Given the uncertainty swirling around the NFL’s labor situation and whether at least part of the season will be cancelled, we’ve long thought it would be wise for conferences around the country to give serious thought to moving some games to fill the Sunday football void if the big boy league fails to come to their senses.
In late March, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said his conference is “certainly monitoring the situation.” Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne said “Sunday games would be something we would have to think long and hard about” if the opportunity arose.
Don’t, though, expect the preeminent football conference in the country to do the same.
In a Q&A with the Mobile Press-Register in which he discusses issues such as agents, grayshirting and the Fiesta Bowl scandal without really saying a whole heck of a lot or plowing any new ground, SEC commissioner Mike Slive cut right to the chase when it comes to moving conference games to Sunday.
“No, we haven’t talked about it,” Slive said. “We’ve got a lot of tradition. It’s the hallmark of this league. ... We play on Saturday for the most part. Whether or not we would adjust, no one has said a word to me about that and certainly we’re not going to take the initiative.”
In other words, cut “watch SEC football on fall Sundays” from your future to-do list.
Hopefully, though, if the NFL does decide to cap its own knees and cancel even a portion of their 2011 season, other conferences would take a different tack and fill the gaping football void that would exist.