The Sun Belt title game is canceled. What’s next for Coastal Carolina and potential bowl games?
The Coastal Carolina football team managed to avoid the wrath of the coronavirus all season.
Until it was on the verge of a championship.
The Sun Belt Conference Championship Game, scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Brooks Stadium in Conway, was canceled Thursday night due to positive COVID-19 tests within the CCU football program.
Because of contact tracing, an entire position group would not be available to play due to possible exposure, therefore the game cannot be played in accordance with health and safety protocols, CCU and the conference announced.
CCU senior linebacker Teddy Gallagher posted on his Twitter account late Thursday night that in addition to a position group, “the entire staff on one side of the ball” is being quarantined and was not available for the game.
Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger reported Friday on Twitter that CCU coach Jamey Chadwell told @SINow the team had only two positive tests but contact tracing wiped out its defensive line and defensive coaching staff. Chadwell said during a teleconference Friday there were three positive tests including staff, and at least one positive was retested at another lab for confirmation and was again positive.
“It is a devastating time,” Chadwell said. “Our team had worked hard all year long to have just an unbelievable special year and we were looking forward to hosting the conference championship and playing Saturday. Our team did everything throughout this season in the right way to put them in a position to go out there and earn the championship in the championship game. They’re devastated.”
Chadwell said the Chants can get the players who are in quarantine back as early as Tuesday.
“With the protocols in place, as long as we do not have any more positive testing, we should be able to get the group of people that are out within seven days,” Chadwell said. “That started counting Tuesday, so by this coming Tuesday or Wednesday, as long as there’s no positive tests we’ll have that whole group back and ready to go for our bowl game, whenever that may be.”
Coastal is now at the mercy of the College Football Playoff selection committee, and becomes an even bigger cheerleader for Tulsa in Saturday night’s American Athletic Conference Championship Game between the Golden Hurricane and Cincinnati.
No. 12 Coastal (11-0, 8-0 Sun Belt) has aspirations of making a lucrative New Year’s Six bowl game, but the title game’s cancellation takes away its opportunity to bolster its resume and perhaps play its way in with a second win this season over No. 19 Louisiana (9-1, 7-1 Sun Belt).
Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill said Friday both teams will be deemed Sun Belt co-champions, and the decision to name co-champions in the case of a title game cancellation was made by the conference’s athletic directors in the fall.
Coastal has largely avoided coronavirus issues within its program since the start of the season in September after many players were forced to miss team activities including practices in the summer because of cases and quarantining through contact tracing.
No CCU starters are believed to have missed games because of COVID-19 issues, and Coastal was one of the few teams that played at least 11 regular season games this season. The Chants are the only 11-0 team in the country.
“We are all obviously devastated with this development and hurt for the student-athletes from both institutions in that they will not have a chance to compete for a conference title,” said CCU Director of Athletics Matt Hogue in the release. “However, the adherence to health and safety protocols for our student-athletes has been and remains the first priority. Those protocols and guidance from our medical team fully governs this decision.”
Coastal players expressed their disappointment on social media over being denied an opportunity to play for a Sun Belt championship.
Both Coastal Carolina and Louisiana are expected to prepare for anticipated bowl games, which have yet to be announced. Gill said Friday he doesn’t anticipate Coastal and Louisiana playing against each other in a bowl game, as it has been suggested by some media, and Chadwell downplayed the possibility as well. Dellenger reported Louisiana AD Bryan Maggard, whose team arrived on the Grand Strand on Thursday, told SI he was pushing hard to have UL and CCU meet in a bowl.
“It really doesn’t make a lot of sense to me why you would want to play somebody you’ve already played and beat, when you can go out and put two of your really good teams, your best teams in the league, us and them, against other conferences and really try to help our conference from a national respect approach,” Chadwell said. “Because if you’ve learned anything from this year, we’re still trying to fight for that respect for the Sun Belt.”
Any CCU bowl plans are predicated on the Chants limiting and recovering from their covid cases and being able to practice and play through covid protocols. All bowls aside from the national championship game will be played by Jan. 2, and the two Sun Belt-contracted bowls with openings that CCU would be eligible for are the Camellia Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama on Friday and Cure Bowl in Orlando, Florida next Saturday.
“We’re going to have everybody back here, I believe, in the near future because I think our team will continue to do the right thing with their testing and protocols, and we’ll be in a bowl game and be able to end the season in a great bowl game and celebrate that victory as well,” Chadwell said. “. . . Our doctors and the protocols, they know exactly what that was and how the contract tracing went down, so we have an understanding of what happened and how it happened and are confident we figured out the ‘why’ behind it and are confident it won’t happen again.
“We’ll try to finish this thing and be the only undefeated team in the history of the Sun Belt. That’s our goal.”
Coastal can earn an automatic berth in a NY6 bowl as the highest-ranked champion from a Group of Five conference, and only No. 9 Cincinnati (8-0) is ahead of it. Tulsa (6-1) is No. 23, so CCU would likely hold the highest ranking with a Tulsa upset of the Bearcats.
If Cincinnati wins, Coastal hopes the CFP selection committee will choose it as one of six NY6 at-large teams. The champions of the Power Five conferences have automatic berths along with the one Group of Five representative.
The Chants appear to be on the brink of a selection at No. 12 and have a case with a pair of top-20 wins over No. 17 BYU and Louisiana, a win over a Power Five team in Kansas of the Big 12, and another quality win over Appalachian State (9-3), which was ranked in the AP Top 25 Poll earlier in the year and still received a vote in the poll this past week.
“We’ve done everything we’re supposed to on the field and done it when nobody expected it,” Chadwell said. “If you just looked at resumes and not what’s on the name of the jersey, and just put A and B up there, then in my opinion, and based off the results on the field and based on the metrics we look at, there’s not a question [that we belong in a NY6 bowl.”
But will the committee be wary of including the Chants in a NY6 bowl with any possibility the Chants won’t be able to play because of covid issues?
“We believe with the protocols in place and everything we’re doing we’ll be ready to go play a game,” Chadwell said. “. . . There’s no reason for the committee to worry about us not having somebody ready to go. We’ll be ready to go.”
A NY6 berth would mean a massive payday for the Chants and Sun Belt, as CCU and the conference would share approximately $6.43 million. Non-CFP bowls have much smaller payouts to participating teams.
The NY6 bowls include the national semifinal games — which this season are the Rose and Sugar bowls — as well as the Orange, Cotton, Peach and Fiesta bowls. Because the Orange Bowl is contracted with the ACC, Big Ten and SEC, a Group of 5 team will play in one of the other three bowls if it isn’t selected for the semifinals. Those bowls are being played between Dec. 30 and Jan. 2.
Nothing precludes the committee from including two Group of Five teams in the lucrative games, so Coastal and Cincinnati could presumably both participate in them.
The semifinal participants will be announced at noon Sunday, and the matchups for the remaining four NY6 bowls will be announced at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
This story was originally published December 17, 2020 at 10:54 PM.
