SEC Preparing for 2020 Football Season Despite Current Situation
Birmingham, Al.- Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey spoke with media around the country on Wednesday morning via conference call to update fans on where things stand with the conference in the midst of the COVID-19 virus.
Among the topic discussed during the call, and likely the one with the most interest is the status of the 2020 college football season that is scheduled to begin September 5, when 13 of the leagues 14 teams will kick off their season.
Georgia is the only team not playing on opening weekend and included among those 13 games are Alabam vs Southern Cal in Dallas, and Ole Miss facing Baylor in Houston as marquee matchups in the opening weekend for the conference.
Sankey was asked where things stand in regard to that September 5 date.
“Our focus is on preparing for the 2020-2021 fall seasons as currently scheduled. So there’s a period on the end of that sentence,” Sankey said. “We will obviously think about everything going forward because we are being guided by public health information and decision making but our hope is we can return to our normal, organized activities, our normal experiences and being a part of that celebration around soccer, volleyball, cross country and football in the fall – but we’ll have to see.”
Sankey was then asked how optimistic he is that we will have a complete football season come the fall.
“That’s my focus. I’m a half-full perspective person so I have optimism,” Sankey answered. “We have taken measures, as have our colleague conferences at this time. I think that if I read those health leaders, they say we are going to have a period of time, see what happens with the growth of these cases and we will make decisions down the road.
“For me, my responsibility is to support the public health decision making but also to be prepared to do our work that’s assigned to us. We have categorized things for everyone — one is to be focused on the work we have. The second is to make sure we are prepared for next year as planned and third is to engage in big picture thinking, in which contingency planning but also strategic planning.”
So as of now, things are still on for the on-time start of college football, but as with most things in this crisis, that could change quickly, but until then we can all hold our collective breaths and hope.
