As Power 5 conferences continue to navigate the return of fall sports amid the coronavirus pandemic, and more decisions can be made this week about what it might look like for college football, it’s plausible that the plan to Each league is ultimately different, and Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby told ESPN on Monday that it can work.
“They cannot be incompatible,” said Bowlsby, “but they do not have to be identical.”
Big Ten and Pac-12 have already announced a conference-only calendar model for this fall, if there is a season, but with a big difference, as the Pac-12 also delayed the start of their season.
Meanwhile, Big 12 and SEC officials have held out hope they will still be able to play a full 12-game schedule, while paying close attention to what the ACC could announce on Wednesday after a meeting of its university presidents and chancellors.
Like every conference, ACC has been considering various programming models, but its unique contractual agreement with Notre Dame, which already includes six games against the Irish, along with its four ACC / SEC rivalry games, makes its options unique. Any programming model needs the approval of the ACC board of directors, which is made up of the 15 presidents and chancellors.
“We intend to finalize a plan this Wednesday,” said North Carolina President of the State Randy Woodson. “I am a good soldier, so I am excited to be part of the ACC and follow through on any plans approved on Wednesday.”
The Big 12 and SEC are likely prepared to react quickly if necessary, but Bowlsby said both leagues have games with each other that they would still like to play. Ole Miss will tentatively face Baylor on September 5 at NRG Stadium in Houston. Texas is at LSU on September 12, the same weekend Tennessee is in Oklahoma. Vanderbilt is also at Kansas State on September 19.
“They’re still looking to play the 12-game schedule and so are we,” Bowlsby said of the SEC. “Obviously, if one of us made the decision to go to the conference alone, that would affect the others. I suppose we would receive advance notice of that, but no one has made that decision yet, at least not among the [SEC, ACC or Big 12]”
Conference commissioners at all levels, along with athletic directors, have emphasized that their decisions continue to be made based on the advice of their medical experts, along with the guidelines of their state and local leaders in response to trends in the coronavirus. If at any point they are advised to stop as they did last spring, all interviews indicate they would comply. As July draws to a close, and traditional preseason camp is slated to begin on August 7, the next important question to answer is whether the season will start on time.
The decision may be made before Friday, or it could just be an uneventful green light to continue full practices to assess what that experience is like as the rest of the student populations begin to drop on campus. As of Monday afternoon, Bowlsby said his conference “is not planning a delayed season at this time.”
“Other models besides playing a regular 12-game schedule are flaws,” he said. “We will go to fallbacks when we are forced to.”
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