Tenessee football: SEC to reveal Vols 2020 schedule Monday
The Tennessee football Volunteers will soon know their COVID-19 revised 2020 Southeastern Conference schedule.
After learning over a week ago that they would play the Texas A&M Aggies and Auburn Tigers in addition to their original eight-game SEC schedule, Tennessee football will learn the dates of those opponents and everybody else on the late Monday evening. This news is not without drama.
On Sunday afternoon, the SEC announced that Week One of the league schedule will be released at 3 p.m. ET Monday on The Paul Finebaym show. At 7 p.m. that evening, an SEC Network special show will reveal the full schedule for every team.
As is now common knowledge, the decision to go from a 12-game slate with eight conference games to a 10-game conference-only slate was due to the outbreak of coronavirus. This decision comes despite the Pac-12 and Big Ten deciding to cancel fall sports.
Of course, Tennessee football already drew the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Arkansas Razorbacks from the west. With Texas A&M and Auburn now on their schedule, three of their four West opponents are in the preseason Coaches Poll top 25.
This year’s season is scheduled to start Sept. 26, which is when the Vols were initially set to open up conference play anyway, against the Florida Gators. Whether or not that will stay the case remains to be seen.
Last week, multiple coaches reportedly expressed frustration over which two teams were added to each program’s schedule, which we wrote about Friday. There were at least five coaches who spoke up about the issue in a meeting last Thursday.
Programs had reason to gripe too. Arkansas, for instance, is expected to finish last in the West, but they drew both the Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs, the two top teams from the East. Alabama drawing the Kentucky Wildcats and Missouri Tigers while already playing Tennessee football and the South Carolina Gamecocks, four unranked teams, also drew controversy.
Every team’s 10-game schedule will include one bye and end with the SEC Championship being played Dec. 19 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Although the NCAA announced it would recognize no fall sport champions, the College Football Playoff is still preparing to operate as planned, which could make the season very interesting with just the SEC, Big 12 and ACC.