A report says the SWAC plans to cancel fall sports. Conference calls report ‘premature.’
It appears that there will be no 2020 football season in the Southwestern Athletic Conference thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The SWAC plans to announce that it is canceling fall sports on Monday, according to a Friday report by Brett McMurphy of the Stadium network.
However, SWAC commissioner Charles McClelland said Friday afternoon that the report by McMurphy is incorrect.
“That report is 100 percent inaccurate and premature,” McClelland told KTVE in Monroe, La. “We do have a meeting scheduled for Monday. It’s a meeting that’s been on the books now for a week and a half in our ongoing discussions about what we’re supposed to do or what we will do with our sporting events. We will get together Monday with the council of presidents and we will have a decision as to whether we’re going to delay, keep course or move sports to the spring.”
The SWAC would be the latest Football Championship Subdivision conference to cancel fall competition, joining the MEAC — another historically black conference.
The SWAC includes three Mississippi HBCUs — Jackson State, Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State. They are joined in the lineup by Prairie View, Southern University, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Texas Southern, Grambling State and Alabama State.
Florida A&M and Bethune Cookman recently announced that they plan to join the SWAC for the 2021 season.
A decision by the SWAC to forego the 2020 football campaign would mean that Southern Miss would have an open date for Sept. 19. The Golden Eagles were originally scheduled to host Jackson State that day.
The loss of the JSU game would be another financial hit for USM during the pandemic. It is typically one of the best attended games of the season when the two teams play in Hattiesburg.
The Southern Miss football season is in some question as well with all Football Bowl Subdivision conferences trying to determine the best way to approach a 2020 schedule under coronavirus restrictions.
This story was originally published July 17, 2020 at 4:38 PM.
