GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida coach Steve Spurrier received a series of e-mails Thursday, some applauding and some condemning the SEC's Wednesday decision to play football in the wake of Tuesday's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

One e-mail in particular, from former university employee and current New York resident Janet Lewis, caught the coach's attention. Lewis, Spurrier said, e-mailed that she was glad the Gators were playing, as she and her fellow New York friends were looking forward to having something to cheer about.

"She said they wanted something positive, something besides all the destruction we're seeing every day on television," Spurrier said. "She was encouraging us to play and the people she had talked to in New York had told her the same thing. They wanted to see some ballgames."

However, that sentiment didn't seem to be universally accepted across the country. So Thursday afternoon, after the NFL and Western Athletic Conference made their decisions to postpone this weekend's games, the SEC followed suit, reversing its decision of a day earlier.

The decision was made by SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer, who ordered a teleconference with league athletics directors and presidents shortly after the NFL and WAC decisions were announced. The SEC's university presidents made the final vote and, like Wednesday, it was unanimous, this time in favor of not playing.

All the games will be rescheduled, with dates and times to be determined.

"We made a difficult decision yesterday that we felt it was the right way to begin the healing process," Florida athletics director Jeremy Foley said. "Certainly it was apparent that other conferences and sports entities didn't feel that way and we never wanted to be out there by ourselves. So it was certainly a domino effect. The fact that the conference was willing to sit down and reconsider, there's nothing wrong with that."

On Wednesday, Foley said the SEC would go on with its slate of games so that fans across the country could join together and mourn the nation's tragedy and honor the victims together. Precisely 24 hours later, it all changed.

The argument of whether or not to play in the aftermath of tragedy has been a heated one. In November 1963, the SEC was criticized for playing football the weekend after President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

This weekend, there will be no sports at all. Though Foley and Spurrier both said that conference athletics directors and coaches supported the decision of the university presidents, their words hinted toward at least some level of disappointment.

"There were reasons we felt it was appropriate to play," Foley said. "Those reasons still exist. But it is certainly not the sentiment around the country and we respect that and we're going to be part of what's going on around the country."

Spurrier said that when he delivered the news to his team Thursday afternoon, they seemed "relieved."

"The sentiment of the NFL players was not to play this weekend and players all pretty much think alike, so that was probably the feeling of college players, too," he said. "So we're going to treat it like an open date and take some time off."

He, too, said he was somewhat relieved.

"A little bit, a little bit," Spurrier said. "One day you feel this is the right thing to do, the next day you feel something else is the right thing to do. So I really praise how our conference dealt with this. Today, it seemed like just the mood of the entire country was not to have sporting events. And I think that rubbed off on us all the same way."

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer at ESPN.com. He can be reached at wayne.drehs@espn.com.