Decision Day Coming Soon for ACC Football
The ACC enters this week facing one of the most crucial and difficult decisions in its 67-year history.
As questions abound and COVID-19 positive tests skyrocket in regions of the league's footprint, commissioner John Swofford and the conference's athletic directors are likely to determine very soon what the 2020 college football season will look in the middle of a pandemic for its 14 (15, if you count Notre Dame) members.
Swofford said in a statement earlier this month that the ACC will make a call on the schedule by the end of July, which is Friday. There are reports that league officials are scheduled to meet Wednesday, so we should know by the middle of the week what the plan is moving forward.
As of right now, there are multiple options on the table. One that seems to be gaining steam and making its way through the media is a "10+1" model, where the ACC would play 10 games within the conference and one non-conference foe, which would preserve several rivalries like Clemson and South Carolina.
That decision could come with a huge caveat: Notre Dame will be a part of that model for the 2020 season only, giving the football-independent Irish a full ACC schedule instead of its contractual agreement with the league.
That has sparked debate throughout the league's footprint about just how beneficial that is for the conference.
There are plenty of other decisions that have pros and cons. The ACC is reportedly likely to push its start time back to the middle of September, and possibly later. The league could opt for an "8+1" model like the SEC has been discussing.
If the ACC expands its conference games, good luck finding an equitable way to add opponents to a league dominated by one team, Clemson. It'll have to figure out a new way to determine a champion with Notre Dame in the fold.
Also, how likely is it that 11 games will take place in the fall of 2020? That's impossible to know for sure until we get into those late-calendar months. How do teams prepare for that unknown or even when they're supposed to start? Fall camps are set to open Aug. 7. Could that date stand for some and not others across college football or even the conference?
"We’re proceeding as if we will start the football season on time and we will play a full season," Swofford said on “The Paul Finebaum Show" last month. "But we also know that either of those could be altered, either significantly or not so significantly. So we’re having to develop a lot of different scenarios and spend a lot of time and energy on different scenarios that may or may not come into play.”
The sport itself is all over the place as schools everywhere balance health with the desperate need for revenue, and it was an odd weekend in college football. The NCAA put off a decision Friday to cancel fall championships, which wouldn't directly affect football because it's title is decided by the conferences and College Football Playoff system. But it would've put the screws to the football power brokers to make a tough call: be the only sport to play in the fall and face the optics or cave to the NCAA.
Instead, the Board of Governors put off a decision on fall NCAA sports until August. That buys football a little more time.
On the same weekend that two Big Ten programs quarantined their entire team because of positive tests, Michigan State and Rutgers, two Big 12 schools, Oklahoma and Kansas, announced they received waivers to begin their seasons in Week Zero, Aug. 29.
The SEC is close to making a decision as well, but right now, the pressure on the ACC to feel like it's making the right one. The problem is, nobody knows what that is. It's hard to criticize any league or school for any decision made in unprecedented times, and no one still knows what local virus issues there will be in late August or mid-September.
The best thing to do is go with the best decision a league can with the knowledge it has for all of its schools, but leave room for flexibility and changes to be made. As of now, it feels like there won't be a clear-cut directive to stop or delay football until the spring, but at the same time, there likely won't be a uniform start.
The NBA, MLB and NFL could provide some guidance, but college football is so unique and the participants aren't paid, opening up a wealth of problems across a vast landscape in the sport that the ACC is attempting to navigate without a reliable compass.
