ACC, Big 12 and SEC are reportedly considering “plus one” programming models that would allow them to play a league schedule and then a non-conference game. The ACC can go eight to 10 league games in a model that likely includes Notre Dame and is played without divisions. If an ACC Championship game were played, it would probably be in the top two. Whether Notre Dame would be eligible for the league title is uncertain, an issue that member school presidents must resolve.
The SEC could be moving to an eight-game league schedule with a non-conference game. The Big 12 can land on a nine-game league schedule with a non-conference game.
The space for a non-conference game would allow teams to protect games against non-conference opponents, namely Tech and Georgia, or games they have already scheduled.
The start of the season would likely carry over to at least the end of September and end beyond the traditional conclusion of the regular season, the Thanksgiving weekend.
Any decision by leagues to switch to conference-only seasons should not be construed as a guarantee that those seasons will be played. There is certainly hope that games can be played. However, a considerable benefit of reducing the number of games and delaying the start of the season is the ability of leagues and schools to gain more time.
Whether it’s time to learn from the NFL’s attempts to practice and play around with the coronavirus, determine whether the pandemic can be contained on college campuses, or expect infection rates to drop in the coming weeks, delay the start of the season. It will provide the school with presidents and conference officials with more time before they are asked to make a yes or no call during the season.
As much as soccer players, coaches, and fans (and athletic department financial officers) are desperately hoping for this to succeed, the inherent challenges in achieving a fall season are clear. Just Friday, the state of Michigan quarantined its entire soccer team for 14 days after a second staff member and a team member tested positive for COVID-19. The action again reaffirmed how tenuous, or even unlikely, the season could arise that these measures were necessary during the summer, before students returned during the semester.
Having a conference-only schedule with built-in open dates gives leagues room to accommodate potential disruptions like the ones in the state of Michigan, but it’s not hard to imagine multiple teams suffering similar fates and seriously compromising the season, not to mention the health of A large swath of people.
Zach Binney, an epidemiologist at Oxford College of Emory University, said he was optimistic about the prospects of a college football season a couple of months ago, but is now a pessimist.
“The biggest problem college football has is college,” he said. “So if they need college to be in session, which I think is a fair requirement for them to play, then their ability to play will depend on that. I am concerned with how that is going to happen in an area of the country with many viruses when we bring university students back. I am concerned that we are going to see a lot of outbreaks on college campuses, just because you bring a lot of people from many geographic areas to one place, and you are not testing every day or even every week in most places. “
Furthermore, for all the planning that leagues and schools may be doing to build schedules and backup plans, those intentions may be replaced by state governments or school presidents. Earlier this week, the Albuquerque (NM) newspaper reported that Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham urged the University of New Mexico and the State of New Mexico to suspend their fall sports seasons. In early July, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster warned that he would not allow football to be played in college or high school if the number of positive cases continued to rise.
Or, even if a team could remain coronavirus-free, if an outbreak on campus led a school to send its students home during the semester, would the team continue to play?
Clearly, forces greater than college football are playing in this dynamic.
While the idea of moving the season into spring is not popular, it is certainly conceivable as an option. Quite simply, if college football can’t be played in the fall, playing in the spring is the next option for game supervisors to consider. Several lower-level FCS leagues have made the decision to cancel their seasons due to health problems.
A spring season could start in February after the Super Bowl and end in May or June. It is possible that abbreviated conference-only times may be carried over to spring. A potential advantage of a spring season: if the pandemic were more broadly contained and / or a vaccine were developed, fans could probably attend in greater numbers, not a minor problem given the pressure on schools to generate revenue.
There are clear obstacles to this option, the most notable being that if a normal season were played in the fall of 2021, players’ bodies would have a huge tax to play perhaps 22 games in less than 12 months. Another is that the weather in February would not be conducive to playing soccer outside, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. Additionally, players who hope to be selected in the NFL draft may well forgo the season to protect themselves from the risk of injury.
However unpleasant the option may be, the spread of the virus may not give decision makers much choice.
The last option that lurks is the possibility that soccer will not be able to play in the spring either. There is almost no guarantee that health conditions will be better in January and February than they are now. And if they are not, would it be wiser to play than this fall?
“I think we need to do a much better job of reducing the number of cases and testing and tracing contacts that can work to keep the virus under control,” said Binney. “We simply have too many cases and there is not enough evidence and contact trackers in too many parts of the country.”
No football would be unequivocally detrimental to the college athletics industry, so it depends on the revenue generated by football through ticket sales and television contracts. The first few months of the coronavirus-imposed shutdown have led to the removal of dozens of Division I sports teams. I would think it would worsen if the athletic department’s budgets were deprived of football-related revenue.
The impact would hardly be just financial, as thousands of football players and athletes from all sports would be denied the opportunity to compete in sports to which they have dedicated their lives. Similarly, for the millions of fans passionate about the game, not having football would be a considerable sacrifice. Altogether, it is an overwhelming scenario to try to understand.
But it’s on the table. A very unusual year is advancing toward the fall with a much-appreciated element of American sports culture on shaky ground.
