SEC football moving to conference-only schedule has major implications

Moving the 2020 SEC football season back and limiting it to conference-only games has major implications for the sport.

First it was the Big Ten and Pac-12 and then the ACC followed along and decided on a conference-only schedule with an 11th game that was allowed to be non-conference.

The ACC also ruled that Notre Dame could be considered a conference foe so the Irish could compete for 11 games and potentially win a league title.

Three of the Power Five leagues had made a decision and then the SEC followed on Thursday afternoon, announcing it would play a 10-game conference-only schedule and that didn’t come as a huge surprise as the USC vs. Alabama season-opener was cancelled earlier in the day.

While this might seem like a good development for the start of college football this fall, it goes to show that the season is looking unlikely.

How? This move to start the season later and cut down on non-conference games just goes to show that there’s doubt that playing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is safe. The SEC is the biggest money-making conference of all and it joins three other Power Five leagues in changing the entire season and eliminating marquee non-conference games like LSU vs. Texas, Auburn vs. North Carolina and Oklahoma vs. Tennessee on top of Alabama vs. USC.

This decision by the SEC may just go to show that the season needs to be moved to the spring or just cancelled altogether.

Athletic directors and school administrators don’t feel as if a season would go on safely if played the way it was supposed to, so maybe it’s time to talk about it not being safe at all, even in a conference-only schedule.