They highlighted unity. They had Zoom calls together for weeks, months. They were all in this together, the commissioners of the powerful college football conferences, trying to overcome a challenge like they had never seen before.
Yes, good talk.
That was in the spring, when both camaraderie and the football season were easy to imagine in the abstract. Here, in the July heat, with time moving towards a start perhaps, they have all formed again. Now and forever, it’s every rich conference for itself in college football.
This is part of the agreement in a mosaic of 130 schools with no legitimate unifying element. It was like this a decade ago, when the realignment turned into a blatant series of land grabbing purely designed to maximize the league’s individual income. It was like this earlier this month, when Big Ten and Pac-12 were the first to break ranks and declare a programming model that eliminated non-conference games.
And then came the intrigue on Wednesday, July 29. One day that seemed to pass quietly in the wake of the current soccer schedule erupted with drama in the late afternoon. With the Southeast Conference chess pieces moving behind the scenes, the Atlantic Coast Conference launched a surprise checkmate.
How Illustrated Sports reported Wednesday, SEC athletic directors reached a consensus (though not unanimously) regarding a soccer schedule: like the Big Ten and the Pac-12, it would only play conference games in 2020. YES reporters began hearing about the SEC’s decision around 3:30 pm ET. The league had no plans to announce anything, as the presidents haven’t approved it yet (and they may not have approved it yet).
With the news that the SEC decision began to circulate, there was a sudden spasm of ACC movement. Coincidence? It’s up to you.
ACC presidents met Wednesday to discuss the soccer schedule, but several sources said YES after that meeting (which started at 11 am ET) there would be no announcement. From Tuesday night through Wednesday mid-afternoon, word spread about an alternate public hours reveal from sources within the league: on-off-on-off. The final consensus was that the news would wait at least a day, probably several days.
Then David Teel of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, who has been connected to the ACC office, tweeted at 4:23, “Waiting for ACC news very soon. The presidents discussed scheduling options today. “Five minutes later, the league tweeted its 2020 soccer schedule: 10 conference games, compared to the usual eight, with a very special guest star. There would also be an undeclared game not in conference, and that came with some delicious caveats.
It is a Grand Master move in more ways than one by ACC Commissioner John Swofford. He has announced his retirement at the end of the 2020-21 athletic season, and this would be a breakthrough.
The first cool stunt: ACC has forced the last bachelor into a full season (at least) of a committed relationship. Notre Dame, a fairly proud independent since she started playing soccer in 1887, will play a full season of conference soccer and compete for a conference championship. It is a mutually beneficial agreement: ACC gets a share of the prodigious revenue from NBC TV of Notre Dame and all the eyeballs that accompany it on their teams; the Irish have a full schedule after losing games to USC, Stanford and Wisconsin, while presumably returning to normal independence in 2021.
The second genius move: Swofford & Co., beating the SEC on the programming news and simultaneously putting the responsibility to cancel the traditional ACC-SEC rivalry games in that league. In announcing a desire to play a non-conference game but without identifying the opponent beyond saying that it had to be played in its home state, the ACC basically threw 100 gallons of paint around the corner and caused the SEC stood up on it.
We want to play those games. We leave the date open in the schedule. If you don’t, that’s your decision. But you are the ones who have to recognize to cancel them.
If Florida State does not play Florida? Blame the SEC. If Georgia Tech does not play Georgia? Blame the SEC. If Clemson doesn’t play South Carolina? Blame the SEC. If Louisville doesn’t play Kentucky? Blame the SEC.
Backstage reaction from people in the SEC later on Wednesday? Not happy Not happy at all.
Now, could league presidents decide against the proposed conference-only timeline and endorse a plan that includes those games against ACC opponents? Yes, they could. That would also revive hopes for some games against Big 12 opponents, primarily LSU-Texas and Tennessee-Oklahoma.
Such a plan would be met with the approval of some SEC athletic directors. But not with the majority, at least from Wednesday. Most of the league’s 14 ADs were in favor of 10 league games and nothing else.
Swofford & Co.’s last cool move left that 11th game open. It could be easily canceled, with blood on the SEC’s hands, of course. Or schools have the option of an eleventh game with another opponent according to the basic rules chosen by the ACC. Among the previously scheduled games that could still work, if the SEC decides not to play ball: Clemson-Citadel; Louisville-Western Kentucky; Wake Forest-Appalachian State; Virginia Tech-Liberty; Virginia-VMI; Duke-Charlotte (or Duke-Elon).
Of course, all of this unfolded on Wednesday within this prohibitive context: we don’t know if there will be a college football season. The pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the country, and in the south (where most ACC and SEC schools are located) more than anywhere else. This could have simply been an exercise in illusions and administrative administrative work that is wiped off the books in a week or two or four.
But the intention is clearly to start the college football season, and to start we must have schedules. This was the last spasm of college football in an age of COVID-19, when for weeks on end no one was willing to make a statement.
At power conferences, the overall ball of loss continues to be interrupted by opportunistic bursts of news. The unit was so last spring. The closer we get to a start perhaps, the more the sport returns to what comes naturally: each league by itself.
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