I came into this week fired up about an SEC slate that had 7 games. Wall-to-wall action was going to be a welcome sight after 2 of the 3 previous Saturdays only featured 4 SEC games. Add to that the fact that it was Masters weekend and yeah, you better believe it was shaping up to be arguably the best sports weekend of this crappy, COVID-impacted year.

And then this crappy, COVID-impacted year did its thing.

If there was ever a day that encapsulated the stench that is 2020, Monday was it. That’s not some Garfield take. That’s a take from an eternal optimist who watched Monday go from bad to worse. Why, you ask?

Let’s start from the top:

12:17 p.m. ET — Mark Stoops announces Kentucky having issues with COVID

The Kentucky coach kicked off the day by sharing that coming off the bye week, his team was dealing with COVID cases within the program:

Stoops said that fortunately, it’s not an outbreak situation. That’s the good news. As of right now, we don’t believe that there’s going to be another postponement, though Vandy doesn’t have an open date with a potential makeup game against Mizzou scheduled for Dec. 12.

Little did we know that Stoops’ news was just the beginning of a COVID-filled day in the SEC.

12:45 p.m. ET — Arkansas announces Sam Pittman has COVID

Yes because why wouldn’t the top SEC Coach of the Year candidate coming off his most impressive win to date test positive immediately afterward? Haven’t we learned that we’re not allowed to have nice things in 2020?

Seeing that the feel-good story in college football tested positive for COVID was par for the course:

True story. I had just finished a segment on “Hit That Line” in Arkansas in which I said that Pittman was the SEC Coach of the Year no matter what happened the rest of the way.

Obviously, health is first and you hope the best for Pittman, but that Arkansas-Florida game was one of my favorite matchups of the weekend. That’s not to say it still won’t turn out to be an intriguing game, but Pittman squaring off with a red-hot Florida team would’ve added another interesting chapter to his storybook Year 1 in Fayetteville.

Barry Odom faces a major challenge as Arkansas’ interim coach, though he did win the last time he was at The Swamp as Mizzou’s head coach in 2018. Ironically enough, it was against Feleipe Franks, who will of course make his return to Gainesville with Arkansas. That, as of right now, is still worth looking forward to.

1:38 p.m. ET — Alabama-LSU suddenly in jeopardy because of LSU outbreak

Even though Alabama-LSU was expected to be a lopsided affair with how bad the Tigers’ defense has been, surely nobody wanted to see that it might not happen because of an outbreak within Ed Orgeron’s program:

Grrrrrrrreeeeaaat.

Oh, and Orgeron announced that Myles Brennan will be out this week and potentially for the rest of the year. With LSU’s quarterback room also dealing with a COVID outbreak, that meant TJ Finley was LSU’s only scholarship quarterback not in quarantine.

But fear not. LSU’s 30-year-old punter, Zach Von Rosenberg has been taking snaps at quarterback in practice.

Jokes aside, the issue is obvious. LSU is out of potential makeup game slots because it already has to make up the Florida game on Dec. 12. Who knows what that would mean for Alabama and LSU, especially with the Crimson Tide firmly in the Playoff picture. We already saw cancelations — not postponements — in the Big Ten. Following anything the Big Ten does during this COVID season would ideally be avoided by the SEC.

Speaking of postponements … actually, we’ll get to that a little later.

2:02 p.m. ET — Texas A&M stops team activities after 2 positive tests

But wait, there’s more (bad COVID news)!

Jimbo Fisher took to the podium and announced that the Aggies, who are set to play their first game as a top-5 team in the AP Poll during the 21st century, shut down team activities after 3 positive tests:

Also in that statement was the 1 player and 1 staff member who tested positive were both on the trip to South Carolina. In other words, there are now contact tracing issues moving forward. Not only could that impact this weekend’s game against Tennesee, but it could also impact South Carolina, which the Aggies just faced. Even though Fisher said in his press conference that everything is “full go,” that’s certainly not the start to the week that anyone was hoping for.

To recap, that’s 4 separate, major COVID-storylines in the SEC in roughly a little less than 2 hours. But we’re not done yet …

2:59 p.m. ET — Auburn-MSU postponed because of MSU COVID outbreak

Ah, what was the only thing missing from this crappy afternoon? A postponement, of course!

That’s what we got just shy of the 3 o’clock hour when we found out that Auburn-MSU game was postponed:

So if MSU was battling a COVID outbreak, one would think that would impact the Vandy team it just played. That’s the same Vandy team that has flirted with that 53-scholarship threshold all year and had its game against Mizzou postponed to Dec. 12.

By the way, that’s when Auburn-MSU will be made up. It’ll join LSU-Florida on that weekend, which now has at least 3 SEC games.

It didn’t help matters that Leach, in his press conference addressing his team’s COVID outbreak, said that he thought he had the virus back in March but didn’t get tested because “it was impossible to find a test, they were unreliable and kind of expensive.”

He also added this:

On another note …

We also found got some not-so-great injury news

Lost in the shuffle of the crapfest on Monday was that Alabama running back Trey Sanders, who suffered non-life threatening injuries after being in a car crash over the weekend, is out for the year. That’s a bummer for someone who was starting to emerge after a freshman season that was missed to a torn ACL.

We also found out that one of the SEC’s top players, Florida tight end Kyle Pitts, is questionable for the Arkansas game after leaving Saturday’s game against Georgia with a concussion. Pitts took a shot to the head on this illegal hit from Georgia safety Lewis Cine, who was ejected for targeting:

Here’s hoping America’s top tight end is able to make a full recovery.

To recap …

Here was what the SEC slate was supposed to be this weekend:

  • Georgia vs. Mizzou
  • Vanderbilt vs. Kentucky
  • Texas A&M vs. Tennessee
  • Auburn vs. MSU
  • South Carolina vs. Ole Miss
  • Arkansas vs. Florida
  • Alabama vs. LSU

Here’s the list of SEC games who had some sort of negative COVID update on Monday:

  • Vanderbilt vs. Kentucky
  • Texas A&M vs. Tennessee
  • Auburn vs. MSU
  • Arkansas vs. Florida
  • Alabama vs. LSU

Congratulations are in order for South Carolina-Ole Miss and Georgia-Mizzou. Those are the only SEC games that didn’t get decreased COVID-related odds of their game actually happening, though those 2 positive tests from A&M did make the trip to South Carolina, so I suppose the Gamecocks aren’t out of the woods yet for Saturday.

Monday was brutal. Five days from what should have been one of the best sports Saturdays of the year in the Southeast, reality hit once again.

It’s only a matter of time before 2020 bites back.