As the COVID-19 pandemic continues in the United States, many conferences at the lower levels of college athletics are postponing their fall seasons.

On Monday, the Southwestern Athletic Conference announced it was also going to follow that trend and postpone sports until at least the spring semester.

Per a release, the football plan is to play a 7-game, mostly nonconference schedule during the spring:

The Southwestern Athletic Conference has announced the postponement of all scheduled fall contests along with SWAC championships due to continuing concerns related to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The fall sports impacted include men’s and women’s cross country, football, women’s soccer and women’s volleyball. The conference has started the process of formalizing plans to conduct a competitive schedule for the fall sports during the 2021 spring semester.

Specifically, in the sport of football the plan includes a seven-game conference schedule beginning with an eight-week training period in January 2021. Each member institution will play a total of six conference games (four divisional/two non-divisional) with the option to play one non-conference game.

This has SEC ramifications as well, as Auburn was supposed to take on SWAC team Alcorn State in Week 1 of the 2020 campaign. Mississippi State was also set to host Alabama A&M in Week 12.

Will the Tigers and Bulldogs be able to replace those games on their schedules? Or, will the SEC soon also move to a conference-only slate. We’ll find out in a couple of weeks.