The Southeastern Conference, the most influential league in college football, said it would delay the start of its season and have its teams play only within the conference.
As universities desperately try to rescue the college football season while the coronavirus pandemic continues to grip the country, the Southeastern Conference became the latest — and most influential — league to push back the start of its season and trim its schedule to conference-only games. The SEC’s decision, made by the conference’s 14 university presidents, comes one day after the Atlantic Coast Conference came to a similar conclusion — also including Notre Dame, which is a member of the conference in other sports but usually an independent in football. The SEC announced it would move the start of the season back by at least three weeks, to Sept.26, and play 10 games, which would leave each school with an open date — along with another open weekend preceding the conference championship game, which is now scheduled for Dec.19. The Big Ten and the Pac-12 conferences had previously announced they would play only conference games this season. That leaves only the Big 12 among the so-called Power 5 conferences that has not amended its schedule, though the conference on Thursday did cancel its media day, which had already been pushed back.
