The Southeast Conference made its big move on Thursday.
The SEC moved to a schedule of only 10 conference games and changed the start of the season back to September 26, sources told AL.com.
The schedule change also pushes the SEC championship game to December 19 at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The decision comes after SEC presidents and foreign ministers met virtually on Thursday to discuss scheduling options. The league’s athletic directors had a similar meeting on Wednesday, where a consensus emerged around a 10-game conference-only schedule.
“This new plan for a soccer schedule is consistent with the educational goals of our universities to enable 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, Sankey said in a statement after AL.com broke the news, “This new timeline supports the security measures each of our institutions are taking to ensure the health of the communities on our campus.”
The SEC is not expected to abandon its SEC East and SEC West divisions as ACC did with its 2020 calendar announced on Wednesday. AL.com reported earlier Thursday that the SEC schools already had a good sense of the additional schools they would have to face on a 10-game conference schedule, but that those additional games had yet to be finalized. The expectation is that each SEC school will add two cross division opponents.
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The ACC also added conference games when it unveiled its plan on Wednesday, but it still had a non-conference game included in its hybrid schedule. The SEC’s shift to a conference-only schedule eliminates in-state rivalry games like Florida-Florida State and Louisville-Kentucky, and tick off non-conference games like LSU-Texas and Oklahoma-Tennessee. It could also trigger force majeure clauses in non-conference game contracts with Group 5 and FCS opponents.
“We believe that these schedule adjustments offer the best opportunity to complete an entire season by giving us the ability to adapt to the fluid nature of the virus and the flexibility to adjust schedules as necessary if interruptions occur,” Sankey said. “It is unfortunate 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 require unconventional measures.”
Big Ten and Pac-12 were the first two Power 5 conferences to switch to conference-only times earlier this month. After the Big Ten announced on July 9 that it was moving to a conference-only schedule, AL.com first reported that SEC leaders hoped the conference would have to follow suit.
John Talty is the sports editor and SEC Insider for the Alabama Media Group. You can follow him on Twitter @JTalty.
