Pac-12 eyes Oct. 31 start date for season but issues remain
While significant progress has been made in a return to play, the Pac-12 still is trying to iron out some issues before announcing a potential football season startup date, which could be as early as Oct. 31.
The conference presidents and chancellors discussed that topic as well as other issues in a regularly-scheduled meeting Friday. The meeting originally was to discuss the potential start of basketball but other topics were added to the agenda after developments earlier this week.
The Oct .31 best-case-scenario date was reported first by Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News Thursday night. That's one week later than the Big Ten, which, like the Pac- 1 2 , originally announced on Aug. 11 it would not play in the fall because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If the Pac-12 wanted to align with the other conferences that starting date would mean a maximum of seven games, not including a conference title game on either Dec. 18 or 19, the same weekend as the other Power 5 conferences and before the College Football Playoff selections on Dec. 20.
Whether or not schools could even get in that many games remains to be seen. Already, 16 games have been postponed and not even half of FBS is playing.
The most significant of those cancellations is No. 24 Baylor at Houston, which was called off Friday morning less than 24 hours before kickoff because the Bears would have been without a significant portion of a single position group, making it unsafe to play.
Among the issues to be resolved is how soon the Pac- 12 schools could begin their preparations. Some schools, including Stanford, don't even have players on campus yet so a Monday start day for practice wouldn't be realistic since players would still have to be tested and quarantined upon their return.
Most agree that six weeks is the time frame needed to get a team ready so that makes the proposed start date a stretch. Arizona State coach Herm Edwards echoed that sentiment Thursday night during his appearance on the “Maroon Monsoon” radio show on Arizona Sports 98.7.
“I would say for most teams, i t's about six weeks to get into a training camp mode. It takes some time to get into that mode, talking about 10 days, somewhere in that range. Then from there you need about a month, four weeks of preparation to play,” he said. “Even in the NFL, you can see in the NFL right now they started playing and there are a lot of soft tissue injuries. That's what you want to guard against.”
That teams are even considering a return to the playing field was made possible by the conference's partnership with Quidel, a California- based healthcare manufacturer that can provide daily rapid testing results in 15 minutes.
The Big Ten also paired up with that company, two weeks or so after the Pac-12 made the move.
“That is a big-time gamechanger,” Edwards said of the rapid testing. “It's similar to what the NFL is doing and I think that is going to help tremendously and all parties involved are excited about the opportunity to get back to playing football.”
Equipment to conduct those tests is slated to arrive at college campuses by the end of the month but staff will need to be trained on how to perform them. One issue to be resolved is whether or not the conference would approve the start of training without those testing protocols in place.
The other factor in the Pac12' s pivot when it comes to playing involves moves by the governments in California and Oregon to loosen regulations so the six Pac-12 teams from schools in those states can resume working out.
With pressure mounting and athletes from the respective schools lobbying for some relief, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon gave t he go-ahead on Thursday for the schools to proceed once they get proper guidelines, then approval from local health authorities.
The other wild card t hat could have an affect on all decisions is the outbreak of fires on the West Coast, which has resulted in poor air quality that could limit outdoor activity.
P ac -12 Commissioner Larry Scott was optimistic in discussing the situation on the Dan Patrick Show Friday morning.
“Our medical advisory committee is much more comfortable with us going forward and it looks like the hurdles have been cleared in terms of the public health authorities in the states of California and Oregon,” Scott told Patrick. “So things are looking a lot more promising. We're going to take stock of where we are and see if we are comfortable with a path forward before Jan. 1, which was what our previous decision was. We'll see if we can align with others in college football still this fall.
The Sun Devils have been working out four days a week in groups of under 10 under the guidance of strength and conditioning coach Joe Connolly.