Today, we provide you with three things we’ve learned about the upcoming college football season, ask two questions about the could-be season, and make one bold prediction entering the middle of a pivotal month for college football.
Three Things We've Learned
1. It’s every conference for themselves
In the midst of the chaos to try to somehow salvage a college football season, we’ve learned that it’s every Power Five conference for itself. The Big Ten announced it is pushing towards conference-only games as a best-case scenario and the PAC 12 followed suit. While the ACC looks to make that similar jump to conference only football games, it announced that its final decision regarding their schedules will be announced later in July.
The Big 12 has yet to make an announcement regarding its approach to the season, but conference leaders are scheduled to meet on Tuesday, July 14. As for the SEC, league commissioner Greg Sankey said that the decision regarding the direction of the league will be made in the “coming weeks.” This Monday, July 13 each of the SEC athletic directors will meet in Birmingham, Alabama to discuss fall sports. Notre Dame who plays as an independent in football has had three games canceled (USC/Stanford/Wisconsin) but still has a bulk of their schedule available as they await announcements from the SEC and ACC which account for seven of their scheduled games.
2. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey says we’re running out of time
In a recent interview with ESPN radio, Sankey said his concern level about the season is “high to very high” and that “we are running out of time to correct and get things right. This situation is obviously dire and a solution is needed. What will Sankey’s final stance be after hearing from the league athletic directors on Monday? Does his pessimistic outlook equal the writing on the wall?
"We put a medical advisory group together in early April with the question, 'What do we have to do to get back to activity?' and they've been a big part of the conversation," Sankey said. "But the direct reality is not good and the notion that we've politicized medical guidance of distancing, and breathing masks, and hand sanitization, ventilation of being outside, being careful where you are in buildings. There's some very clear advice about — you can't mitigate and eliminate every risk, but how do you minimize the risk? ... We are running out of time to correct and get things right, and as a society we owe it to each other to be as healthy as we can be."
3. Alabama vs. USC is canceled
Following the PAC 12’s announcement to go to a conference-only format for the upcoming season, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne released the following statement. “As I’ve said before, USC AD Mike Bohn and I had multiple conversations over the last several months, and we were both planning on playing the football game on September 5 in Arlington,” Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne said in a statement. “With the Pac-12’s decision to move to a conference-only schedule, we will do our best to adjust. What that looks like is to be determined.”
Piecing things together, this means Alabama has a few options: The first is to wait on the direction of the SEC. If the SEC is going to a conference-only format, there will obviously be no out of conference opponent to add to the schedule. If the SEC and let’s say the Big 12 or the ACC allow an out of conference game or two to fill schedules, then the Crimson Tide can look to add, let’s say a TCU (was scheduled to open with CAL) or an Oklahoma State (was scheduled to open with Oregon State), whenever the season does in-fact start.
Two Questions
1. What will the SEC elect to do?
The first decision the SEC has to make is whether or not it is going to play football this fall season. Once that is determined it then can discuss a conference only season or can link up with the Big 12 or ACC for a few out of conference games. The conference-only format is interesting. If this is the direction, will the SEC reshuffle team’s schedules, or will the schedules remain in place with just changed dates? Long story short: Will Alabama vs. Georgia be on the SEC’s opening slate of games?
2. Is moving to the spring really an option that makes sense?
One scenario has been moving the college football schedule to the spring season. The logistics of this seem like a nightmare with the main reason being scheduling and eligibility. Would early enrollees be allowed to play right away? What would be the max number of players on the team? What would playoff windows look like? Will Covid-19 disappear at the start of the new year in 2021? What happens if you’re a senior like Najee Harris and you have a game week the same week as the NFL Scouting Combine which usually runs from late February to early March. What happens if the spring season runs into the NFL Draft? Do players miss a few days of practice as they head to ink NFL deals? The spring season idea seems like it could be one giant cluster of problems.
One Prediction
1. Power Five teams will start some sort of a season
The optimist in me feels that there will be some sort of a Frankenstein-type season. Now while I am optimistic there is a way to start games, is there a way to end the season? Determining the college football playoffs is already overly complicated, just imagine when Oregon, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Clemson are each undefeated and Alabama and Georgia have one loss each. If that playoff equation is somehow solved, what happens when one team that is playoff eligible has a rise in COVID-19 infections just days before the playoffs or title game?
Kyle Henderson is the managing editor of BamaInsider.com. Contact him at kyle@BamaInsider.com and follow him on Twitter at Rivals_Kyle
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