Ivy League may have kicked off end of ’20 fall sports
When the coronavirus pandemic broke loose in March it was hard for most to figure how it would affect the college football season.
While all or most of most team’s spring practices were halted, the regular season was still several months away. Come May, the situation improved and there seemed to be more reason for optimism.
But a second surge of cases, particularly in a large portion of the Pac-12’s footprint — Arizona and California — has proven to be a major blow to hopes of a season taking place as scheduled.
Then on Wednesday, the Ivy League
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ASU professor advocates canceling college football in 2020, became the first conference to announce that not only would its eight schools not be playing football this year, but all firstsemester sports were also canceled. No decision has been made about winter and spring sports in 2021.
“We simply do not believe we can create and maintain an environment for intercollegiate athletic competition that meets our requirements for safety and acceptable levels of risk,” the Ivy League Council of Presidents said in a statement.
“We are entrusted to create and maintain an educational environment that is guided by health and safety considerations. There can be no greater responsibility – and that is the basis for this difficult decision.”
When the global health crisis first surfaced in March, the Ivy League was the first to cancel the remainder of the basketball season. It did not take long for the rest of college basketball to follow.
A number of signs had pointed to Wednesday’s decision. Harvard and Princeton had already announced that classes would be online only this fall, and Harvard’s campus would only be opened to housing students at 40% capacity.
Ivy League football teams compete at the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level but do not participate in the NCAA playoffs, making it easier if the league petitions the NCAA to allow some sort of round-robin slate in the spring.
There is far less at stake financially in the Ivy League than the Power 5 football conferences.
And the clock is ticking for those major programs and conferences: the football season is just 51 days away for schools with a “Week 0 game.” That includes Arizona, scheduled to play host to Hawaii on Aug. 29.
Those scheduled to open the season on Labor Day weekend typically would begin formal drills the first week in August.
Arizona State falls into that category, scheduled to open play on Sept. 3 against Northern Arizona.
As those deadlines draw closer, the COVID-19 situation continues to deteriorate,
with the number of new trending in the wrong direction least 36 states.
Six major FBS programs, including reigning semifinalists Clemson and LSU, have already shut down workouts amid major outbreaks within their teams.
Other dominoes also have started to fall. Division II Morehouse College announced on June 26 it had canceled its season. Division III schools Grinnell (Iowa), Bowdoin (Maine) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (New York) are among those that did so last month.
Four games highlighting historicallyBlack university programs have been canceled.
Arizona State looks like a serious contender for South Division honors, bolstered by a large number of returning starters as well as the school’s best recruiting class in recent memory.
Last week coach Herm Edwards was cautious in his assessment of whether or not football would actually be played in the fall.
“It’s not just about us, it’s about every school in the conference,” he said, in an exclusive interview with
“The situation may not be as dire in one state as it is in others but schools have to be able to feel good about putting kids on a plane and sending them to another state to play. Right now that’s not looking good.”
The Pac-12 has not yet made a decision about football or fall sports, although all possible scenarios have been discussed.
Having a football season, even if it is played in spring, still seems to be the preferred option even though it would present challenges as well.
It isn’t ideal to have a contact sport such as football played at that time, giving players little recovery time for what would be the normal 2021 season.
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