The Big Ten's conference-only schedule is a major domino, but it doesn't necessarily mean college football is about to fall
If you’re like me, you saw Thursday’s news and your stomach dropped.
The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach reported on Thursday afternoon that the Big Ten was set to announce a plan for a conference-only schedule in 2020 because of COVID-19 outbreaks. That was later confirmed by the conference’s official statement … which was followed by multiple reports that the ACC and Pac-12 would also be going to a conference-only schedule.
Goodbye, Ohio State-Oregon. It was nice to know ya, Penn State-Virginia Tech. Oh the fun we could’ve had, Wisconsin-Notre Dame. Adios, Michigan-Washington.
Ughhhhhhhh.
The SEC might not have a choice but to go to a conference-only schedule. What that would look like remains to be seen. Let’s just say all of those great nonconference rivalries in the SEC are hanging by a thread at this point after what we learned on Thursday.
That news came a day after Ohio State shut down voluntary workouts and the Ivy League announced that football would be pushed to the spring.
In a way, it felt like March Madness all over again. If you recall, the Ivy League canceled its conference tournament first, and after a day of opening round games, the Big Ten announced that night that the rest of the tournament would be played without fans. Of course, that was just the first domino to fall in what was eventually the cancelation of spring sports.
On the surface, it’s easy to compare the “we’re only playing conference games” decision to the “we’re only having games without fans” announcement. Nobody will be surprised if and when other all the Power 5 conferences follow suit, including the SEC.
While things certainly aren’t trending in the right direction, don’t tell yourself this is the beginning of the end of college football in 2020-21. Ending nonconference play is a much easier move to justify than ending the season altogether.
I say that as someone who has admittedly been concerned about the increasingly likely scenario that college football Saturdays this fall will not exist (the majority of athletic directors reportedly believe the season will be delayed). I won’t be surprised if college football has a delayed start, and I won’t be surprised if FBS follows the Ivy League’s lead. Shoot, I’m not assuming anything is a given anymore.
That’s why you should take this deflating, but inevitable news in stride. This development gives the Big Ten flexibility. I know that seems like such a foreign concept now, but it actually sort of makes sense.
There’s the obvious “now we don’t have to send teams on cross-country flights during a pandemic” thing. That seems significant, though that’s not the main justification. Otherwise the league would’ve left intrastate rivalry games on the schedule and scrapped the intra-conference games that still force a team to travel across the country (think Nebraska-Rutgers).
There’s another issue that the Big Ten can now have a better grasp on. That is, what happens when a team inevitably cannot play or practice.
The NCAA said that it didn’t expect to have all 130 FBS teams ready for the start of the 2020 season. That’s because teams need a minimum of 4 weeks of practice time before the start of the season. Any sort of shutdown puts that timeline in immediate jeopardy. As Ohio State reminded us on Wednesday, nobody is immune to shutdowns. And as we’ve learned since March, nobody is immune to virus outbreaks. We were reminded of that after news broke of dozens of quarantined players on the campuses at College Football Playoff National Championship participants Clemson and LSU.
If there’s a significant outbreak that arises in a conference-only schedule, that’s all handled in-house. By “in-house,” I mean within the Big Ten. That ensures that teams can pivot to other matchups within the conference in the event of a cancelation. They won’t have to deal with certain teams having nonconference games canceled and teams having totally uneven schedules.
This is, of course, brutal for the Group of 5. Those 7-figure paydays are unfortunately not happening in this scenario. The long-term impacts for MAC schools like Kent State, who was slated to travel to Penn State, Kentucky and Alabama this year, could be massive. If the SEC follows suit, that’s a multi-million dollar hit that’ll be brutal for a Group of 5 athletic department to absorb. Well, unless they go to court:
A Group of 5 AD on cancellation of guarantee game contracts costing his and other G5 athletic departments millions: “So do we end up in court?”
🥃
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) July 9, 2020
Who knows what that means for future contracts with those Group of 5 programs. For now, the focus is still on trying to make a season happen in 2020-21, and to do so in the safest way possible.
This is still being approached with uncertainty because, in case you haven’t been paying attention, these are uncertain times. You can even see that in the Big Ten’s release announcing the conference-only schedule:
To that end, the Big Ten Conference announced today that if the Conference is able to participate in fall sports (men’s and women’s cross country, field hockey, football, men’s and women’s soccer, and women’s volleyball) based on medical advice, it will move to Conference-only schedules in those sports.
Did you pick up on the key word there? “If.” That is, “if” we’re still able to have fall sports, this is what they’ll look like. We don’t have an answer to that question just yet.
I’m not going to sit here and bang the drum about the virus’ survival rate for 18-22 year olds. This never has been and never will be about that. This is still about exposing amateur athletes — that’s what the NCAA calls them — during a pandemic and not recklessly spreading the virus to the communities they live in (which has more than just 18-22 year olds). This is about not sacrificing public health and government guidelines because the impact on the bottom line is too great.
Having said that, nobody has to tell these decision-makers the importance of wiping out a sport that generates tens of millions of dollars for the university. If that element wasn’t at play, fall sports would be all but canceled by now.
One can acknowledge that while also acknowledging how big of a bummer this is. Of course it is. Forget about the headache that this is going to cause the Playoff selection committee. If that’s our biggest problem in a few months, sign me up for that every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
(Side note: Remember getting mad about Playoff rankings? What was that, like, 7 years ago?)
If you’re looking for a silver lining amidst this unprecedented announcement, here ya go. Thursday’s move was about control. It was about trying to eliminate at least some of the uncertain moving pieces, one of which being the goal of establishing a conference-wide testing policy. In doing that, non-essential cross-country travels were eliminated.
Conferences will have a much easier time pivoting. Schedules are being re-worked as we speak.
This was, as hard as it is to say, a logical move. If the Big Ten didn’t do it first, the ACC or Pac-12 would’ve gotten the ball rolling. Credit new B1G commissioner Kevin Warren for not necessarily waiting on the approval of other conferences to make such a bold move. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey reportedly didn’t know that the Big Ten was planning on making that announcement on Thursday and neither did Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby. Both of them are now forced to make decisions sooner than they had anticipated.
Thursday’s news doesn’t guarantee that there will be college football in 2020, but it doesn’t guarantee that the season is getting canceled, either. Should we be prepared for the worse? At this point, yeah. That seems like the smart thing to do given how the last 4 months have played out.
Just remember that not all dominos have the same impact.
There ain’t going to be a college football this year man. Been saying that for months.
Me too. I mean I hope there is but looking at this from the beginning I’ve been extremely pessimistic about a season and I’m an eternal optimist.
Agree…hope I’m wrong.
I don’t understand how playing conference only games will prevent Covid outbreaks, so this has to be a financial issue only. If schools think they can play football with no fans in the stands, then they will not pay the MAC, Sun Belt, and CUSA teams to come to their big empty stadiums.
I also heard that it would be easier to re-schedule on short notice conference games if a team or teams took ill. Say that Alabama was scheduled to play LSU and Florida scheduled to play Kentucky, when both Alabama and Florida had to cancel due to illness. LSU and Kentucky could then be scheduled on the quick.
For the sake of argument, let’s say the SEC went to a 10-game conference only schedule played in Spring Semester of 2021, just in case the extra time allows the fans to return due to a miracle.
The current 8 games per team could remain in place. The task would be to add two additional conference games per team. I did that for them this morning. Using some former long-time rivalries and filling in the blanks with an eye toward the least amount of congregate miles between schools, I came up with these add-ons:
Alabama: South Carolina and Vanderbilt
Arkansas: Kentucky and South Carolina
Auburn: Florida and Tennessee
Florida: Auburn and Texas A&M
Georgia: Mississippi and Mississippi St.
Kentucky: Arkansas and LSU
LSU: Kentucky and Tennessee
Mississippi: Georgia and Missouri
Mississippi St.: Georgia and Vanderbilt
Missouri: Mississippi and Texas A&M
South Carolina: Alabama and Arkansas
Tennessee: Auburn and LSU
Texas A&M: Florida and Missouri
Vanderbilt: Alabama and Mississippi St.
The SEC is the King and Chairman of the Board of “Amateur” athletics, so they will get first dibs on the best on the quick TV coverage. Let’s say they can play games on Friday night, Saturday day and night, Sunday day and night, and Monday night. There could be 1 big Friday night game, 1 Saturday day game and 1 Saturday night game, 1 Sunday Noon game, 1 Sunday afternoon game, 1 Sunday night game, and 1 Monday night game. All 7 conference games would be on tv at a unique time so that every SEC game could be watched by the virtual audience.
By starting the season on the weekend of February 13 and playing 10 games in 11 weeks with an off-week for each team, the 11th week would be April 24. There could be an SEC Championship Game 2 weeks later to get around exams.
Additionally, on the first two weeks of the season on 2/13 and 2/20, the Southernmost teams would host the games so that potential bad weather in Lexington, KY, Knoxville and Nashville, TN, and Columbia, MO could be avoided. The same thing could happen with the Northernmost teams hosting the day games the final two weeks of the season.
Here is an example, using Alabama
Feb 13: at South Carolina
Feb 20: Georgia
Feb 27: at Ole Miss
Mar 6: Vanderbilt
Mar 13: BYE
Mar 20: at Tennessee
Mar 27: at Arkansas
Apr 3: Mississippi St.
Apr 10: at LSU
Apr 17: Texas A&M
Apr 24: Auburn
“I don’t understand how playing conference only games will prevent Covid outbreaks,”
Nobody said it would, what it does do is help mitigate risk. Dropping games allows the season to start weeks later which puts the season start well into the projected area of the downword tapering of the new infection curve. It also gives more time to deal with late season rescheduling and taking additional preventative measures as well as assessing team health readiness. Making sure fans are aware that if they are in the high risk category DO NOT plan on coming to a game. Don’t bring the babies, don’t bring the gammies.
If you just use a little common sense you can see why shortening the season makes a big difference in ability to handle the virus situation while not substantially changing the quality of the games.
“but it doesn’t necessarily mean college football is about to fall“
Yes. Yes it does.
Indeed.
To even be possible the cases would have to be leveling off. There’s no end in sight for the current upward trend.
Folks, this is what happens when you elect politicians who’s mantra is “Government is the problem, not the solution.” They are utterly unable to deal with a situation like this which requires government action.
More like this is what happens when you let Marxism run amok in your public institutions and allow a cultural revolution to fester.
You’re boy’s the one in charge and calling the shots, so that card is unavailable to you. Try again.
Also – New York, Democratic Governor – after 3 months of pain the virus is under control as it is in Europe. In Republican states like your own Florida the virus is out of control and no signs of abatement. So my statement stands.
So, here’s hoping for your sake that you and those you love don’t live one of the 51 counties of Florida that has no more hospital beds thanks to your Republican governor’s policies. Cause having to bury someone is a rotten way to be forced to re-evaluate your politics. And with the hospital beds now gone any health emergency – heart attack, appendix burst, car accident – can kill you. An awful bed to lie in to say the least – have fun.
My “boy”? Just cause I hate Hillary and Marxist trash doesn’t make Trump my boy. The Marxist Run Through the Institutions has been going on since the 1970’s; well before Trump ever though about taking office. You exhibit little knowledge about the true state of things. Also, I no longer live in Florida so wrong again. Florida has had 4,100 deaths of COVID so far. Far less than your “hero” in NY who pushed cases to nursing homes to kill the elderly on purpose. All to win in November. An awful bed to lie in to say the least.
Conference games only reduces scheduling uncertainty and eliminates paying big appearance fees to cupcake opponents.
I was optimistic that football would start on schedule, with a virus resurgence in late fall. I no longer am.
The pandemic has been so mismanaged by the federal and some state governments that a virus that should have been under control by the end of May is now surging. When it inevitably spreads from younger people in Florida and Arizona to the huge retiree populations in those two sunbelt states, we’re going to see the death rate skyrocket.
I highly doubt there is any skyrocket. The vulnerable know who they are and should be taking precautions. The rest of us have a death rate of .04%. The virus ran through nursing home early on and that is why the numbers are what they are. We should be past that now.
Sounds good in principle and makes common sense. The problem is that there are huge retiree populations in Florida and Arizona and they interact with younger populations at the grocery store and just about anywhere else they go in public.
Fear among older populations will help slow the spread by keeping rates of face mask use, hand washing, etc., high, which is what I’m seeing in Tennessee. But it won’t stop it.
Another problem is hospitals filling up to a point where even younger people with co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease can’t get higher levels of care.
Great point concerning the Retirees in South Florida and Arizona. They moved there “Because of the Good Weather” and play golf, ride their bicycles & Shop at the supermarkets, dine out(when permitted) so naturally have contact with all ages. But generally they have obeyed the virus-rules better than the age 20-50 group. The age 20-50 groups filled the bars and restaurants more than the “Early Bird Specials” group.
Everybody should be taking precautions whether they’re high risk, medium risk, or low risk. That concept being so lost on people in this country, or they’re just simply being intentionally aloof is EXACTLY why we’re not past that now and it’s still spreading like wildfire in certain areas.
Yeah the demonstrations had no impact on the spread.
If I’m a smaller school with a contract to collect a nice payday against a P5 opponent, I am looking to get paid. If schools can play conference games, they won’t be able to use the virus excuse to break a contract. All kinds of interesting plot twists here.
Actually, I believe the COVID-19 pandemic meets the definition of a force majeure event (which is somewhat similar to, but not quite the same thing as “an act of god”). A force majeure provision is standard boiler in most contracts, so I doubt there will be any financial liability from canceling a game.
A force majeure would only apply if all games were cancelled by a university. They don’t get to pick and choose, otherwise it isn’t a force majeure. The big10 will still have to payout games they forfeit.
That’s a good point. They can’t pick and choose.
The way it’s trending it seems like all conferences will be conference only or cancelled completely. What would be the implications in this scenario?
The big schools would have to make amends with the smaller ones. Maybe they reschedule the game or pay the buyout. Otherwise, the smaller schools have a great case in court. The big schools can claim health and safety, but this is all about the money.
Found this on a UMASS article:
The relevant parts of the UMass-Auburn agreement that was signed in the summer of 2017 are sections 10 and 12 below (section 11 addresses game officials):
“10. It is agreed by both parties that in the event of a breach by either party, actual damages would be of an uncertain amount and, in view of the fact, the breaching party shall pay the non-breaching party $1,900,000 as reasonable and contemplate liquidated damages for each game canceled.
12. In the event of a fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, war, Invasion, hostilities, rebellion, insurrection, confiscation by the order of the government, military or public authority or prohibitory or governmental authority, including that of the Southeastern Conference or the National Collegiate Athletic Association, making it impossible or impractical to play the game, both parties shall be relieved of any and all obligations of this agreement.”
Tennessee’s Contract with Charlotte for that September game in Knoxville is for $2 Million Buckaroos. Seems a bit high for a Gimme-Win Game. Georgia State surely cost less than $2 Million.
Universities can’t afford to not have fans in the stands much less cancel their seasons.
These teams that are canceling their games should show a forfeit for every game canceled and not be considered for a national championship.
This will be the official end of college football if these dumb decisions continue.
And college football is just the tip of the dumb decision iceberg. This country better wake up.
The hysteria over the Kung Fu Flu will be regarded as one of the greatest HOAXES in HISTORY! Now the virus isn’t a hoax, but the hysteria is! If you remove all the nursing home murders (what else would you call INTENTIONALLY inserting sick people into an environment that can’t handle it and that contains the MOST vunerable people?) the death count would be nothing more than a NORMAL flu season! Has anyone had the NORMAL flu this year?? New cases are mostly asymptomatic and grossly over counted! My wife said people posted on FB that they had gone to get tested, filled out the documentation, waited in line, were told that it would be at least two more hours so they left, and THEN they get notification that their TESTS were POSITIVE! Must have been some kind of sensitive test!!!
BLSINSC – just keep doing what you’re doing. Darwin will take care of you soon enough.
So you think that states like SC with dumb governors should try to be more like N.Y. or NJ where the death rate is 10 times higher. OK that makes sense.
Try 10 times lower.
Truth is coming for you and those with you who put your faith in charlatans and liers like Fox News and OANN. When Biden wins in November it will be largely because more Republicans died of COVID than Democrats.
That’s just funny. The election won’t be decided on this forum.
Fox News is slanted and biased but CNN and MSNBC just completely fabricate the news to suit their socialist agenda. They are not news organizations and haven’t been for years now. Ted Turner should be ashamed. China is licking their chops in hopes that a mentally incompetent Biden is elected. The guy is clueless and belongs in the memory impaired unit at a nursing home.
Typical liberal trash. You can’t disagree with a liberal or they will dox you to their “squad”.
I almost peed in my pants when I read your last line. Too bad it is not a laughing matter for people my age.
The contagion rate for this virus is not the same as the flu or colds, and even if the survival rate is similar, this virus is also causing permanent organ damage, which is not being counted by the statheads.
My original beliefs were that this was the last ditch trick play in the playbook to get President Trump out of office. But, why would some third world country on the other side of the Earth play along? Why would Israel, where Trump could be elected Prime Minister, play along? The Mossad might prefer to see the opponent meet an 11-22-63 fate if he gets in office and begins to undo what Trump has done.
I could understand this being a germ warfare attack by China to take over the world, because they do not value individual life other than their own inner cabal. They might sacrifice 1/4 million of their own to win a war that might have cost 200 million lives had it been conventional.
College players are likely to be okay if they get sick, but the numbers are too high with too much risk to take the chance that even 1 18-22 year old might die because of somebody’s decision to play in the Fall. Of course, these kids are going to go home and go to stores where people like us will be present.
If the SEC plays in September, and somebody from Florida infects somebody in The Villages, which is about an hour away from the campus, and it leads to 20 deaths to retirees, is the SEC, Florida, and the player liable for damages?
Let’s say that Florida plays Auburn on Saturday, and some undiagnosed Auburn players infect a handful of Florida players. Now, on Sunday, a couple of the infected and asymptomatic Gators take a 30 minute drive to Ocala and enter a Walgreen’s to get some powdered Vitamin C at the same time that a carload of Villages retirees are visiting from just down the pike.
The next week, the Florida players are diagnosed as positive, and they might feel a little sluggish, but otherwise fine. The carload from the Villages end up on ventilators and one or two don’t make it. What becomes of this? Those deaths are the loved ones of somebody, maybe you. What if this happens in Tuscaloosa, Athens, Oxford, or Fayetteville?
The big issue with Greg Sankey is that he cannot pass the buck here. Ultimately, he must consider the liability of his decision leading to any Pandemic deaths. He is not liable when a fan has a fatal car crash driving home from a game. But, a death from Covid because of a sporting event will be treated in the media almost like it is George Floyd. Sankey will have to consider this. Supposedly, all 14 ADs are virtually meeting Monday morning to decide what the SEC will do. If there is no football, then I guess I will be playing a lot of Bowl Bound and Pay Dirt this Fall.
The writing is on the wall… pack it up, no college football this season!
*starts countdown clock to 2021
As for the SEC and the ACC, I hope they take the path of common sense over the Big 10’s illogical approach to the OOC schedule.
There is no bigger risk for Georgia to they play a game against OOC Virginia or in conference Arkansas.
Let the Big-10 play with themselves… The real reason is to guarantee Ohio St an automatic play-off birth. Ditto for Oregon. It’s the easy way out for them. It’s a true reflection of who they really are.
Tim, what I have heard as the real reasons to play conference only are:
1. Not to have to pay large guarantees to G5 and FCS teams and then have no revenue generation at the stadiums.
2. To be able to have an emergency 11th hour re-scheduling plan if a team has to cancel a game midweek. If 2 SEC teams have to back out due to a severe outbreak, the SEC and other leagues can change the schedule at the 11th hour. With no fans, it won’t take that much to re-arrange. For example, Florida and Georgia are playing and LSU and Auburn are playing on the same Saturday. Georgia and LSU have too many positives on Wednesday or even early Thursday and cannot play. Florida and Auburn can be scheduled at the last minute. The visitor can charter buses and treat it like a high school game–bus to the stadium, play the game, and bus home.
I believe that’s what you heard. This is not directed at you at all.
Why not negotiate with the smaller schools. Pay one thing if the games played in an empty stadium, and another if it’s 50% tickets sold. I think the smaller schools would still benefit. Many of these games would still be getting the TV money. The smaller school still gets the TV exposure.
On the other side, look at Oregon, now they don’t have to play Ohio ST, and their chances of going undefeated just doubled at least. Same for their chances at the Play-Off.
As for Ohio ST, the Oregon game was likely their biggest threat.
Just quinarene the team – coaches and family as much as possible and have them limit their exposure as much as possible. It sucks but if they want to play, they’re going to have to sacrifice maybe more than most of us.
It’s going to be interesting if the SEC, ACC, etc. doesn’t follow the B1G’s lead.
It’s odd to me how many (of you) have complained about all the cupcake noncon games and now that we are talking about getting rid of them, the sky is suddenly falling.
If it means pushing the starting game week back to mid Sept, and rescheduling a few games into former bye weeks, so be it. If it also means not bringing 3-5 year old babies or 60+ grandka’s to the game, so be that as well.
Sacrificing a few games anyone would watch and a hundred that nobody cares about to save the season… cry me a river.
I went one of the cupcakes, and we need the money Tennessee would owe us if they chicken out and won’t play. I doubt they’ll honor the commitment. Maybe this is the year to finally end the FCS practice of whoring ourselves out in rigged FBS games once a year. If we can’t afford our scholarship limit without doing that, maybe we should all drop to DII.