Pac-12 season to kick off in November
The Pac-12 on Thursday set a Nov. 6 start date for a sixgame football regular season, following the Big Ten in overturning its August decision to postpone until spring because of concerns about playing through the pandemic.
With the conference having secured daily COVID-19 testing for its athletes and having been given the green light from some state and local health officials in California and Oregon, the Pac-12 university presidents voted unanimously to lift a Jan. 1 moratorium on athletic competition.
The Pac-12’s men’s and women’s basketball seasons can start Nov. 25, in line with the NCAA’s recently announced opening date. The football championship game will be held on Dec. 18, putting the conference in play for College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six Bowl selection.
A major college football season that six weeks ago seemed to be in peril, slowly crumbling away, is reforming and has a chance to be almost whole by November. The Big Ten reversed course last week, with kickoff scheduled for the weekend
of Oct. 24.
The Mountain West presidents were meeting Thursday night to discuss a possible late October start to the football season and theMid-American Conference, the first FBS league to postpone, is also reconsidering playing in the fall.
The SEC begins play this weekend, joining the Big 12, ACC and three others that have been up and running for weeks.
The season is ongoing but it has been anything but normal. There have been 21 games postponed or canceled sinceAug. 26
because of teams battling various levels of COVID-19-related issues.
This week, four games scheduled to be played Saturday have been called off, including Notre Dame at Wake Forest because of a virus outbreak among Fighting Irish players.
The turning point for the return of fall sports for the Pac12 came earlier this month when it entered an agreement with a diagnostic testing company that will give each school the capability to conduct daily antigen tests on their athletes.
Daily testing should also decrease the number of athletes who end up in quarantine after coming intowhat wouldbe considered a high-risk contact with someone who has tested positive.
“From the beginning of this crisis, our focus has been on following the science, data and counsel of our public health and infectious disease experts,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement. “Our agreement with Quidel to provide daily rapid-results testing has been a game-changer in enabling us tomove forward with confidence that we can create a safe environment for our student-athletes while giving them the opportunity to pursue their dreams.”
The Pac-12 said its decision to restart sports is subject to approval from state and local public health officials.
Daily testing helped the Pac12 convince state and local officials in California and Oregon to lift restrictions that have made it impossible for teams to prepare for a football season.
No fans will be permitted at Pac-12 sporting events taking place on campus, the conference said.