SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was asked about the ACC’s decision to cancel makeup games scheduled for December 12 on Wednesday and he stated he was surprised.
“It begs one question: If their two most highly ranked teams were, for instance, (ranked) five and six in the CFP Rankings, would this decision have been made,” Sankey said in an interview with CBS Sports.
In Dabo Swinney fashion, on Thursday’s Off-Campus Show with Mark Packer on ESPNU Radio, he took up for the ACC.
“It is what it is. We are thankful to have a chance to play ten games,” Swinney said. “We had eleven scheduled and listen. We wanted to play an SEC game as well. We weren’t the one’s who canceled the South Carolina game. That is for sure.”
Swinney was referring a decision in August by the SEC to cancel the Clemson/South Carolina game when they decided their teams were going to play 10-game conference games only schedule. The ACC had already voted before that to play an 11 game 10-conference, plus one non-conference game schedule, 10 league games and one out of conference, to preserve the rivalry games between Clemson/South Carolina, Georgia/Georgia Tech, Florida/Florida State, and Kentucky/Louisville.
“We wanted to play that game but we did not get the opportunity,” Swinney said. “We wanted to play eleven, but good Lord willing, we will get our tenth in and man what a season it has been. If that is good enough to get us to Charlotte, then hey, we will move on and get ready for a great championship game if we can earn the right to do that and anything can happen from there.”
One thing that makes this so interesting is that, as of today, the ACC has played more games (75) than any other conference during the pandemic while the SEC has played 17 less games (58) games over the same period.
If the games scheduled for this week through Dec. 19 are played, every ACC team will have played at least 10 regular season games. NC State, Boston College, Virginia Tech, Pitt, Louisville, Duke, and Syracuse will have played 11 games.
Even with those facts Sankey still had these comments also.
“We committed to playing a 10-game schedule, which is certainly unique to see some other decisions this week where they indicated one direction and they changed at the last minute. We’re still moving forward with the opportunity for all 14 of our teams to play 10 games,” he continued.
That sounds wonderful until you take into account that this will still be fewer games than what many teams in the ACC are playing and Swinney’s Tigers are actually playing the same number of games as the Tide, the Gators, and the Aggies.
