Pac-12 gives go-ahead for fall football
Keeping an eye on the world of sports during the pandemic:
The Pac-12 on Thursday set a Nov. 6 start date for a six-game 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 turning point for the return of fall sports for the Pac-12 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 into what would be considered a high-risk contact with someone who has tested positive.
When the Pac-12 postponed on Aug. 11, its medical advisors had recommended daily testing for athletes to safely compete at most of the conference’s schools because of high rates of community spread of the virus.
“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.