SEC presidents and chancellors this week approved Dec. 19, which is the day of the SEC championship game, as a makeup date for other games that have been postponed this season because of COVID-19, a source told ESPN on Friday.
As the SEC continues to navigate its way through a tumultuous week during which four games were postponed in a span of three days, the league’s presidents and chancellors met on Thursday in a regularly-scheduled meeting to discuss the Dec. 19 option. On Tuesday, all 14 SEC athletic directors agreed that date should be used to provide the conference more flexibility as the virus continues to disrupt the season.
At this point, it appears adding Dec. 19 as an option is necessary if the league is going to play all 70 games this season. Forty have already been played, and it’s too early to tell what matchups would be rescheduled for the final day before the College Football Playoff selection committee announces its final ranking of the season on Dec. 20.
The SEC doesn’t currently have a window for the LSU-Alabama game, which was postponed this week. With Alabama currently in first place in the West and the leading candidate to play in the Dec. 19 championship game, it doesn’t make sense to move the game to Dec. 19 right now.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was asked on Wednesday about the reshuffling of conference games to this point, and he noted the league had already moved five or six games.
“It affected the involved teams which were Florida and Vanderbilt,” he said, “and it affected the uninvolved teams, like Georgia and Kentucky, come to top of mind. LSU was in that as well. And that’s going to be the reality moving forward, and the ability to adjust games and modify the schedule. And we’ve said this to our membership repeatedly: It will affect more than just the involved teams.”
