There will likely be SWAC football during the 2020-2021 academic year after all.
The conference presidents and chancellors met Monday and decided to explore punting football and the rest of the fall sports schedule to the spring because concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, according to press release from the conference. Joining football in the move to spring 2021 would be men’s and women’s cross country, women’s soccer and women’s volleyball will the shift.
The presidents and chancellors found the move necessary as concerns about the spread of the coronavirus grew. The MEAC and Ivy League have already decided to forgo fall sports and an erroneous report on Friday said the SWAC was headed down the same path.
But the SWAC appears to have made a pivot. The game plan is for football to play a seven-game schedule beginning with an eight-week training period in January, according to a press release from the SWAC. Each school will play six conference games and have the option to play one non-conference game under the proposed spring format.
The SWAC is still exploring how to deal with the schedules of the other fall sports and the SWAC Football Championship game and details will be released later. The conference also did not specify its plans for the winter sports schedules.
