Pac-12 Football: Direction of 2020 Season Reportedly Will Be Decided by End of May
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said the real financial burden to the conference will come if the upcoming football season is disrupted, and said possible scenarios for the football season are already being discussed, according to Mercury-News stories by Jon Wilner published earlier this week.
Scott said a deadline for determining the direction of the 2020 football preseason and regular season would be around the end of May, according to the Mercury-News report.
Scott noted that the Pac-12 and its member schools lost money with the cancellation of most of the Pac-12 basketball tournament as well as the NCAA tournament, but he added this sobering comment, according to the Mercury-News: "The bigger issue is if this crisis is prolonged and it impacts football."
The Pac-12 has already suspended most sports-related activity until May 31, but officials are already considering their options regarding a football season.
“The optimistic model has an elongated training camp and on-time start [to the season],’’ Scott told the Mercury-News. “The most pessimistic has no season at all.”
Indeed, there are those who believe there will be no football season at all in 2020, and the Pac-12 is trying to prepare for that possibility as well as the possibility of a season that is delayed or cut short and the ramifications of each.
A nine-game season is one of the scenarios being considered, according to Brett McMurphy. That report also notes that a College Football Playoff that could be played in May or June of 2021 is also being discussed. Games played in empty stadiums is another possible senario
A Pac-12 football planning committee has been put together that includes athletic directors, head coaches and directors of football operations, and this group will attempt to work through the short-term issues confronting Pac-12 football and how they might affect member schools.
The two chief questions are these:
---When would training camp begin if the season begins as scheduled? This is an issue because athletes may not be in peak physical condition coming into camp as a result of the limitations on training in the offseason.
---What are the logistical and financial ramifications if the start of 2020 football season is delayed or if the season is canceled entirely?
The decision on what happens with the 2020 football season may depend more on public-health protocols and university policies than on Pac-12 mandates.
Football recruiting has already been affected, and schools have had to get creative, as noted in this video:
The one issue football programs do not have to deal with is the return of senior athletes granted another year of eligibility. That applies only to spring-sports athletes because the 2019 football season was not affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
