ACC to play 10 league games
Football divisions scuttled for 2020
When the Big Ten announced a conference-only football schedule July 9, it seemed the remaining Power Five entities might simply follow suit. The Pac-12 did the next day. The rest dragged their feet in the weeks following. Until now.
On Wednesday, Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger reported that the SEC is also eyeing a conference-only slate. And minutes before that news came out, the ACC released a bit of its own.
The ACC will play an 11game slate with 10 conference contests and one non-conference game, with play starting between Sept. 7-12. Notre Dame will join the conference for football for one season, bringing the member total to 15 programs.
The Panthers will still host Notre Dame. They’ll also face four teams that weren’t on their original 2020 slate: Clemson, Boston College, Louisville and NC State.
Virginia Tech, Syracuse, NC State and Louisville also will play Pitt at Heinz Field and the Panthers will travel to play Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Boston College and Georgia Tech.
The Panthers will not face Coastal division foes North Carolina, Duke or Virginia, but there will not be Coastal and Atlantic divisions. All 15 teams will operate under one roof. The two teams with the best conference winning percentage will play in the ACC championship game Dec. 12 or Dec. 19 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C.
Of course, this 11-game schedule is contingent upon college football’s testing and planning capabilities to pull off a season in the midst of a pandemic without a bubble. The new model is designed to give the ACC flexibility to set protocols and make scheduling changes through the year.
Will it work? We’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, let’s take a look at some of Pitt’s scheduling loose ends.
What would it take to cancel a game due to COVID-19?
There are five circumstances in which games could be discontinued:
An inability to isolate new positive cases, or to quarantine high-contactrisk cases of the traveling and home team university students; unavailability or inability to perform symptomatic, surveillance or precompetition testing as required; campus-wide or local community transmission rates that are considered unsafe by local public health officials; inability to perform adequate contact tracing consistent with governmental requirements or recommendations; local public health officials of the home team state say there is an inability for the hospital infrastructure to accommodate a surge in COVID-related hospitalizations.
In addition, players, coaches and support staff will be tested for the coronavirus each week, beginning the week of the first game. Nasal swab tests must be administered three days before competition.
A player testing positive will be isolated for at least 10 days. Face coverings are required in bench areas for coaches and players. Positive test results of any team member that came in close contact with an opposing team member will be shared as quickly as possible with the previous opponent.
Which team will Pitt play out of conference? Richmond, Pitt’s Sept. 19 opponent at Heinz Field, isn’t playing football in the fall. The Colonial Athletic Association canceled its fall sports while allowing teams to schedule independently if they choose. But Richmond’s entire schedule on its official website reads: “Canceled.” When asked about non-conference games last week, Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke said Pitt is “understanding of Richmond’s situation at this time.”
So, Pitt has a possible open date Sept. 19. As does West Virginia, which was scheduled to host Maryland at Milan Puskar Stadium but the Big Ten nixed nonconference games. An impromptu edition of the Backyard Brawl — especially timely with COVID-19 pushing regionalized matchups — seems to make sense. The problem is, the Panthers are still under contract with two programs that (as of now) intend on playing in the fall. Pitt is/was scheduled to host Miami of Ohio Sept. 5 and travel to Marshall Sept. 12.
However, the conference stated that all non-conference games must be played in the home state of the ACC program, and opponents have to meet ACC medical protocol before playing. This would eliminate a game at Marshall, making the home game against Miami of Ohio more likely.
Would Pitt be required to pay out lost “buy games”? Richmond is a private university and isn’t subject to public records requests. A direct request to Richmond athletics by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for the two teams’ Sept. 19 game contract was declined.
However, via Miami of Ohio’s public records website, the Post-Gazette obtained the contract for Pitt’s opener and the agreement states Miami of Ohio was to receive $1.1 million for playing Sept. 5 at Heinz Field.
There is a cancellation clause in the contract, which includes “unforeseen catastrophes.” Could you classify what’s going with COVID-19 as an “unforeseen catastrophe”? In that case, perhaps Pitt wouldn’t owe Miami of Ohio the money.
According to the agreement, if the Panthers were deemed in breach of the contract, “reasonable and just compensation” would be the full $1.1 million. That possibility — and the difficulty of scheduling a different team to come and play at Heinz Field — should be enough to motivate Pitt to play the RedHawks in 2020.
What about Marshall? In one of his final acts in charge, former Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson scheduled a home-andhome series with Marshall. The Panthers hosted Marshall Oct. 1, 2016. Pitt was supposed to complete the deal with a road trip Sept. 12.
Through a public records request, the Post-Gazette obtained the home-and-home contract agreed upon by Pitt and Marshall in 2014, and a letter Lyke sent to Marshall athletic director Mike Hamrick in April 2017 confirming a commitment to the deal, which pays the away team $350,000.
The contract also has the same “unforeseen catastrophes” clause that the PittMiami of Ohio deal had. So, if the game is canceled, Marshall would likely get out of paying Pitt the $350,000, a significant chunk of change for a Group of Five school in the midst of a pandemic.
Delaying the inevitable? The undeniable truth is the ACC and Power Five conferences don’t know what the COVID-19 climate will be in September. Establishing this slate now buys the ACC some time to see where everything stands, some cushion to facilitate a pivot to a spring slate if absolutely necessary.
In the meantime, the ACC will heed commissioner John Swofford:.
“Sometimes I feel like right now all we deal with is hypotheticals. And that’s a tough world to live in,” the commissioner said May 14. “I’ve been in this a long time. And intercollegiate athletics has never been in a more challenging situation in my career than it’s in now.”