SEC postpones yet another game as A&msweats return next week
COLLEGE STATION — Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey said a sign at the back entrance of the league’s office reminds employees to “Be Flexible” in their daily routines. The sound counsel has never been more relevant than in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’ve repeatedly said, really since last March, that the circumstances around the virus will guide our decisions,” Sankey said Wednesday during a visit with reporters. “The reality is that the virus in some circumstances determines our direction.”
The current direction continues to be additional postponements of football games. The SEC now has postponed four of its seven scheduled contests for Saturday, the latest being Georgia at Missouri, based on multiple positive COVID-19 cases among league members andthe resulting contact tracing. The SEC was not alone among themajor conferences in having its scheduled upended this week. The Big Ten canceled No. 3 Ohio State’s game against Maryland because of coronavirus problems with the Terrapins.
Contact tracing is, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “a process to identify, monitorandsupport individuals who may have been exposed to a person with a communicable disease, such as COVID-19.”
Sankey added: “Candidly, the numbers around contact tracing … 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.”
The commissioner said SEC’S athletes’ positive rates for COVID-19 are “incredibly low” and around .005 percent.
“Even this week with the positive test numbers, even when they’ve risen, they’re relatively small,” Sankey said. “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 and being fully attentive that we are living with a novel coronavirus in our culture, in our society and around the globe … (it’s) real.”
No. 5 Texas A&M was supposed to play at Tennessee on Saturday, but after multiple positive COVID-19 tests in the past week amonga&mplayers, thegamewas put off until Dec. 12.
“Safety is the No. 1 issue for our players, and our medical staff has done a great job,” A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said Wednesday. “We only have two positive cases, but the contact tracing is ahuge part of whatwe’redoing. All of our tests … have been negative since then.”
Fisher said because of contact tracing and last week’s trip to South Carolina, where the Aggies won 48-3, the number of A&M scholarship players currently available is below the 53 the SEC requires for a game.
“We’ll evaluate this week when we get back to work if we possibly can (practice) this week at all,” Fisher said. “We still want to get a couple of more (daily COVID) tests, because a couple of days afterward, you truly get a better gauge on where you are.”
Fisher said the Aggies might well be in a different situation this week if they had not played a road game last weekend.
“The road trips are the most demanding because of the plane … (and) you’re in small locker rooms,” Fisher said. “You don’t think that’s a big factor, but that’s a huge factor before games and after games. We’re trying to do as good as we can do.”
The Aggies have yet to practice this week— they’re meeting by video teleconference instead — after Fisher said a player and a teamstudent worker tested positive for the virus to begin the week. Starting safety Demani Richardson already had missed A&M’S win at South Carolina after testing positive for COVID-19 a week ago.
The Aggies are scheduled to hostmississippionnov. 21, but that game at Kyle Field is very much in doubt based on contact tracing within the program.
“I don’t know,” Fisher said when asked his confidence level of hosting Mississippi in a little more than a week. “That will have to be evaluated at that time.”
The SEC title game is scheduled for Dec. 19, but other SEC games not having an impact on the championship game are now expected to be played on that date, in addition to Dec. 12, to try to squeeze in a 10-game regular season. The Aggies are hopeful of their first fourteam College Football Playoff berth and angling to play as many games as possible.
Alabama coach Nick Saban, who again has the Crimson Tide atop the rankings, called to mind cryptic kin when asked about his players exercising caution on trips home during an off weekend. Alabama’s visit to LSU, which had been scheduled for Saturday, has been postponed.
“Everybody trusts their family; I trust my family,” Saban said. “But nobody knows where Uncle Tommy has been, either, so you still have to be careful.”