Conferences Opting-In for a 2020 Season
By Makenna Biehl
The past few weekends, college football fans have watched the ACC, Big 12, and SEC begin to play. However, there were still conferences not planning to play this 2020 season. That was until this past week when the Big Ten, PAC 12, MWC, and MAC announced that they would resume play in the next few weeks.
The Big Ten was the first conference to announce that they would resume play after previously canceling their season, with a planned kickoff for the weekend of October 24th. The league’s presidents and chancellors voted to recommence competition with the coming of new capabilities, such as daily testing. The season will include each team playing eight conference-only games over eight weeks before the Big Ten championship game on December 19th, which leaves little to no room for error for teams.
Following the decision of the Big Ten was the decision of the PAC 12. Beginning November 6th, each team in the Pac-12 will play seven conference-only games, with the championship game being played on December 18th. One of the biggest concerns for the PAC-12 is the loss of practice time for the six Pac-12 schools in California and Oregon. The six teams have been unable to practice due to each state’s governors’ restrictions; however, the limits have been lifted, and all teams in the PAC-12 will be back to practice in the coming weeks. Along with the decision for football to return, the Pac-12 also announced the resumption of winter sports, meaning men’s and women’s basketball will begin November 25th. Universities are responsible for when practice starts for the rest of the winter sports.
This past week, The MWC announced its plans to have an eight-game football season starting on October 24th; this decision came after they had initially postponed fall sports on August 10th. The MWC is allowing each school to decide whether or not they will have fan attendance on game days.
After the decision made by the MWC, the MAC declared the start of a six-game, conference-only football season starting on November 4th.The MAC said, “The Conference will implement a COVID-19 testing program requiring four antigen tests per week with all positive tests needing confirmation with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. Any student-athlete with a positive test will enter a cardiac screening protocol.” They’re even taking the extra precautions and not allowing fans or tailgating on gamedays.
With the decision being made for conferences to play comes the question of how a late start will affect which teams have the ability to make it into the College Football Playoffs. All teams are eligible, but some question how a season with fewer games will show enough of a team to allow them into the playoffs. The problem will be resolved over the next few months as the college football season plays out.
