SEC Approves Plan for 10-Game, All-Conference Schedule Sports Illustrated Reports
The SEC will officially be going the all-conference route, according to a report from Sports Illustrated. On Thursday, the conference presidents approved a 10-game schedule that will start Sept. 26 Ross Dellenger reports.
LSU’s nonconference games that will be affected as a result of the altered schedule include matchups against UTSA, Nicholls, Rice and Texas. The two extra conference games will be played against opponents from the opposite division, one against a permanent team from that division and the other from a rotating team.
For the Tigers that means two of either Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Vanderbilt or Missouri will be considered. Dellenger reports that it’s unclear at this time who, when or where those games will take place.
ESPN’s Paul Finebaum later reported that the Tigers will play Kentucky and Tennessee in the rescheduled season. Here are the additional matchups that will take place across the SEC:
The conference season will end with a championship game that will take place on Dec. 19 between the winners of the two divisions. In a press release from the conference, each team will receive one designated open date with an additional open date of Dec. 12 for all SEC programs.
“This new plan for a football schedule is consistent with the educational goals of our universities to allow for the safe and orderly return to campus of their student populations and to provide a healthy learning environment during these unique circumstances presented by the COVID-19 virus," SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said. "This new schedule supports the safety measures that are being taken by each of our institutions to ensure the health of our campus communities."
A move to an all-conference schedule was one of the many options considered by the SEC. At the end of the day this doesn’t mean that a season will actually take place.
While it buys the SEC a few extra weeks, the fact is that cases are still on the rise across the country. Dellenger laid out what needs to happen between now and Sept. 26 for the season to start.
The decision from the SEC and other Power 5 leagues hinges not only on the decline of overall case numbers but also the success of professional sports teams, many of which are experiencing problems as they return to practice. The hurdles to playing a season amidst a pandemic are a plenty: testing availability and delays in testing turnaround time; the return of thousands of students onto a college campus; a mandatory 14-day quarantine for positive contacts; and maybe most of all, the lack of a college sports bubble like the NBA has created.
Rice athletic director Joe Karlgaard released a statement upon hearing the news that the LSU-Rice game was cancelled.
“I'm disappointed we will not be able to play LSU this season, but given the current situation, it was not unexpected,” Karlgaard said. “We will work with LSU to see if there is an opportunity in a future season to reschedule the game."
“We believe these schedule adjustments offer the best opportunity to complete a full season by giving us the ability to adapt to the fluid nature of the virus and the flexibility to adjust schedules as necessary if disruptions occur," Sankey said. "It is regrettable that some of our traditional non-conference rivalries cannot take place in 2020 under this plan, but these are unique, and hopefully temporary, circumstances that call for unconventional measures."
