Signs the SEC is pushing back against move to cancel college football this fall
Might the SEC go it alone?
After a Sunday in which college football’s fall 2020 season appeared on the brink of cancellation, there were inklings Monday morning that the SEC might be the one Power Five conference to pull on the pads and play.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey tweeted on Monday afternoon that the league will continue to be patient “Can we play? I don’t know. We haven’t stopped trying,” he said.
Earlier Monday, appearing on ESPN’s “Get Up” program, SEC Network talk show host Paul Finebaum said he was hearing from sources that the league still planned on playing in 2020 despite the coronavirus pandemic.
“There is plenty of pushback,” Finebaum said. “I talked to an SEC source yesterday, who said ‘we’re still planning on playing. We have our schedule release coming up in a couple of days.’ Remember, Friday night, the SEC released the two additional conference games.”
Meanwhile, Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek became the first athletic director to publicly back the #wewantotplay movement initiated by some of the top college football players on Sunday night.
“On behalf of the @RazorbackFB team (that includes my son) and each of the @ArkRazorbacks student-athletes that I represent, serve, support, care for, fight for and love. #WeWantToPlay,” Yurachek tweeted.
ESPN’s Heather Dinich said she received a text message from Texas A&M AD Ross Bjork saying the SEC is working independently from other conferences.
“We don’t need to change our approach right now,” Dinich said Bjork told her. “Things are fluid but we still have time.”
And Dan Patrick said on his syndicated radio show Monday that the Big Ten and Pac-12 will cancel their seasons on Tuesday. Patrick said he was told that the ACC and Big 12 are on the fence, while the SEC is trying to get teams to join them for a season.
Patrick said his sources are telling him the Big Ten vote is 12-2 to cancel. Nebraska and Iowa want to play.
Update: Detroit Free Press reporting that the Big Ten has in fact canceled its fall football season.
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 10:03 AM.
