Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott Ready With Scenarios to Pivot to Alternative Football Scenarios
COVID-19 has impacted every aspect of life. For most, they are hopeful while still being realistic that sports may not happen this year, and the Pac-12 Conference is no different.
The Pac-12 is preparing for other scenarios in case the 2020 football season doesn’t happen. According to Jon Wilner, who writes for the Mercury News, he is reporting that Pac-12 Commissioner, Larry Scott, is “prepared to pivot quickly to alternate football scenarios in the event a 12-game regular season cannot start on time because of the corona virus.”
With USC announcing that it will revert to online classes for the fall semester with on-campus activities and housing is limited, the hope of a football season is becoming bleaker.
Larry Scott told the Mercury News, “ I was cautiously optimistic, …but the last couple of weeks have changed everyone's outlook because of the extent to which restarting the economy and loosening the restrictions has let to the significant outbreaks. I still want to be cautiously optimistic, but if there no change in society’s response and behavior, which results in a quick flattening of the curve and decrease the spread of the virus, that would lead to a much more pessimistic view about campuses being able to open and our ability to play college sports.”
So far, there is no set decision within the Pac-12 on any of this, but the conference is prepared to pivot if need be. There are a few scenarios that the conference is looking at, which include a delayed start, no change, and playing all 12 games as scheduled, conference-only games, or moving the season to the spring.
The questions with all of this are, what kind of domino effect would this cause for timelines, recruits, seniors graduating from ASU, TV deals? If the season is pushed back, all these questions will have to be answered.