Pac-12 commissioner shares insight into options facing his league, including playing without all league members
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Just like the SEC, the leadership in the Pac-12 is exploring all options in order to play the upcoming college football season. Even if that means not all league programs can go forward with the season.
According to the Mercury News, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott recently noted the Power 5 leagues meet nearly every day to discuss the state of affairs around their conferences and work on various contingencies for the upcoming season.
“I was cautiously optimistic … but the last couple weeks have changed everyone’s outlook because of the extent to which restarting the economy and loosening restrictions has led to significant outbreaks,” Scott said.
“I still want to be cautiously optimistic, but if there’s no change in society’s response and behavior, which results in a quick flattening of the curve and a decrease in the spread of the virus, that would lead to a much more pessimistic view about our campuses being able to open and our ability to play college sports.”
Some of the options being discussed following the continued outbreak of the coronavirus around the nation include playing the entire schedule as planned, a delayed start to the season, playing only conference matchups, moving the season to the spring and even playing the season with programs unable to play shutting down for the season.
Arizona’s president recently stated if things don’t improve in his state, campuses won’t be open come the fall. If campuses are closed to students, it’s unclear if sports would be permitted at those campuses.
One silver lining among the comments offered up by Scott, according to the data he’s seen, sports leagues that have opened have shown positive results thus far.
“There is growing data that suggests playing sports may not be that risky, given what we see from European soccer and some studies,” Scott added.
If that is indeed the case, there’s hope that once the college football season does start, it will be safe for the athletes and the season will have a real opportunity to be played in its entirety.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
