Plan B is in place and it might be better than Plan A
The Southeastern Conference announced its Plan B on Thursday afternoon, according to a report from Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated and confirmed to PowerMizzou.com by a source. Following approval from the University Presidents, the league is expected to release its revised scheduling plan for the 2020 season potentially as soon as today.
It is important to note that Thursday's announcement makes it no more or no less likely that football will be played than it was on Wednesday. Or the Wednesday before that. Or the Wednesday before that. It was simply an adjustment, an admission that the season is not going to look the way we thought it was going to look back in the pre-COVID-19 days.
For fans--who at best will be able to attend games in limited numbers and at worst will have to watch them all on TV--the new model is actually an improvement. Gone from Missouri's schedule are buy games against Central Arkansas and Eastern Michigan. Those were nothing more than glorified scrimmages with regular season price tags. The conference-only model also scraps a visit from Louisiana and a trip to BYU. While those are much more attractive and competitive games than the other two, they are now replaced by SEC games. That's a better watch for fans and less downside for the program (names still matter and losing to an SEC team is less damaging than losing to a non-Power Five team, even if the non-Power Five team is actually better).
The 2020 model also gives fans--and players--a chance to see teams they wouldn't normally see. One of the loudest criticisms of the SEC since its expansion to 14 teams in the 2012 season is that cross-divisional games are extremely limited. Each team has an annual "rivalry" game against a team from the opposite division. For Missouri, that is Arkansas. With the SEC still playing only eight conference games, that left only one opening per year for a game against a team from the West division. Since joining the league, Texas A&M and Alabama are the only Western teams Missouri has played more than once in the regular season and the Tigers haven't faced the Aggies since 2014.
LSU has never played in Columbia. Mizzou hasn't traveled to Auburn or Mississippi State (currently scheduled this year) since joining the league. The Tigers have played as many games against West Virginia as a member of the SEC as they have against any West team other than Arkansas. This year gives the league a chance to change that.
While the new schedule is more entertaining, it's also undeniably harder. Regardless of who the opponents are or where the games are played, the Tigers' slate got tougher on Thursday. And now each fan will find out what's more important: Entertainment or wins.
The answer, in a perfect world, is both. Sure, making a run through an all-SEC slate at 8-2 or better would be incredible for Missouri fans. While it's possible, it's probably not likely. Would you rather see Missouri go 8-4 while picking up three or four non-conference wins over largely uninspiring opponents or can you accept 4-6 if it gives you games against Auburn and Texas A&M rather than Eastern Michigan and Central Arkansas? The answer will likely vary from person to person.
Truthfully, the record isn't really the important thing this year, especially for a team with a first-year head coach whose opportunity to learn about his roster has been severely hamstrung for the last five months. The victory will be simply in playing. Yes, the ultimate goal is still to win and every Saturday you'll be as wrapped up in the result as you have always been, but the big picture is simply hoping you have games to watch at all.
That's not something we know yet. We got an adjusted plan today. We got a hypothetical season. We don't know exactly who will be on the other sideline if and when the games are played. All 14 schools still have to bring thousands of regular students back to campus. They have to hope their players largely stay away from those students and limit their potential exposure to the virus (while also hoping enough of the students avoid getting it themselves that the schools are allowed to continue to keep campus open and hold classes because the optics of telling everyone it's safe to play football but not to go to physics class are incredibly, incredibly poor). They have to hope the players and students at the other 13 schools do similar things.
In other words, there are a whole bunch of unknowns that still have to be known before we find out if Missouri can play one game in this different but possibly very interesting season, much less ten. Thursday was the easy part. Now we go back to waiting and hoping that the new plan comes to fruition.