BIg 12 makes move

The confernece now has a football schedule in place for the seaosn.

Big 12 schools agreed Monday night to play one non-conference football game this year to go along with their nine league contests as plans for the pandemic-altered season continued to fall into place.

The Big 12 university presidents signed off on the conference’s scheduling model, which gives schools the ability to play one non-conference game at home. The conference’s championship is scheduled for Dec. 5, but the conference is considering leaving open the possibility of bumping it back a week or two.

The 10-team Big 12, which includes West Virginia University, already plays a nine-game, roundrobin conference schedule. Unlike other Power Five conferences that have switched to either exclusively (Big Ten, Pac12 and SEC) or mostly (ACC) league games this season, the Big 12 could not add more conference games without teams playing each other more than once.

Several Big 12 teams already have started preseason practice, with Kansas and Oklahoma slated to play Aug. 29 against Football Championship Subdivision teams.

As conferences take steps toward a football season that seems to be in precarious shape, the NCAA is expected to weigh in Tuesday on fall sports other than major college football.

The association’s Board of Governors is scheduled to meet and whether to cancel or postpone NCAA championship events in fall sports such as soccer, volleyball and lower-division football is expected to be a topic.

Only the Pac-12 has a full football schedule with matchups and dates in place among Power Five conferences. The Pac-12 will begin Sept. 26, along with the Southeastern Conference, which is still working on its new 10-game slate.

However, a group of Pac-12 players Sunday presented a list of demands on issues ranging from healthy and safety to racial justice to economic rights. If they are not addressed — and exactly what that means is unclear — the players said they are prepared not to practice or play.

The ACC has opponents set for its 10-game league schedule and will start the weekend of Sept. 12, but no specific game dates. The ACC also has said it will permit its teams to play one nonconference game.

The Big Ten, first to announce intentions to go conference-only this season, has yet to release a new schedule, but that could come later this week.

Now that the Power Five has declared its intentions the Group of Five conferences can start making plans and filling holes on their schedules.

American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco has said the AAC could stick with its eight-game conference schedule and let its members play as many of their four nonconference games as they can salvage or replace.

The Mountain West, Conference USA, MidAmerican and Sun Belt conferences are likely to take similar approaches.

Early Monday, Texas State from the Sun Belt announced it was moving a non-conference game against SMU from Sept. 5 to Aug. 29.