BIRMINGHAM — The Southeastern Conference currently has four games that have been postponed and will not be played Saturday.
Georgia at Missouri, Mississippi State hosting Auburn and Alabama traveling to LSU have also been postponed.
On Wednesday, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey discussed this week’s games being postponed and a season outlook.
“I think it’s important to remember, that so far to date in football season, we’ve completed 40 of our 70 games with a 10-game season for each of our 14 teams,” Sankey said. “That predicts to 70 games within the regular season. We recognized back in the summer that there would be the need to adjust. We provided opportunities for that. Those are not infinite opportunities, but we acknowledge the likelihood of adjustment.
“We’ve seen disruption in every conference and in leagues at the professional level, so the fact that we have disruption this week is not fully news. The significance of the numbers of contests affected fully is, candidly, the numbers around contact tracing — and I think you’ve heard from some of what I’ve learned from our coaches’ comments — have emerged as one of our biggest challenges to playing. We don’t control those policies. We don’t dictate those policies. Those policies exist in the public health domain. Over time, our test positivity rate is incredibly low among our student-athletes, something like .005 percent. Even this week the positive test numbers, even where they’ve risen, are relatively small, but the contact tracing has the potential to magnify even one positive test. All of which serves as a reminder, moving forward, that adjustments have to continually be made. The basic issues around mask wearing, personal hygiene, social distancing, being fully attentive, that we are living with a novel coronavirus in our culture, in our society, around the globe, is real.”
[vertical-gallery id=30244]