The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
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Gate 2at Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium is empty because the annual Red-White matchup was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, April 18.
Where that leaves them all four months from now is hard to predict and the uncertainty is reflected across college sports.
College sports leaders have repeatedly said there can be no college sports without campuses being open to students. And those decisions will be made with guidance from state and local public health and government officials. Tennessee came out May 6 with perhaps the most definitive statement yet from a school about re-opening in the fall.
The NCAA football oversight committee has agreed on a six-week plan for teams to prepare to start the season. Teams would ideally be
on campus by mid-July for the season to start on time.
Beyond that, the NCAA has little influence on the logistics of college football. The conferences are mostly in charge, with commissioners leading the way.
The commissioners of the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac12 and Southeastern Conference say they have been in almost constant contact since the NCAA men’s basketball tournament was canceled on March 12.
“Based on the very positive and close collaboration among the leaders in college football and discussions with schools, other leagues and the medical
community, at this point in time we are planning to start the football season on time and together on a national basis,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said. But can that plan hold? An interview SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey did last week with a Jacksonville, Florida, radio station became a headline when he said: “There is room for different conferences to make different decisions.” In an interview with the Big Ten network, Commissioner Kevin Warren suggested something similar.
Penn State coach James Franklin wondered if even within conferences schools would be uniform in their
return to play.
“Say you have six schools in your conference or eight schools in your conference that all are able to open, and there are one or two that can’t. Are you going to penalize all these schools not being able to reopen?” Franklin told reporters.
In an interview with the AP on May 5, Sankey noted the importance of nonconference games the SEC has scheduled such as Arkansas at Notre Dame, Colorado at Texas A&M and Southern California vs. Alabama in Arlington, Texas.
“There is a motivation to remain connected,” Sankey said of the Power Five.
He also said if a small
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number of schools cannot play it might not stop everyone else.
“What’s the critical mass? I don’t have that number. I don’t think there is a need to predict that now. In fact, I don’t even have to answer that now because we have an asset of time,” Sankey said.
Notre Dame is a member of the ACC for most sports, but one of six independents in major college football. The Fighting Irish hold unique status, with their own multimillion-dollar television contract with NBC for football. Swarbrick is part of the College Football Playoff management committee along with the 10 Bowl Subdivision conference commissioners.
Swarbrick said a lack of uniformity could make it impossible to have a normal season.
“How many games do you need to have in a regular season to have a playoff?” he said. “What might a re-engineered schedule do to the postseason and the bowl games? What about records? What about Heisman trophies? Is a team whose schools decides it can’t participate credited with a forfeit? I hope not.”