The SEC show must go on
Published 8:56 am Sunday, October 9, 2016
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Oh sure, it’s easy for you to sit here in Louisiana and mock the University of Florida for not hosting LSU Saturday.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But you didn’t have to endure almost a full 1 inch of rain Friday, some of it with winds approaching 30 mph in the Gainesville area.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You wouldn’t have had to sweep your sidewalk of spare leaves before heading to the game, where everybody would be in real danger of a bad sunburn since Saturday — just as everyone feared — turned out to be a day of crystal-clear blue skies at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, 78 degrees.</span>
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<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You can’t be too careful, or deliberate, as Florida Athletic Director Jeremy Foley bravely displayed all week.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Besides, other parts of Florida didn’t fare as well and first responders might be needed elsewhere, such as Disney World, which did reopen Saturday.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Don’t be distracted that the same storm had long departed by Saturday and made its way north, where it was verily pelting Notre Dame and North Carolina State even as they played on through the slosh and wind gusts.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That was after the storm passed through Columbia, South Carolina, with a little more punch than Gainesville got.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In fact, a big tree fell on the house of South Carolina Athletic Director Ray Tanner, but today he plans to be at his team’s rescheduled game with Georgia at Williams-Brice Stadium, which apparently suffered some cosmetic damage. Fans will risk dyslexia while suffering the inconvenience of reading something like “W lcom t W lli ms-Br ce Sta ium” across the facade of the press box.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But they’ll get the game in today.</span>
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<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Southeastern Conference has yet to explain why it rubber-stamped one game’s cancellation and signed off another playing, while calling it best for everybody involved.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Sunday wasn’t an option for the LSU-Florida game, Foley said because (best I could tell), well, just because he didn’t want to play on Sunday and that was that.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He also didn’t want to move the game, certainly not to Baton Rouge (perfectly understandable) or anywhere else (for reasons only he knows).</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There were plenty of neutral sites available, some as close as Tampa.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">One theory floated was that it wouldn’t have been fair to send Gators players on the road while many of them were worried about families back home.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Or perhaps the school’s travel resources were stretched by getting the volleyball team to — oh, the irony — South Carolina for a match.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">When it comes to something important like volleyball, somehow Florida will get it done — or perhaps the ladies don’t care as much about loved ones back home.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s a mess — and it’s not over yet.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">One tweet Thursday noted, presumably facetiously, that the SEC will consult with LSU and Florida, take both sides’ views into account, and after careful consideration come up with the solution that is best for Alabama.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Ha ha.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it could work out that way.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s a mess, and could wreak havoc with both division races.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">All of the doomsday scenarios for the league standings are based on pure hypotheticals, some of them more related to wishful thinking, if not pipe dreams.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But to recap:</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">For LSU, the Tigers would have to win out in the conference, including a victory over Alabama. But if that was Alabama’s lone loss, the Tide would go to the SEC championship game. The Tide’s 7-1 league record as opposed to 6-1 for LSU would trump the Tigers’ head-to-head victory.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Ed Orgeron must have made quite an impression in his coaching debut last week, because this possibility is being seriously discussed.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In the East division the failure to play the game — stop me if you already guessed this — could benefit Florida of all folks.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Tennessee suffered its first loss Saturday at Texas A&M. The Vols will have an excellent opportunity for a second loss when they play Alabama this week.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But if Tennessee does end with a 6-2 SEC record, a one-loss Florida team at 6-1 would trump the Vols to get to the title game, even though UT won their head-to-head matchup.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Tennessee coach Butch Davis has screamed loudest that LSU-Florida “has to be played.”</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey seemed to agree while speaking on Saturday’s telecast of Tennessee-Texas A&M.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU Athletic Director Joe Alleva, who desperately wanted to play the game this weekend, is now being just as stubborn about not making it up as Foley was about not playing it this weekend.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU has reasons not to want the make-up, especially on the most obvious date of Nov. 19. Both schools have nonconference games then, South Alabama for LSU, Presbyterian for Florida.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Alleva says LSU can’t afford to lose a home game — the $1.5 million it would owe South Alabama, plus the $3 million in game revenue.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Worse, perhaps, it would mean that after playing Alabama, LSU would end the season with three consecutive monster road games — at Arkansas, Florida and Texas A&M, all nationally ranked — in 13 days.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Sankey has already dealt, and lost, with one athletic director (Foley) in full-blown stubborn mode.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Sankey is catching a lot of grief over it.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He’s likely to be more active if he gets it in his head that the game, one way or another, will be played.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If all it takes is money, the SEC can make South Alabama and Presbyterian ($500,000) go away. Surely there’s some mad money stashed away in a rainy-day fund somewhere that could compensate LSU for its lost revenue.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Nothing they can do about the three straight road games other than a minor tweak to move the A&M finale from Thursday to Saturday.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If that’s what it takes, LSU will just have to admit that it got beat at the original negotiating table with Florida and take its medicine.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">No, it’s not fair to have such a season-ending gauntlet.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But the Tigers will just have to man up and play it.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If not, then don’t accuse Florida of dodging LSU this weekend.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You know what your old friend Les Miles would do. He’d at least talk a good game, bellowing about how his LSU Tigers not only accept, but would relish the challenge and can’t wait to embark on it.</span>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">Scooter Hobbs</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">covers LSU</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">athletics. Email him at</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">shobbs@americanpress.com</span>
