Over the last few months Ray Tanner has heard a lot of propositions for what college football might look like this fall and never was canceling their game with Clemson on the table.

Tanner, in an interview with 107.5 Wednesday, said they’ve had plenty of discussions about potential tweaks to the schedule but the annual rivalry game with the Tigers.

“We had at least 12 different conversations about different models based on the circumstances that could develop,” Tanner said. “We never did have one where you weren’t going to play your rival. We have four that are out of conference rivals. We never did get to that point. We certainly looked at a lot of different scenarios in case we get to that point.”

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During this pandemic, the idea of a conference-only schedule was floated out there, which would limit travel and keep things within a conference’s footprint.

Doing that would severely impact the conference’s three major non-conference rivalry games in South Carolina-Clemson, Florida-Florida State and Georgia-Georgia Tech.

Now the question is what a potential schedule would look like if it does have to get tweaked.

Right now the Gamecocks are scheduled to host Coastal Carolina, East Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Wofford and Georgia. They’ll travel to Kentucky, Florida, LSU, Clemson and Vanderbilt.

Tanner did say there is a possibility if things get tweaked the Gamecocks could pick up other games against SEC teams if some of their other trips get canceled.

“Who knows? You mentioned the footprint earlier and 11 states,” Tanner said. “Maybe you do lose a game, but someone else loses a game and get a chance to pick up somebody that wasn’t on your schedule. Maybe you do locate a drivable opponent in the East, in our case. We throw out all kinds of scenarios. The only thing I’ll tell you is we’ll be prepared to play when the time comes. We’ll be able to pull it out of the playbook and go with it.”

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Tanner was also asked about the Power 5 conference splitting off from the rest of college football and said those are things that have been discussed but it’s not anything likely to come together now.

“I think we’ve talked about it offline. Not recently, but offline in the past we talked about that type of set up and packages and those kind of schedules,” Tanner said. “We have a lot of schools in the state that are competitive regardless of size. I kind of like where we are. Not all states are in the same position. Maybe that comes to fruition some day but I don’t think it’s imminent.