Quote Originally Posted by JayJ79 View Post
One argument I've heard is that the contracts may contain escape/cancellation clauses due to "reasons beyond the school's/athletic dept.'s control", and that a conference mandate to only play conference games qualifies as such.
Having not seen the actual contracts, I can neither confirm nor deny if that is actually the case.
I think that argument makes sense, essentially that the games are "impossible."

The difficult spot for conferences, though, is that a lot of out of conference games are incredibly lucrative, especially in the SEC. What I do not think a conference can do is pick and choose what games it wants to play.

Put differently, if Tennessee decides it does not want to pay Furman to play in Knoxville, I don't see how they could play Oklahoma the week earlier. You either play both, or neither.