SEC: Schools set policy
Bianchi: Commissioner said league doesn’t decide attendance rules.
After the No. 4-ranked Florida Gators lost to Texas A&M on Saturday, the national headlines naturally focused on UF coach Dan Mullen stunningly urging his own university to lift all
COVID-19 crowd restrictions so the Gators could “pack the Swamp with 90,000 [fans]” for future home games.
Because of the shock value of Mullen’s statement, perhaps a more important point the Florida coach made after Saturday’s loss got buried in the fallout — a point I resurrected Thursday and discussed with SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey.
“The section behind our bench,
I didn’t see an empty seat,” Mullen said of A&M’s crowd after the game. “It was packed; the entire student section; must have been 50,000 people behind our bench going crazy.”
In other words, Mullen, along with TV commentators and many others throughout the country believe A&M’s attendance was much larger than the 24,709 that was announced. When I broached the topic with Sankey, he told me perception is not always reality.
He said the SEC office followed up on the concerns, found that A&M’s attendance protocol “appeared to be adhered to” and noted that TV “camera angles can be deceiving” when showing the size of a crowd.
When asked if he was confident A&M’s attendance figures were accurate, Sankey replied, “I have to take what’s reported to me and we’ve followed up on that, but I’m not the attendance monitor.
Translation: This is not an SEC issue; it’s a Texas A&M issue.
As Sankey pointed out, the league has left it up to its 14 member institutions to set stadium capacity and determine how many fans are allowed into games. “We [the conference office] don’t govern attendance; that is up to campus, local and state health officials,” Sankey said.
In other words, if Texas A&M wanted to fill its stadium with more than 100,000 fans during a pandemic, then it could. If Florida
wanted to pack 90,000 into the Swamp as Mullen suggested, then it could. It’s up to each individual school to do the right thing when it comes to how many fans are allowed into the games, how they are dispersed throughout the stadium and how ardently they are encouraged to wear masks and practice social distancing.
Is Texas A&M doing it the right way? Are the Aggies being as diligent as possible in making sure fans are masked up and practicing physical distancing in the stadium? It sure didn’t seem like it Saturday. Then again, I wasn’t at the game and can only go by what I saw on TV and in still photographs of the crowd.
When I asked UF athletics director Scott Stricklin, who was at the game, if he is comfortable with how other schools in the league are managing their fans, he paused and said, “One of the things my predecessor, Jeremy Foley, told me is that if we always pay attention to the Gators, then we’re probably going to be OK. Our focus 100% is making sure that when we host games here [at UF], we’re creating the right environment and are doing things the right way. I thought the one home game we had, our fans were tremendous — not only from a social-distancing standpoint but from a masking standpoint.
“It’s not easy,” Stricklin added. “You have to coach
and encourage and set expectations. I can’t speak to how well other schools are doing that.”
I was in attendance at Florida’s first home game against South Carolina and can vouch for how the Gators have taken great care to not only limit attendance to 17,000, but to make sure the crowd is evenly spread throughout the stadium. In many ways, UF’s strategy has been a model for how to manage fans during a pandemic. The Gators spent about $200,000 to put chair-back bleacher seats in every space where reserve tickets have been sold. This allows ushers to monitor the crowd and make sure fans are in their assigned seats.
I can’t tell you how grateful I am that the sports leaders in our state are doing a better job of keeping us safe than some of our politicians. Even though Gov. Ron DeSantis has given them the green light to sell every
ticket and pack their stadiums, college and pro sports officials in Florida have decided it’s not worth the health risk to turn football games into super-spreader COVID-19 parties.
As UCF athletics director Danny White told me earlier this week, “We have ongoing concerns about the community spread of the virus. It doesn’t just start and end at the game. If we don’t do our part on game day, that could lead to more problems in our community in the days after. We don’t want to be a negative contributor to our community.”
For the sake of the people living in the great state of Texas, here’s hoping Texas A&M administrators have the same philosophy.