A dozen words.
That’s all it took for Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey to send a sobering shock wave of reality to the fan bases, administrators, coaches and athletes of the country’s most powerful and passionate athletic conference.
Asked during a Saturday interview on ESPN’s “Marty & McGee” radio show to measure his concern for an autumn college football season as coronavirus cases soar with the summer heat throughout the South, Sankey replied: “We are running out of time to correct and get things right.”
Those 12 words were spoken as news sank in that the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences have already announced they would be playing conference games only this fall, which will eliminate, among others, the highly anticipated – at least among Alabama fans – Southern California-Alabama game. Also lost will be Ohio State-Oregon matchup and Notre Dame facing Wisconsin at iconic Lambeau Field, the storied home of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers.
In fact, the Big Ten and Pac-12 decisions leave Notre Dame without three key matchups – against Southern Cal, Wisconsin and Stanford – which means the Fighting Irish, if there’s a season of any kind, may have to slip in an extra game or two against their unofficial football conference, the Atlantic Coast, to have anything approaching a full schedule.