The Southwestern Athletic Conference has made the decision to move its fall sports, including football, to the spring. Grambling President Rick Gallot says the decision protects the health of their student-athletes.
“Ultimately we all felt that the risk was just not worth having our students potentially exposed to this deadly virus,” said Gallot.
The SWAC is planning to have a seven-game football schedule that would include six conference games and one non-conference contest. Preseason camp would begin in January. But Gallot says the virus will dictate if football can be played.
“A whole lot could happen going forward, either cases continuing to rise or cases beginning to go down or the possibility of a vaccine,” said Gallot.
Southern University Athletics Director Roman Banks says by the time 2021 gets here, he hopes we are close to a vaccine and there are fewer COVID-19 cases.
“It’ll depend on the state of Louisiana to mask up and social distance so we can have a football season in the spring and so that is very important to the act of getting back to normalcy, but we have to do it in a very responsible way,” said Banks.
Banks says the league is still deciding what the schedule will look like, but they know they’ll play Grambling and once a date is set, they’ll talk with Bayou Classic and New Orleans officials,
“We’ll see if their facilities are going to be available so that we can continue playing the Bayou Classic in New Orleans. If not, then we’ll look for an alternative site,” said Banks.
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