SEC Will Make Decision On Its Own Time Frame
Earlier this year SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey met with a biostatistician to discuss the conference’s response to the COVID-19 virus.
What’s a biostatistician? Glad your asked. A biostatistician takes biology-related events—like the current pandemic—and breaks them down into numerical components that are used to make decisions. It’s pretty heady stuff.
In that meeting Sankey received a piece of advice that would impact his decision-making process from that moment on.
“He told me to use all of the time I had and wait as long as possible before making a decision,” Sankey said when we talked this Spring. “The longer you wait the better information you will have. The better information you have the better decision you can make.”
So when reports surfaced on Sunday that the Big Ten would shut down its football season as early as Tuesday, early speculation was that it would pressure the rest of the Power Five conferences, including the SEC, to follow.
The Big Ten is scheduled to play its first football game on Sept. 3. The SEC designed its conference-only schedule so that it would not have to start until Sept. 26. Why, a logical person would ask, would the SEC give up that extra time to follow the Big Ten’s lead?
They wouldn’t and that’s why Sankey released this Tweet Monday afternoon:
“Best advice I’ve received since COVID-19: ‘Be patient. Take time when making decisions. This is all new and you’ll gain better information each day,’” Sankey wrote in his tweet. “@SEC has been deliberate at each step since March…slowed return to practice…delayed 1st game to respect start of fall semester…(developed) testing protocols…
We know concerns remain. We have never had a (football) season in a COVID-19 environment. Can we play? I don’t know. We haven’t stopped trying. We support, educate and care for student-athletes every day, and will continue to do so…every day."
Translation: “Thanks, but we’ll make this decision on our time frame.”
“I think the Commissioner said it all right there,” an SEC official told me.
Media reports persist that the Big Ten presidents will vote to shut down football on Monday night or Tuesday. But on Monday Commissioner Kevin Warren and the conference leadership got significant pushback within its own ranks:
**--Nebraska coach Scott Frost, via Mark Schlabach of ESPN, said he would be willing to go outside of the Big Ten to play this season. “I think we are we’re prepared to look at any and all options,” he told ESPN.
**--Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh released a strong fact-based statement advocating the start of the college football season as planned.
**--Penn State Coach James Franklin said that he would support his players on their desire to play.
**--Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields is leading a players group that wants to play the 2020 season. Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence is in that group #WeWantToPlay.
**--Ohio State Coach Ryan Day said on Twitter that he would fight for his players to get a chance to play. “This isn’t over!” #FIGHT
**--Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse sent a letter to the Big Ten office saying: “Please don’t cancel college football.”
Will this pushback cause the Big Ten presidents to reverse what seemed like an inevitable course of shutting down football for 2020?
I doubt it. It says here that the Big Ten and Pac-12 will decide not to play college football this Fall, leaving the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 with a big decision to make.
Now let’s be clear. The SEC could get to the end of this process and still decide that conditions are not safe enough to start the season. There are no guarantees.
This much we know: Sankey has 47 days before his teams are scheduled to play football. He will take his time.