NOTEBOOK Kickoff: Govs have spotlight on ESPN

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — When Austin Peay and Central Arkansas signed up to play in the first game of the 2020 college football season, little did they know how notable it would become.

With a large cloud of uncertainty still looming over the sport, the teams will start the shortened season tonight in the Guardian Credit Union FCS Kickoff Classic in front of a limited number of fans amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are the show in week zero and the game to really kick off football …” Central Arkansas coach Nathan Brown said. “We know it’s going to be a must-see game. We’re representing football players and football coaches across the nation right now. So it’s a big deal and something that we’ve talked about and educated our student-athletes about.”

It will be a chance to acclimate to the new reality for college sports in the pandemic. Multiple professional sports leagues have held events without fans, and some have even happened with limited attendance. The Big Ten and Pac-12 are among college leagues that have already opted out of playing fall sports for now, and while the Atlantic Coast, Big 12 and Southeastern conferences are scheduled to compete in football starting next month, that’s not a guarantee either.

Tonight’s game ordinarily wouldn’t cause much of a national ripple even though it does involve teams that made the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs last season. There is nothing ordinary about this season or this game.

ESPN will televise it, but the announcers will be working remotely. There were only 2,000 tickets distributed to the schools and sponsors, about 9% of the 22,000seat capacity at the Cramton Bowl, officials said. Fans are required to wear masks entering the stadium or moving around — they are to practice social distancing at all times — and concession stands will sell only prepackaged items.

Austin Peay’s Governors went 11-4 last season, when they won the Ohio Valley Conference — their first league championship in more than 40 years — and reached the quarterfinals in their first appearance in the FCS playoffs. The 2020 schedule for the program in Clarksville, Tennessee, lists just three games, with the other two both trips to Football Bowl Subdivision foes: Pittsburgh (Sept. 12) and Cincinnati (Sept. 19).

Central Arkansas reached the second round of last year’s FCS playoffs to complete a 9-4 season that included a 24-16 win at Austin Peay in the second week of the season. The Bears are members of the Southland Conference, which postponed league play but allowed its teams to pursue nonconference games. The program from Conway has put together a nine-game schedule that fills most weeks in September and October, with one game in late November.

Big Ten options

Big Ten coaches, athletic directors and medical personnel are working on multiple plans for staging a football season during the 202021 school year — including one that would have its teams kicking off as soon as Thanksgiving weekend.

The conference is in the early stages of a complicated process that also involves broadcast partners and possible neutral sites, a person with direct knowledge of the conference’s discussions told The Associated Press. The person spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because the Big Ten was not making public its efforts to have a season that starts in either late fall or early winter.

The Big Ten announced Aug. 11 it was postponing its fall football season because of concerns about playing during the pandemic. The league and first-year commissioner Kevin Warren have faced pushback regarding the move, including a lawsuit filed this week by eight Nebraska players who want the decision overturned.

Any plan will need the approval of university presidents and chancellors, and the Big Ten will only play if certain benchmarks related to the coronavirus — such as transmission rates and testing availability, capacity and accuracy — are met in each of the 11 states that are home to the league’s 14 schools.

One option includes playing at domed stadiums across the Midwest, another person with knowledge of the discussions told AP on condition of anonymity. The person said using such neutral sites could help broadcast partners and avoid potential complications with winter weather.

Athletes march

NORMAN, Okla. — College athletes across the country have added their voices to those calling for an end to racial injustice, with football players and others marching on campus or stepping away from practices to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

At the University of Oklahoma, the football team walked in rows of three to the Unity Garden, where the Sooners held a 57-second moment of silence in honor of the 57-year anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Assistant coach Dennis Simmons led a prayer before the team returned to its facilities.

Duke athletes gathered on campus with hundreds of Blue Devils staff, students and coaches in support of the Black Lives Matter movement on Thursday, the same day Kentucky called off its football practice and some 80 Mississippi State football players sat out preseason drills. Members of the Baylor football team marched around campus Friday, when Ole Miss football players marched and gathered in downtown Oxford.

“The problems out there are real,” said Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley, who led his team’s march and spoke at the Unity Garden. “As we talk, as we discuss, we can’t come up with a better solution than unity. I just don’t know how you have unity and not include yourself and every part of your program in that. So it’s a way for us to show that.”