The Southeastern Conference has moved to postpone athletic competitions for volleyball, cross country, and soccer through August 31st, announcing the move to combat the COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday.
Any games that would be affected by the move will be allowed to be rescheduled after the August 31st start-up date, according to the SEC office in Birmingham.
At Missouri, the soccer team had, citing an abundance of caution, cancelled travel plans to play in a tournament in California. Looking at 2019, Mizzou volleyball had a intra-squad scrimmage, one exhibition match, and a non-conference games prior to September. Cross country normally has at least one home meet in late August, sometimes more.
While the SEC appeared proactive in one decision, concerning another, the money-making monster that is SEC football, no decisions have been made. Last week, the Big 10 and Pac-12 Conferences announced conference-only schedules for 2020, but those decisions, with the exceptions of USC vs. Alabama and Texas A&M vs. Colorado, did not effect the SEC. Commissioner Greg Sankey has indicated a decision on football from the SEC can be expected by the end of July.
All fourteen SEC athletic directors, including Missouri’s Jim Sterk, met on Monday in Birmingham to discuss potential options for playing the football season. Missouri’s opener is scheduled for Saturday, September 5th at Faurot Field in Columbia against the University of Central Arkansas.
Concerning the meeting on Monday, reports have surfaced from Ross Dellenger and Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated revealing specific discussions brought to the table during the meetings. Options discussed including the addition of opponents to a 2020 SEC slate, and the potential, if spread continues, to move the season to spring 2021.
The most popular plan among A.D.’s, according to the report, involved keeping 13 non-conference games (including Missouri at BYU in October) intact with 9 to 10 game models that would include eight games in the SEC. The discussions involving 9 and 10 games in conference play were said to be not as popular at the table, with one unnamed A.D. describing a 10 game SEC schedule “laughable”, noting the difficulty of playing that amount of challenging contests. In a 9 to 10 game SEC scenario, a school like Mizzou would keep their six SEC East opponents, the annual cross-over game with Arkansas, and the scheduled crossover at Mississippi State, and then add one or two teams from the remainder of the SEC West (options would be LSU, Auburn, Alabama, Texas A&M, and Ole Miss).
The option of moving the season to the spring was also unpopular, with it being described as a “last resort” type of decision, with the developing problem of pushing 2020 too close to the 2021 season cited as troublesome.
In other conference news, Alabama has added to its 2021 recruiting class with highly-touted Texas high school linebacker Kendrick Blackshire. The four-star (247Sports) prospect from Duncanville, Texas chose the Crimson Tide over LSU, Texas A&M, Baylor, Oklahoma, and Illinois. Mizzou had offered Blackshire, but had been eliminated from contention by Blackshire’s announcement of his “Final 6”.
Blackshire missed his junior season with an ACL injury. He is ranked the #7 inside linebacker nationwide in the Class of ’21, with his ability to move quickly and a big size (245 pounds) seen as his upside at the Division 1 level. In the recruiting rich state of Texas, he is ranked #26 overall.
July’s impressive performance in the Elite 11 camp in Nashville has boosted East St. Louis, Illinois quarterback and Mizzou commit Tyler Macon to a four-star, now one of three 4-stars in Missouri’s ’21 recruiting class, along with St. Louis defensive end Travion Ford and North Carolina linebacker Dameon Wilson. Macon is, in 247Sports rankings, up to the #13 dual-threat quarterback and #25 overall quarterback in next year’s graduating class.
At Auburn University, senior running back Malik Miller is leaving the Tiger football program, according to a report from Tom Green of AL.com. His future plans for transfer are unknown, but connections with coaches at Tennessee and Mississippi State have many believing he is looking at those two destinations for his final season of eligibility.
At LSU, linebacker Marcel Brooks is leaving the Tiger program, with CBS Sports reporting that Brooks is headed to the Big 12’s TCU Horned Frogs. A native Texan from Flower Mound, Brooks played in 11 games as a freshman in Baton Rouge during LSU’s 2019 national championship season. A five-star prospect from a year ago, Brooks chose the “Bayou Bengals” over Alabama, Florida, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M.
