SEC Meets in Birmingham Today To Talk Football

With football season on the brink due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people are desperate to find out how and what the football season will look like. The Ivy League and Patriot League have already cancelled its football season. The Big 10 and Pac-12 announced they would forgo non-conference action and only play games within their leagues. The ACC is expected to lean to only conference contests as well but it has not been officially announced.

The SEC athletic directors met at the conference offices with Greg Sankey to discuss the upcoming football season and what it may look like in 2020. It was the first in-person meeting with the athletic directors since the cancellation of the SEC basketball tournament in March.

Commissioner Sankey gave a statement to the media after the meeting, echoing his statments of the last few weeks. He reiterated that the conference would continue to wait until late July to make a final decision on the upcoming football season.

The athletic directors spent time during their meeting hearing from members of the SEC's Return to Activity and Medical Guidance Task Force to discuss what the conference needs to do in order to return to action.

The conference arraigned the task force once the basketball tournament was cancelled to prioritize health and safety and a timely return to action.

"It is clear that current circumstances related to COVID-19 must improve and we will continue to closely monitor developments around the virus on a daily basis," Sankey said. "In the coming weeks we will continue to meet regularly with campus leaders via video conferences and gather relevant information while guided by medical advisors. We believe that late July will provide the best clarity for making the important decisions ahead of us."

Commissioner Sankey joined ESPN radio after the meeting and did say that the conference is not quite at the point of deciding to move to a conference only schedule.