On Saturday, the MAC announced that they’re canceling all fall sports amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and it appears that the Power Five conferences are about to do the same.
Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated report that, according to multiple sources, “high-level conference meetings are being planned for this week across the college football landscape with the expected resolution of postponing fall sports until 2021.”
High-level conference meetings are being planned for this week across the college football landscape with the expected resolution of postponing fall sports until 2021, multiple sources have told Sports Illustrated.
“It’s gotten to a critical stage,” one conference commissioner told Sports Illustrated Sunday, after a conference call between the heads of the Power 5 conferences. “I think all of us will be meeting with our boards in the coming days. We have work to do that is no fun.”
Sources: Attempts to salvage the fall 2020 college football season are all but over. “It’s gotten to a critical stage," one told SI. "I think all of us will be meeting with our boards in the coming days. We have work to do that is no fun.”
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) August 9, 2020
Other sources tell Forde and Dellinger that “by the end of the week the fall sports will be postponed in all conferences,” and “in the next 72 hours college football is going to come to a complete stop.”
Forde and Dellenger add that the Big Ten “is moving toward a decision to cancel the 2020 fall season, while engaging other Power 5 conferences on a uniform decision to be announced later this week.”
College football sources tell @SInow that the Big Ten is moving toward a decision to cancel the 2020 fall season, while engaging other Power 5 conferences on a uniform decision to be announced later this week. https://t.co/vT1JIQYHrC
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) August 9, 2020
Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio reports that he has has been told the “Big Ten Commissioner let the SEC folks know today that they would cancel season by Tuesday in hopes that all the Power 5 will announce together.”
I am told Big Ten Commissioner let the SEC folks know today that they would cancel season by Tuesday in hopes that all the Power 5 will announce together
— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) August 9, 2020
The Big Ten had already announced a conference-only schedule on July 9, with the Pac-12 following suit the next day, and the SEC eventually went the conference-only route on July 30 (the ACC also has announced schedule that is mostly conference-only, but includes Notre Dame).
But even those plans were nothing more than hopeful, and being able to complete a college football season during a pandemic is just so much more difficult than it would be to complete an NFL season, for example (the uncertainty of in-person classes and university access, the athletes not being paid, the huge amount of teams and enormous roster/staff sizes- and expecting *all of them* to follow health-and-safety protocols… the concerns go on and on). One Big Ten school has already seen a massive, growing outbreak in recent weeks.
Stay tuned for more on this in the coming days, but at the moment, the chances for a 2020 college football season don’t look good.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.