After a crazy few days for college football, what’s the status of each of the conferences. Who’ll play this season, and who won’t?
So, you want to know whether or not your college football conference is playing this fall?
Get in line. This thing is changing by the tweet after the world went bonkers over the last 72 hours.
On Saturday morning the MAC was done, on Sunday evening the entire season was supposedly going to be shut down, and on Monday morning the Dan Patrick Show was telling everyone the Big Ten and Pac-12 were tapping out.
And then everyone got mad.
Trevor Lawrence let the world to know that college football players want to play college football, college football coaches let the world know that they like college football, and as predictable as Ohio State over Michigan in late November, the president took a sledgehammer to a delicately nuanced situation and politicized it.
The Big Ten pumped the brakes, the rest of the conferences wanted nothing to do with the pounding the B1G was taking, and now there’s supposedly still a chance of a fall football season in some form.
The talk ranged from spring ball in 2021 – total silliness thrown out there to cushion the blow of no 2020 season – to the utter nonsense of Ohio State and Nebraska chirping about finding other places to play. (You’re out of your freaking mind if you think the Big Ten will let the Buckeyes or Huskers play one down in any other league. Two words: TV contracts. Non-conference games, though …)
On a far more serious note, college football fans are about to become heart experts as they learn about the nightmare of a possible COVID-19 side effect called myocarditis.
So now what?
This will be updated on the fly as much as possible, but for now, here’s the best guess on the go-no-go launch status of each conference. All the percentage guesses are based on their apparent respective desires to play or not play if allowed the choice.
ACC
It’s been strangely silent, other than the movement kicked off by Trevor Lawrence.
This is one of the more interesting situations because of the Notre Dame factor. The league has a unique opportunity to have the Irish all to itself for a season, and as long as they’re happy, the league will be happy.
There might be a concern about the status of the other four Power Five conferences, but according to Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com, the ACC will “absolutely” play in 2020.
Best Guess Status For 2020: 80% will play
American Athletic Conference
The AAC has the same problem the other Group of Five conferences are dealing with: they’re losing their key revenue-making non-conference dates.
After announcing on August 5th a plan to play eight conference games, the news went back-and-forth throughout Monday. It’s still not a sure thing, but …
Best Guess Status For 2020: 70% will play
Big Ten
The Detroit Free Press went with the story on Monday morning that the Big Ten season was going to be cancelled, but that was before the final be-all-end-all-or-not vote happened.
The Big Ten presidents reportedly were 12-2 – Nebraska and Iowa the outliers – to cancel.
The pushback was swift and strong, with Ohio State, Michigan, and Nebraska the most vocal, at least among fans, coaches and players.
There’s a meeting at 10:30 am ET to make a decision on what to do next.
From all the rumors, news, and opinions flying around, it seems like 1) the medical evaluators don’t think the Big Ten can pull this off, which means 2) the presidents don’t think they can pull this off, which means either 3) the league has a PR disaster coming by cancelling the 2020 season, or 4) the presidents will look like they caved to the pressure of football if they decide to go forward with a campaign.
Oh yeah, and commissioner Kevin Warren is talking about playing in the spring. February football in Minneapolis and East Lansing – yippee.
One key note. The Big Ten is currently scheduled to start its season in early September. while others are expected to start several weeks later. So …
Best Guess Status For 2020: 70% cancel, 30% delay, with a lean towards kicking the can down the road by suggesting a late September start.
NEXT: Big 12, Conference USA, Independents, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12, SEC, Sun Belt
Big 12
It’s not quite as simple as “as Texas goes, so goes the Big 12,” but …
Even though there appears to be a bit of in-conference concern and disagreement, Oklahoma and Texas seem okay with everything, and the medical side of things aren’t putting a halt to this yet.
Best Guess Status For 2020: 65% will play
Conference USA
Old Dominion announced on Monday it was cancelling its 2020 college football season, but the rest of the conference keeps on pushing forward.
One big difference between C-USA and some of the other Group of Five conferences – most schools aren’t crushed by losing non-conference games.
Charlotte and North Carolina are going to hook up, and Middle Tennessee just announced a date with Army for early in September.
The conference was firm a week ago that the season was on, and it hasn’t wavered at all. There are still scheduling hurdles, but …
Best Guess Status For 2020: 60% will play
Independents
This gets tricky. Here we go …
Army Best Guess Status For 2020: 90%. Why? It’s Army. It’s practicing full-go.
BYU Best Guess Status For 2020: 80%, but it needs games. It has a scheduled battle with Navy, but it lost a slew of dates with the Big Ten and Mountain West.
Liberty Best Guess Status For 2020: 95%. Not to get political, but you know how tight this school is with you-know-who, right?
New Mexico State Best Guess Status For 2020: 20%. Football activities were shut down last week after a positive test, but finding games is the issue with six originally scheduled against Mountain West, MAC and Pac-12 teams.
Notre Dame Best Guess Status For 2020: 90% if the ACC is a go.
UConn Best Guess Status For 2020: 0%. Announced it was cancelling the fall sports schedule.
UMass Best Guess Status For 2020: 30%. There need to be a few makeup games somewhere with the loss of UConn, New Mexico, and Akron, but it’s workable.
MAC
Announced on Saturday that it’s closing down the fall season.
Best Guess Status For 2020: 0%
Mountain West
Announced on Monday that it’s closing down the fall season, however, it’s leaving open the possibility for Air Force to play Army and Navy. It’s also talking about a possible spring season.
Best Guess Status For 2020: 0%
– Mountain West Postpones 2020 Football Season
NEXT: Pac-12, SEC, Sun Belt
Pac-12
For all of the talk about the Big Ten, the Pac-12 might be hanging on a much thinner thread.
Start with the logistics of trying to get the players in Los Angeles a place to practice and play – USC is remote learning this fall – along with other hot spot concerns.
It’s shocking the Pac-12 wasn’t first to tap out, but for now, watch for the league to put everything on hold for a few weeks. The season isn’t supposed to start until September 26th, so it can wait. Don’t expect a full cancellation on Tuesday, but eventually …
Best Guess Status For 2020: 15%
SEC
The conference isn’t blinking. It’s full steam ahead, but commissioner Greg Sankey has been very, very cautious though the entire process.
The SEC has the luxury of still working on its schedule timing to build it as needed, with the plan to start up later in September. That gives Sankey more time to work on the medical side of things.
The politics of SEC football are going to play a massive role, and don’t rule out Sankey taking the fall by saying it just isn’t responsible to play if he doesn’t think it’s safe enough. Expect this to be a bit more of a fight from the presidents than you’d think, but …
Paul Finebaum – a sober realist through all of this – says it’s probably a go. So it’s probably a go.
Best Guess Status For 2020: 85%
Sun Belt
There was little to no chatter, and then the Sun Belt hinted that it’s going to try giving it a go. As long as the SEC can make it fly in a geographic way, so can the Sun Belt.
However, there’s still the hangup with the schedule. There are just enough missed-revenue non-conference games to be annoying.
Best Guess Status For 2020: 60% will play
