Season in balance as commissioners’ discussions deepen

FAYETTEVILLE — When the Southeastern Conference released its additional two games for a league-only slate late Friday afternoon and hyped it like a bracket release, the sense of a real possibility for fall football was vivid.

The next two days changed the tenor of the conversation.

The Power 5 conference commissioners met Sunday to discuss mounting concern about whether a college football season can be played in a pandemic, and players took to social media to urge leaders to let them play.

Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said no decisions on the season have been made but conceded the outlook has not improved.

“Are we in a better place today than two weeks, ago?” he said. “No, we’re not.”

Bowlsby cited “growing evidence and the growing pool of data around myocarditis.”

Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart and it has

been found in some covid-19 patients. There is concern it could be a long-term complication of contracting the virus even in young, healthy people, a group that has usually avoided severe cardiovascular symptoms.

The Mid-America Athletic Conference announced Saturday that it was suspending its football season as SI.com reported all of college football could be coming to a halt before the season even got a chance to start.

“It’s gotten to the critical stage,” SI.com quoted an anonymous athletic director at a Power 5 conference school. “I think all of us will be meeting with our boards in the coming days. We have work to do that is no fun.”

The Big Ten announced Saturday that it was postponing contact practices in full pads. Players are limited to practicing in shorts and helmets until the league office determines it is safe to go in full pads. Big Ten teams had been scheduled to beging practicing in full pads Saturday.

SI.com reported the Big Ten is moving toward a decision to cancel all fall sports and working to convince other Power 5 conferences to do the same.

“In the next 72 hours college football is going to come to a complete stop,” SI.com quoted what its story referred to as an industry source.

USA Today reported Big Ten presidents were meeting Sunday night to discuss the potential for pausing the season.

Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren is believed to prefer pushing the football season to the spring, the Detroit Free Press reported.

USA Today reported other conferences have conference calls scheduled in the coming days at the presidential level to study the latest trends and contemplate their next moves.

CBS Sports.com quoted two Power 5 athletic directors anonymously that the cancellation of a football season this fall is inevitable.

“It’s not fair what we’re doing to our coaches and student athletes,” an unnamed Power 5 athletic director told CBS Sports.com. “The sooner we can come to a finality the better.”

Tony Barnhart, a long-time reporter who works for the SEC Network, questioned whether the SEC do as the Big Ten wants in canceling football in the fall.

“If the Big Ten pulls the plug this week, will the SEC follow?” Barnhart wrote on his Twitter account. ‘I say no.”

Several prominent college football players took to Twitter on Sunday night to express their desire to play this season, including Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence, among the favorites for the Heisman Trophy.

“I don’t know about y’all, but we want to play,” Lawrence wrote on his Twitter account. “Let’s work together to create a situation where we can play the game that all of us love. Not divide and argue There is a way forward.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.