South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner says he thinks the regional differences and restrictions during the coronavirus outbreak could make it challenging for conferences to align on when to play the 2020 college football season.
Tanner spoke at a university board meeting Friday about the challenges to reach a consensus on the football season. He told ESPN later Friday that his comments related to the impact of the outbreak in different states and the varying restrictions, noting that some areas could be open while others remain under stay-at-home orders.
“The entire country is not going to be in the same place at the same time,” Tanner told ESPN. “That was my point. In a perfect world, we’re aligned and we play, and you have a championship or you go to the CFP, the bowl game, conference championships and life is normal. But right now, we’re in a wait-and-see mode to see what happens in the next few weeks. So that was my point, that there’s a possibility that conferences might not be aligned here. If you’re clear in certain parts of the country and others aren’t, do you think they’re not going to play?”
Tanner said there’s no need to make a decision immediately. He also thinks when it comes to starting practices, each league likely will be aligned on when all of its members can begin, to avoid competitive advantages.
“If you do get a chance to play, we’ll get about the same amount of practices and preparation time,” he said. “There will be some alignment from that standpoint. I’m just not sure that if it comes down to playing games, if there will be a national alignment. I could see circumstances where some conferences might get a chance to play 11 or 12 games, and others might only play 10, just because of the health and safety and well-being that we’re going through in the particular areas that we live in.
“It’s going to be different in different regions of the country.”
South Carolina president Robert Kaslen told the board Friday that several models for the season are being considered, including an October start, a schedule of only conference games and a season that begins after the December holiday. According to The Athletic, Kaslen told the board that he believes the SEC is “going to wait and see whether it’s going to be a national decision or left up to each conference.”
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told ESPN that the league will continue to work collaboratively with other conferences on when a season can safely begin. Sankey speaks regularly with commissioners from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and other conferences.
“The virus is going to determine what happens,” Sankey said. “We’re going to be connected. We’re going to be communicating and collaborating.”
Asked if the SEC would be willing to play games when other leagues would not, Sankey said, “I don’t have to make that decision right now.”
Tanner, who noted that he doesn’t speak for the conference, is hopeful that fall sports will occur in some form. But any season will feel far from normal.
“If there is an opportunity to play sport in the fall, in the winter, then I think that’s going to occur, but I do think it’s going to be a year with an asterisk,” he said. “What we’re experiencing as a country right now is unprecedented. It’s different. It would be great if we were normal, as scheduled, but I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a different dynamic going forward.”
ESPN’s Heather Dinich contributed to this report.