re: Rumors swirling that Mississippi State vs Georgia might be canceled

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These should be forfeits.

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Making LSU 4-4.

Florida and Arkansas (likely) forfeiting to us and us forfeiting to Bama. Also giving UGA the inside track to the SEC East title.

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It doesn't seem fair to take away a game from the team that doesn't have the covid issues

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I have no idea how a school(s) would even be able to do this logistically with cancellations sometimes happening at the last minute, but the SEC did say that if there were, for instance, two games cancelled and two of the four teams were able to play, then they could then schedule a game between each other. I think that was addressed by Sankey along with adding 12/19 as an available date for schools to makeup games that aren't playing in the SECCG

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And then if they have less than 53 scholarship players, the SEC won't let them play no matter what they want, do, or say.

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I'm kind of wondering who is making the calls. The SEC, initially, has in their guidelines that if a school is under the 53, then they can choose to play, but I do wonder if the SEC isn't stepping in to be "proactive" for PR reasons of having a team try to play with 40 players right after a bunch of team mates were under a quarantine mandate. I just think the conference may think that is a bad look. I honestly have no idea. I'm just so over 2020. But, reports say that LSU had like 45 players available, and given some of those players are specialists, they'd be faced with having no backups at several positions and, IIRC, they had no long-snapper and no tight ends, and no backup QB. I'm all for getting games played, but I just don't know how you expect to put a team on the field in a college football game under those conditions. If people think a forfeit is warranted, fine, but I don't think a team with that few players should be playing a team with twice as many scholarship players available. Hell, I remember when Kiffin was at USC under scholarship sanctions and didn't even have full-contact at practice to avoid players getting hurt and not having enough healthy players to get through the season.

And are we really at the point where we're blaming teams for having to cancel a game based on players getting sick when our country is taking even more extreme measures in daily life?

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Yeah that greater than 99% survival rate is horrible

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Regardless of opinions on the virus (I agree with you fwiw), the SEC still has to maintain a certain public image as well as having liability concerns. The league would get horrible backlash if they forced teams to forfeit games due to following COVID protocols that, more or less, mirror the CDC guidelines and even worse if they made teams play games with half their team quarantined. With all the heightened awareness with player safety, do you really think it would be a good idea or look for the league for teams to be faced with playing pseudo iron man football just to avoid a forfeit? The SEC (along with the ACC and Big12) led the charge for us even having a season this year, so just be thankful we've had any games because until late July, that didn't seem anywhere near a guarantee.

For teams that can’t get there Covid sh!t together just deduct that TV money from there check at the end of the season. They’ll start putting teams on the field.

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Play the damn game.

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Agree. If anything some backups and walk ons get to play and you gain depth long term.

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Yeah that greater than 99% survival rate is horrible

Regardless of opinions on the virus (I agree with you fwiw), the SEC still has to maintain a certain public image as well as having liability concerns. The league would get horrible backlash if they forced teams to forfeit games due to following COVID protocols that, more or less, mirror the CDC guidelines and even worse if they made teams play games with half their team quarantined. With all the heightened awareness with player safety, do you really think it would be a good idea or look for the league for teams to be faced with playing pseudo iron man football just to avoid a forfeit? The SEC (along with the ACC and Big12) led the charge for us even having a season this year, so just be thankful we've had any games because until late July, that didn't seem anywhere near a guarantee.

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What if the remaining games get cancelled and not enough to have a season? That is more likely if more are coming in the next few weeks.

I find this weird because I've heard that Georgia along with Florid and Texas are the most open states as far as going against Covid lockdown. At least that what CNN has been saying. How is it they have not cancelled a game due to infections?

The trend seems to be if we're having a bad year, we're going to not play and we'll find an excuse to do that.

The contact tracing is utter non-sense.

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So is there no actual legs to this rumor?

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Supposedly State only has 54 players available because of injuries/opt outs/transfers and a couple of covid cases. Apparently if you alienate a quarter of your team, you can use it as an excuse to cancel the game. SEC needs to start withholding teams TV money when they cancel games.

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Yep, need to make them forfeits from now on.

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Well that’s not fair at all- you either forfeit them all or none not some random willy nilly week in the season.