forward for the conference. They could choose to play a conference-only schedule, as some other P5 conferences have, they could move in a more creative direction or they could cancel the fall seasons altogether.
But for now, it's a wait and see game.
“There has to be more intent, more focus on heeding the guidance that has been provided on distancing, on gathering, on face masks, on hand sanitization," Sankey said. "As I understand treatments are better, but we still have a lot of unknowns and those are realities. And everyone of those conversations has ended with, ‘It’ll be important to watch what happens over the next two or three weeks.”
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