Sterk discusses conference only football season

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On Thursday afternoon, the SEC announced it would play a ten-game, conference only football season starting on September 26. Mizzou Director of Athletics Jim Sterk met with local media in the wake of that decision.

You can watch the full press conference here and we will add a transcription of Sterk's comments as soon as possible.

Opening Statement

“I’ll be quick and then you can fire away with questions. Really, this kind of culminated today in the Presidents and Chancellors approving a ten-game schedule that we feel gives us the best chance to have a great season, have football in the fall, delays the start. We were listening to advice from a number of medical professionals, our medical task force of the SEC and others and felt like delaying the season’s start, kicking back the championship game a couple weeks gives us flexibility to deal with things that may happen during the season. We’re excited about this. Don’t know the schedule yet. That’s probably another lot of conversations that will take place. We have another call tomorrow and three next week so I think we’ll get it done shortly. With that I’ll open it up to questions.”

You may not know this yet, but when will you have an idea what this means for the buy game contracts?

“Don’t know yet. This has evolved and we’re obviously taking a look at those. You guys probably have those non-conference contracts. At this point, I don’t really have any comment on that.”

What’s your level of concern about if this can go on as planned with students coming back to college campuses when we’ve seen that college campuses are kind of a hot bed for the virus spreading?

“I think that’s part of the reason why we’ve delayed the start of the seasons. Campuses will start to fill up starting middle of August and if there are outbreaks then it gives an opportunity to settle those down and get under better control. That’s something for the experts. That’s the advice we received is to give that an opportunity to play itself out and then start the season fresh September 26th.”

You’ve said previously if campus is still open, but there’s not in-person classes you think college football could go on. Is that still a possibility?

“Yeah. Right now, we didn’t have in-person summer school, but there were students on campus. There were vet med students, there were research students, so there was other students. As long as the campus is operational, I feel like we can have football. Mizzou is planning on in-person classes and blended classes and a variety so they’re ready to pivot and adjust as needed as well.”

Does the date you want to determine whether fans can be in the stands move back as well and will that be a decision for each school or by the conference?

“That hasn’t been taken away. Actually it gives us more time. We’re planning, we had targets of 50 and 25 and I think we’ll adjust. It will probably be more towards the 20 percent range is what we’ll probably be targeting and see. If things change and we have a chance, the way the past schedule was we had a break in there, there was about three weeks where we didn’t have a home game, we thought we could pivot in there and adjust, but we’ll have to see what the schedule looks like and see if there’s opportunities in the schedule. We know there will be at least one break in there, somewhere between the fourth and sixth week is what we’ve heard based on the start and end dates. We’ll have to see. We’ll plan to have around 20 percent and then go from there.”

I don’t think you’ve released test cases lately, but how do you feel about where those numbers are and how they’re trending and the program you guys have?

“I feel really good about the program we have and our student-athletes are taking responsibility, plus our staff is doing a really good job with that and really masking up any time they can’t stay over six feet away. I think it’s continuing to evolve. I think we’ve had some, but most have been asymptomatic so they haven’t had any symptoms, so we’ve been able to isolate and get those players back. I think it’s going as best as it can I guess is what you can say.”

One of the things the release mentioned was the reason for pushing it back was to look at the successes and challenges of other sports returning. I’m curious on your thoughts about baseball and the lack of a bubble and the problems that’s created with the Marlins and how you feel that might impact college football.

“I think it will be a good case study for us to observe how baseball comes out of this. You’re dealing with quite a few positive tests and I think it really will allow and I’ve heard from baseball folks that they weren’t following protocol and that’s how they ended up that way. It’s probably a good lesson for everyone, a good lesson for the rest of the pros, not only in baseball, but across sports, and then also our student-athletes. As they try to keep themselves safe, they might listen a little bit more because of what has happened so I think that can be turned into a positive.”

Is there any way that college football could build a bubble or the SEC?

“We kind of have our bubble, if you will, while they’re working out and while they’re in our facilities, but outside of that we don’t have that control. You try to educate, mask up, sanitize your hands, do those types of things and try to stay as safe as possible. So far it’s been pretty successful.”

The ACC model, how much conversation was there about maybe adding one extra non-conference game?

“Early on we had, I don’t know, 12 different scenarios I think. It just kept shrinking down and then we recommended this model to the presidents based on where we were, what we felt was best for the SEC. Obviously, Commissioner Sankey has conversations with those commissioners and didn’t know exactly for sure what they were going to do but knew options of possibly what they were going to do. So, not a surprise, but it really didn’t, in the end we tried to do what was best for the SEC.”

It wasn’t officially part of the release, but do you anticipate divisions staying in place as part of this plan?

“I think so. I think they’ll still be able to keep the divisions because we’d have the majority of those games, but you’d have now, four in the other. I think it’ll still be divisional standings, if you will, but I have not seen that. I think that’s probably something that (SEC Executive Assistant Commissioner Mark) Womack will throw at us probably some time next week.”

Hey Jim, is fall camp still starting next week and can other sports, like I think volleyball was going to start next week, can they still start practices?

“As of right now, yes, we’re planning on that. … As far as what the NCAA has approved is people sticking with their scheduled date of start, and that's what they had planned to do, and that's where even though your schedule may adjust according to the pandemic, you may start at that time, and so it's based on, you know, when school starts, and you can have those those fall camps before school starts. So we were planning on that. That'll be further discussed tomorrow and next week as well.”

If that’s the case, are there extra practices for those teams in that space, those three weeks?

“Yeah, so that’s to be determined. Anything from taking extra days off, or it could be a variety, Andrew, of how that looks. That’s to be determined yet, but we have some ideas and obviously you can stick with where it's at right now, and that's been approved, and that would give the most flexibility to teams and allow them to, you know, peak at the right time, if you will, for the September 26 (opener). You wouldn’t obviously go as hard as if you're preparing for September 5, so they might spread that out and the coaches would be able to adjust their schedule.”

Why ultimately did the SEC decide against the plus-one model?

“It just gets complicated to be able to — if you have issues that come up in your schedule, then you, when it's all the conference, you have the ability to move games and impact and you can have those breaks. When you bring in another, if you had allowed non-conference, it brings in every other conference into the complicated schedule, if you will, of trying to schedule the games, and so it really complicates it. Probably Mark Womack is the best to explain that to you, but it gets very complicated each time you add another non-conference into it and another another conference into it. You have to adjust or try to work in their schedule as well as just your own.”

Associate AD Nick Joos: “It really gives you maximum flexibility in how you have the games built, is how it was really explained to us, that way.”

I know you sent out an email saying that you’ll probably be playing Arkansas not at Arrowhead but in Colombia. I guess, is that a hard thing to do logistically, in terms of contracts and moving the game?

“Yeah, you know, we've been in discussions with the Chiefs and had mentioned to Arkansas that it might happen, and the Chiefs are dealing with their own issues of trying to put on their season and having their players, and so they understand, and we’ll at some point bring a game back there. We haven’t determined that, but it’s most likely we’ll play that Arkansas game here and it’ll stay at the, from what we’ve heard from Mark Womack, it’ll stay at the end of the season, so it will be December 5."

Just to clarify, are you for sure playing the six other SEC East divisional opponents and then four West opponents?

“So, yes. We stay with our East opponents, if you will, and that'll stay the same. And then Arkansas. I know Arkansas, but I'm not sure about the other. We had Mississippi State on it, but, you know, we haven't been privy to what that schedule looks like, but other than having that traditional rival will still be in the schedule.”

Do you have any idea what the first game might be?

“Have no idea.”

I was just reading that the Georgia athletic director said that masks would be mandatory at the games, and I was just wondering, will that be an SEC plan or does Mizzou have a plan for that yet?

“We’ll try to abide by the county regulations. If it’s mandatory at that time, it would be mandatory, and it will be certainly recommended, highly recommended. But I'm not sure where we'll be as a state and a county by the time the games start.”

Do you anticipate not doing single-game tickets this year? Is it just going to be season ticket holders and students?

“Most likely, that’s what it’s kind of looking like. It’ll just be our season ticket holders and students.”

I know in mid-June the university signed like an amendment to their agreement with Central Arkansas. Has the university reached out to the other non-conference schools to try to make a similar agreement, or have they talked to those schools about possibly rescheduling those non-conference games at all?

Joos: “All of our future non-conference opponents, out through 2032 or 33, were sent the document and most all have returned. The other three teams on this year’s schedule outside of Central Arkansas have not returned it.”

Jim, I'm curious about travel. I assume football will still be charter flights, but the other sports, how do you guys anticipate, if the seasons go on, getting to and from games?

“Great question, and it's one we're still talking about, and actually those other sports, soccer and volleyball, are looking at — those schedules haven't been determined yet as far as conference only. Most likely it'll probably head towards that, it's heading towards that. … We had done some charters, and I know cross country and track and soccer were looking for games, non-conference games, that we could bus to, but it hasn't all been determined yet on the schedule. Once we see what those schedules look like, we’ll determine that, but we are looking at both charter and commercial with those sports.”

We saw in the conference press release that there was an issue of public health being part of the reason why the start time for football was pushed back. The league's already pushed back the Olympic sports once to August 31, is that something that's in the cards again here?

“It is going to be discussed, and we're going to, the senior women’s administrators have been working on that along with their schedules, so I anticipate that that'll probably be backed up as well.”

There’s a report out that says the two opposite-division games would be determined by strength of schedule. Can you comment at all if you know how that determination will be made?

“No, I think that’s to be determined yet. That’s speculation. But we do have a rotation where, I think it’s A&M and Auburn, or a list on the other side of how that goes through. We’ve played Ole Miss. I’m not sure if that’ll be used or what will be used as the criteria for the other opponents.”

I was just curious, I know you guys got a chance as AD’s to meet in person in Birmingham at the league headquarters a couple weeks ago. Did these discussions start then and then was there a tipping point that pushed you guys over the edge to finalize? What made you guys come out today and say, ‘we're doing this?’

“Well, you know, we had targeted the end of July, and we didn't know whether we were going to be able to hit it or not. And we come left next week as an option as well. But we started the discussions quite a while ago. I don't know if it was in May or June or whatever that we really started looking at options of what we might do, but what we’ve tried to do is gather information as much as we can from the medical advice and delay the decision as long as we could. But we felt like we needed to make a decision now, and so that's why we proposed it to the presidents.”